My mom was pregnant with her eighth child. The moment I said I couldn’t keep raising her kids anymore, she reported me like I was a runaway and sent the police after me.

When the pounding began, I knew my mother wasn’t going to let me walk away without a war.

These weren’t the polite, hesitant taps of a neighbor dropping off misdelivered mail. This was a sharp, rhythmic assault on the heavy oak door of Aunt Helena’s house in Cedar Rapids, and it forced the whole living room into a suffocating silence.

The grandfather clock in the corner seemed to stop ticking.

I sat on my aunt’s floral sofa with my knees pulled up to my chest, clutching my tattered canvas backpack so tightly my knuckles glowed white, my fingers throbbing with the pulse of my own heartbeat.

Inside that bag was my entire life: three changes of clothes, a toothbrush, and the naive hope that sixteen years in that house had finally come to an end.

Aunt Helena set her porcelain coffee mug down on the glass table. The scent of French roast and lavender suddenly felt out of place, invaded by the cold dread pooling in my stomach.

She looked at me with a mixture of deep concern and iron resolve.

“Stay right here, Savannah,” she whispered, her voice steady in a way mine hadn’t been for years.

She moved toward the entryway. I couldn’t stay seated. I stood, my legs trembling like hollow reeds, my heart thumping so violently against my ribs that dizziness blurred the edges of the room.

Helena pulled the door open. Two police officers stood on the porch, a man and a woman, the crisp navy of their uniforms sharp against the pale Iowa morning.

“Does Savannah Miller live at this address?” the male officer asked, his hand resting near his utility belt as he peered past my aunt and down the hallway.