While the experience with my parents nipped at my heels, it had also shaped me into the woman I am today, sitting in a rocking chair on the front porch of a cabin reflecting on what I’d learned from the past and how I planned to march forward.

I rubbed the scar on my left shoulder from a knife wound . . . inflicted when I was barely eighteen from an inmate who liked girls. That part of my life was over. In prison I expected discrimination and prejudice to shoot poison darts from every direction, but God was my constant companion.

I finished a third mug of coffee and basked in the flavor. The many singing birds and the quiet of nature with its intoxicating scents should have continued to relax me, yet a cloak of darkness threatened to destroy my joy. Instead of a song titled “Sweet Freedom,” memories of last night and this morning droned a cautionary tune into my thoughts.

A distinct feeling of someone watching me prickled the hair on the back of my neck, an acquired safeguard from prison gangs and a few sleazy guards. I dismounted the steps and panned the area. “Who’s out there? What do you want?”

Was it just my imagination? I’d sensed danger too many times to ignore the signs. I set my coffee on the porch step and walked the perimeter of the cabin. The windows were locked from the inside as well as the rear door. Still, those precautions never stopped a serious intruder. I calmed when I didn’t see any footprints in the rain-soaked earth.

But the ground would dry. I gathered pine cones and sticks from the woods and laid them in a pattern no one could avoid. Primitive but that would be my watchdog.

After rinsing the mud from my bare feet with an outside hose, I put my apprehension on hold and indulged in a hot shower. The water massaged my entire body—lavender-scented soap, shampoo, and conditioner delivered the fragrance of a new morning. I stayed longer than I’d been allowed in years. I slathered on real body lotion and body spray that matched the lavender scent, another gift from Edie. She’d used some of the money I’d sent to buy a few clothing pieces, and the jeans and soft sweatshirt against my skin gave me a surge of new normal.

I removed a notepad and pen from my trash bag. On the bus I’d jotted a list of jewelry-making tools and supplies I needed to get started. Pastor Emory’s check helped speed up the process in moving me down the road of self-sufficiency. I must thank him properly and repay him ASAP. On Thursday I’d begin work at a local restaurant, requiring another note of gratitude to Edie and the pastor.

Tears crested. I had to succeed. I would not disappoint my new friends and hoped Officer Hughes didn’t discredit me in their eyes.

I wasn’t alone anymore. My surroundings proved it.