Prologue

Liza Miller, by all accounts, have lived a safe life. By the age of 24 she had accomplished all of her goals, the ones she had listed out on a vision board at the age of 13. Graduate high school at the top of her class, check. Get into Ivy League university, check. Graduate said university, check, and with honors and a semester early to boot. Obtain job at top tier publishing house, check. Make junior editor within a year of hiring, check. Get married, check. She'd been almost methodical in reaching each of these goals, moving from one to the next like she was connecting the dots.

But it's often the changes we didn't plan for that change us the most. And two weeks after Liza's 24 birthday, the strip turned pink and life as she knew it changed. While the past 6 years of her life had been carefully planned out, the next three years would be a series of unexpected events that would turn her world upside down. She hadn't planned for a baby until she was at least 30, with a house and a well established career. She hadn't expected to trade in her high heels and corporate card for sweaters covered in spit up and dark circles under her eyes. But she'd left her dream job at her husband David's urging, so that they move closer to his family in New Jersey while he finished dental school and could take over his father's business. She hadn't expected her mother to be diagnosed with advanced breast cancer just after Caitlin's first birthday. She hadn't expected that her cancer would spread quickly, and that Liza would spend most of her 25th year of life caring for and nursing her mother until she passed away. She hadn't expected that her father would have to retire, sell their family home in Maplewood and move into an assisted living facility because of early onset dementia. But most of all, she hadn't expected the curveballs that David had thrown at her. She hadn't expected to walk in on him screwing a dental assistant in his office at his father's practice one day, dropping the lunch she had made for him all over the floor. She hadn't expected to discover, after demanding a divorce, that he had squandered all of the money that Liza had carefully been saving for a down payment on a house, leaving her broke, penniless and alone. Well, not alone, with a three year old toddler to care for and no place to live. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger, right?