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There was little sound reaching my ears as I lay curled in a ball on the mattress in the corner of the little storage shed that had been my home for the prior three days. I held my hands over my belly, wondering what affect the lack of nourishment would have on the unborn baby growing inside. It was colder than usual for April, and I shivered in the threadbare sweater and stifled a grim chuckle at my big toe poking out of the hole in the stitching of my shoe.

He had hit me four nights prior, which was nothing new, but this time, I fought back. I had been scared, fearful for my life or at least my safety, but instead of hurting me, he simply took my things and threw them into a green plastic laundry basket and tossed them out into the gravel and dirt alley that was the front yard of our tiny home. Well, his home. I had suddenly found myself without a home.

He stood on the porch of the dilapidated one room house and screamed at me while I picked up my meager belongs and tossed them back into the basket, the tears streaming down my face.

I was sixteen years old, pregnant, and alone. I couldn't go back to my parents. I couldn't go back to my abuser. So there I lived in the little storage shed behind the house we had once shared, and shivered. I did not cry though. I was too numb to feel enough to cry.

Everything that had ever meant anything to me had been lost, taken from me, or freely given up by the innocence that is youth and inexperience. I scavenged for food to nourish my unborn child by diving in dumpsters behind the corner convenience store when they threw out the deli foods that had expired-muffins, cookies, bagels, donuts, and packaged pastries. Every once in awhile, I'd luck out and find a burrito or sandwich.

Sometimes, one of his family members would take pity on me, letting me stay with them for a night or two. A hot shower, a chance to wash my hair and clothes, and a warm blanket on the floor or couch was most welcome. When he would discover I was there, it was back to the street again, curled up on the mattress is the corner of the storage shed, sharing a bed with the spiders that sometimes crawled across my skin, until I'd shriek and squash them, ending their miserable existence.

And wishing, at times, for the same fate as the hapless spiders I crushed.

That was over twenty years ago.

Two years ago, I watched my daughter graduate with high honors in the top 10% of her graduating class and headed for college. There was no prouder moment than when I watched

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