For 8 years, my parents made me leave the house every time my brother brought his fiance over; Mom said, “She comes from a good family, don’t embarrass us”; Dad added, “Just disappear for the weekend”;

Two hundred and eleven departures.

Eight years of being told when to leave.

I turned to a clean page.

For the first time, I didn’t write another number.

I wrote one word.

Green.

Ruth had taught me years earlier that a tree could look dead after a terrible winter while remaining alive beneath its bark.

I’d spent so long being treated like someone who wasn’t there that I’d almost believed it myself.

But I’d been alive the entire time.

And now, finally, I was growing somewhere nobody expected me to disappear.