PART 1 — THE GATE

“If you let me keep my children with me, I will work for free.

I will cook, clean, and do whatever you need.

I just need them to have somewhere safe to sleep tonight.”

Gwen Ramirez never imagined that one day she would say those words while standing in front of the locked iron gate of a stranger’s house in Cherry Hills Village.

It was almost eight o’clock at night.

Seven-year-old Toby carried a faded blue dinosaur backpack and held a grocery bag containing the few clothes they had managed to grab when they left home.

Four-year-old Maisie slept heavily on Gwen’s right shoulder, completely exhausted after spending three nights moving from one temporary place to another.

First, they had slept on the narrow sofa of one of Gwen’s former college classmates.

Then they moved to a cramped guest room in her cousin’s apartment across town.

Both women had been kind.

Neither had asked them to leave.

But Gwen knew those small, uncomfortable glances that appeared when an emergency visit began turning into something longer.

Her husband, Douglas Palmer, had been cold and direct when he told her to go.

“I want a divorce.

I’m seeing someone else, and there is no point fighting over money.

The house is registered through my mother’s estate.

Both cars belong to the company.

Almost everything else is legally protected.