“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.

Gable and I picked up the stuffed puppy in my lap.

I said to Gabriel, “Barnaby was in that basket on my old planners.”

Gabriel nodded, pondering.

“Location of that basket is key.

“You think I put that sealed envelope in that basket?

“I asked.

“Most likely,” Gabriel agreed.

“You hid it where you thought your husband wouldn’t see it.