PART 1 — Keep Going

“Mommy, please don’t make me get off!

Derek’s at our house, and I’m scared of him.”

My seven-year-old daughter, Lily, pressed herself against the bus seat as the doors opened at our stop in a quiet neighborhood outside Columbus, Ohio.

People behind us began shifting impatiently.

For one embarrassing second, my instinct was to take her hand and get off.

We were coming home from my mother’s house.

There was a bag of leftovers at my feet, Lily’s backpack between her knees, and a list of ordinary things waiting for me: laundry, a work email, something from school I still needed to sign.

Derek Lawson had been my boyfriend for eight months.

After an exhausting divorce from Lily’s father, Ethan, I had believed Derek was helping me rebuild my life.

He knew our routine.

He had a key.

He sometimes waited at the house so he could start dinner before we returned.

Seeing him home should not have been a reason to stay on a bus.

But Lily was not throwing a tantrum.

Her face was pale.

Both arms were wrapped around her backpack.

She was looking through the window at our street as though she expected someone to come toward us.