I overheard my husband handing my daughter $100 to “keep a secret” — and nothing about it felt right. The next day, she looked me in the eyes and said, “Mom… you need to know the truth.”People liked to say Maine was a good place to start over.I used to laugh when I heard that.”Sure,” I’d mutter, folding discount-store towels at midnight after my second shift. “If by start over, you mean freeze half to death and cry in your car behind the grocery store.”That was before Daniel. By the time he came into our lives, I’d already learned how to survive on almost nothing.My mother had run off with my fiancé when my daughter was still in diapers. Yes. My mother. My fiancé.

I still remember standing in our tiny kitchen, baby on my hip, reading that note for the fifth time like the words might rearrange themselves into something less disgusting. They didn’t.So I did what women do when nobody comes to save them. I kept moving. I worked two shifts most days.Mornings at a diner, evenings stocking shelves.I left Lila with Mrs. Grant from next door and paid her what I could. Sometimes cash. Sometimes, I brought home leftover turkey sandwiches or soup cups from the diner.