Chapter 10 - THE HIGHEST GROUND
Two years later.
The summer afternoon was warm and golden as the sun began to set over the Delaware County valley.
My timber studio stood proudly on the high ridge, its large glass windows reflecting the brilliant hues of pink, gold, and deep violet across the sky.
The forty-acre David Morgan Environmental Preserve was blooming with wild sunflowers, clover, and tall green prairie grass. A wide gravel walking trail meandered down toward the creek, where two local high school biology classes were currently conducting a seasonal stream audit.
I sat on the wide wooden deck of my studio, holding a cup of fresh mint tea, looking out over the land my father had saved for me.
I was twenty-three years old.
I had graduated from Ohio State with highest honors, received my acceptance letter to the Moritz College of Law on a full merit scholarship, and published my first non-fiction book, Recording the Truth: A Guide to Legal Protection for Victims of Domestic Coercion.
Beside me sat Daniel, holding a camera, capturing the sunset over the valley.
"Look at that light, Rachel," Daniel smiled, pointing toward the ridge. "Perfect."
I looked down at my right hand resting on the wooden deck railing.
The three-inch silver scar along my ear and jawline was faint now, a soft, pale line that no longer throbbed or burned.
It wasn't a mark of pain. It wasn't a symbol of shame.
It was a monument to the night I broke my cage.
My mother had tied my wrists to a living-room post. My sister had raised steel scissors beside my face. They had thought that by hurting me, they could force me to sign away my father's ground.
They had forgotten that ground doesn't belong to the people who scream the loudest, or the people who hold the scissors.
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Ground belongs to the people who stand on the truth.
I leaned back against the sturdy timber chair, took a slow sip of my warm tea, and watched the golden sunlight spread across my land—bright, beautiful, free, and completely, permanently mine.
