Chapter One: Before the Beginning

Before I was born, a storm had already torn through the women who came before me. My grandmother was murdered when my mother was just fifteen. The man who did it walked free and became a preacher. My mother, sixteen and pregnant with me, had no father, no support, only a grieving mother and a world that demanded she survive. I never knew my grandmother, only glimpses of her in black-and-white photos, fierce and fearless. And yet, even in her absence, she cast a shadow over my life. I was born into loss, into pain, and into a legacy I would have to confront to survive.