“Come get your worthless daughter and take her back,” my mother-in-law shouted my father as I lay broken at the bottom of the stairs after my husband shoved me down. “Your family will answer for it if she has even a scratch,” was the sole warning Dad offered her. They had no notion who my father really was, so they made fun of him.

And then the loud ambulance came.

Maya’s tiny fingers squeezed my hand and she looked nervously up at me.

“Did I do something wrong, Mommy?“She said in a little, frightened voice.

“No, my sweet angel!I told her straightaway.

You didn’t do anything wrong!

You’re the best girl on earth!”

Dad walked over and put a loving hand on her head.

“Maya, listen to me very well,” Dad said with much warmth.