Margaret, a thirty-eight-year-old reference librarian, found a brass key in her late mother's house that unlocked a dusty stamp album. Inside were stamps from 1978, revealing her mother’s escape from years of domestic abuse with three-year-old Margaret in her arms, tracing a six-hundred-kilometer route through six towns. Margaret retraced this journey, taking photographs and compiling her findings into a nonfiction manuscript titled *The Runaway Stamps*, which she published for free. When her biological father sued her for defamation, Margaret presented evidence, including her mother’s diary and hospital reports, leading the court to dismiss his claims. The book resonated with many readers, prompting local historians to install commemorative plaques along the escape route. Ultimately, Margaret returned the stamp album to her mother’s house, and each year, the pomegranate tree in the courtyard burst into bloom.
