At 2:17 in the morning, my mother looked straight at me through a hallway filling with smoke and said, “We can’t risk losing our daughter.”

Six months later, the smell of smoke had finally left my dreams.

I stood on the timber porch of a newly restored farmhouse twenty miles south of the city, watching the morning fog roll off the apple orchard.

Down in the yard, Marcus was working on the tailgate of his truck, a wrench in his back pocket, humming an old tune beneath his breath. When he heard the screen door squeak, he looked up, wiped his brow with the back of his forearm, and smiled.

"Coffee's fresh," he called out.

"Be down in a minute," I shouted back.

My ankle still twinged slightly when a cold rain moved in, a faint physical reminder of a fourteen-foot leap into the dark. But it wasn't a mark of shame anymore. It was a badge of escape.

I had spent thirty-one years trying to earn a seat at a table that was built on lies, begging for love from people who were calculating my monetary value in the event of my demise.

I turned back toward the warm, brightly lit kitchen. On the counter lay the blueprints for my own independent design firm, fully funded, fully mine.

The front door opened, and Marcus walked in, setting a fresh bunch of wild clover into an empty jelly jar on the windowsill. He didn't say anything grand. He just leaned down, kissed the top of my head, and reached for two mugs.

"Good morning, Jo," he said softly.

"Good morning," I answered, breathing in the smell of roasted coffee, fresh timber, and clean morning air.