I stepped off the porch with a duffel bag and the echo of “lie in it” chasing me down the gravel drive. We lived in a small Midwestern town where appearances were a currency—my father a deacon in a stiff Sunday suit he wore like armor, scripture on his tongue like a switchblade. In public, he shook hands like he was handing out salvation. In private, he measured love in rules and penalties. And when I found myself pregnant, he decided the sin he imagined outweighed the daughter he had.

A friend let me sleep on her couch that first night. I lay awake staring at a water-stained ceiling, one hand on my belly, counting breaths and reasons. I picked up the phone to call my mom, then set it down, picturing my father’s hand seizing the receiver first. I could still hear him: Don’t come crawling back. Pride and fear folded together and made a hard little pillow. I closed my eyes and tried to imagine a morning that wasn’t impossible.

In the earliest weeks, survival became a schedule. I found day work busing tables at a diner with a sickly neon sign; at night I cleaned offices that smelled like lemon and defeat. My feet swelled; bleach cracked the skin across my knuckles; I kept showing up. I rented a studio the size of a parked car—peeling paint, a leaking sink, heat that coughed once before deciding it had done enough. It was mine. Every small kick inside me said: So are we. Every flutter said: Keep going.