I didn’t grow up in houses like that. I was raised in a two-bedroom apartment above a laundromat on the west side of Columbus, where winter air slipped through the window frames no matter how much tape my mother used around the glass.

My father disappeared before I was old enough to remember his voice. My mother worked two jobs on a damaged knee and a stubborn pride that made charity nearly impossible to offer — cleaning offices overnight, processing insurance forms by day.

When money ran low, which was often, she stretched soup with potatoes and told me hunger was temporary if you learned something from it.

I learned a great deal. I learned no one was coming to save us. I understood bills before I understood novels. I learned that a woman without financial security could be trapped by people who smiled while quietly sealing every exit.

At nineteen I worked retail by day and studied finance online at night on a laptop with two missing keys. At twenty-three I bought a neglected duplex no one else wanted, because the plumbing was old and the upstairs tenant kept pigeons on the balcony.

I repaired what I could myself and hired carefully for the rest. I rented both units. Then I bought another property, then a small row of storefronts with broken windows but solid foundations, then three houses in neighborhoods people called “not ready yet” — until cafés opened and everyone suddenly acted as if they’d always seen the potential.