He thought he was trapping a small, defenseless bird.

What his arrogance never let him see was that the woman he tried to bury was a seed — that in pushing me to the very edge, he had pushed me straight into the truth of who I was.

Survival had never been the whole of my story.

Watching my son build a wider foundation out of fallen blocks, I understood that it never would be again.

I think often now about the difference between the two lives I have lived — the twenty-eight years of taking up no space, and whatever this is that comes after.

And I have decided that the survivor I was is not someone to be ashamed of or left behind.