By the time she arrived in Maine, she was not looking for a perfect new beginning. She was simply trying to keep herself and her daughter afloat after the kind of betrayal that changes how a person sees everyone around them.
Her mother had left with her fiancé while she was still raising baby Lila and trying to understand how her own family could turn against her so completely. There was no dramatic recovery afterward. There were early mornings at a diner, late shifts stocking shelves, and careful choices about groceries, childcare, rent, and every bill that arrived in the mail.
Lila stayed with a neighbor while her mother worked. Sometimes the arrangement was paid in cash. Sometimes it was helped along with leftover food. It was not the life she had imagined, but it kept them going.
Then Daniel entered their lives.