Part 2: "You don't get to look better than her," her father growled as he forced electric clippers into her hands to shave her head while her sister laughed.

Three months after the funeral—a small, quiet affair attended only by Claire, myself, and two former business associates—I took Ethan to the city botanical gardens.

It was a gorgeous Saturday in June. The rose gardens were in full bloom, casting a sweet, heady fragrance across the stone pathways.

Ethan ran ahead of me, his camera hanging around his neck—a seventh birthday gift from me. He was currently obsessed with taking photos of "everything that grows."

"Mommy, look at this one!" Ethan yelled, crouching down beside a massive, ancient oak tree that spread its wide, green canopy across the entire central lawn.

I walked over, dropping to my knees beside him on the soft grass.

"Look at the trunk," Ethan pointed with his small finger. "It’s so big and rough. How does it stay standing up when the wind blows?"

I looked at the massive trunk, then up at the hundreds of green leaves rustling in the warm summer breeze.

"Because of the roots, sweetie," I said, brushing a strand of hair from his forehead. "You can't see them, but underground, the roots go deep into the dirt. They hold onto the earth so tightly that no matter how hard the storm blows, the tree can't be pulled down."

Ethan looked at the tree thoughtfully, then looked at me.

"Do we have roots, Mommy?"

I looked into his clear, dark, innocent eyes—eyes that had never known the fear of a raised hand, eyes that had never seen a parent demand humiliation as proof of love, eyes that had grown up in a home built entirely on safety, honesty, and truth.

I smiled, pulling him into a tight, warm hug, pressing my face against his hair.

"Yes, baby," I whispered. "We have roots now. Deep, strong ones."

"Are they made of love?" he asked, wrapping his small arms around my neck.

"They're made of love," I promised. "And they're made of truth."

We stayed in the garden until the sun began to dip below the horizon, painting the sky in vibrant shades of gold, violet, and deep crimson.

As we walked back to my car, holding hands, I looked down at our shadows stretching long and bright across the green grass ahead of us.

My parents had tried to break me. They had forced the clippers into my hand, stripped away my hair, and used my silence as currency to buy their own vanity. They had believed that by tearing me down to the ground, they were destroying me.

They never realized that when you cut a tree all the way down to its roots, you don't kill it.

You just clear away the dead wood. You just let the sunlight in. And you give it room to reach the sky.

"Mommy?" Ethan asked as I buckled him into his seat.

"Yes, my sweet boy?"

"I'm happy."

I looked at my son, kissed his forehead, and closed the car door.