Fifteen years ago, I stood outside a small rented house with two newborns in my arms and nothing else in the world but fear. Their father had slammed the door behind me so hard the windows rattled, and I remember staring at that chipped white paint, waiting, hoping for the lock to turn, for him to open it again and say he’d made a mistake. He never did. I was twenty-four then, exhausted, stitched from childbirth, wearing a T-shirt so big it swallowed me. The sky had been darkening, the street oddly quiet, and I thought: Is this really happening?…
