Neither of them looked up when my shoes touched the bottom step.

To them, I was just a penniless seventy-three-year-old woman shut away in a freezing guest room with no car keys and no phone.

They believed I was sitting on the edge of a staged mattress, waiting quietly for an evaluation transport van to pick me up.

I walked straight past the island, keeping my eyes fixed ahead.

I pulled out the heavy oak chair at the head of the kitchen table and sat down.

It was the exact spot where I had stood sixteen hours ago when Mark struck my face.