A terrible pressure built behind my eyes.

This was my daughter — the daughter I had given a home specifically so she would never sleep in a corner — reduced to begging between cars with my grandson in her arms.

I took her fragile hand in mine, and I could feel the bones through her skin.

“Gaby.

Why didn’t you come straight to my house?”

“Because Derek told me his family was watching your house,” she whispered, and the terror in her eyes was real, and practiced, the fear of someone who has been carefully taught to be afraid.

“He said if I went to find you, his mother would use her connections to have me declared mentally unstable, and take Leo away from me.