“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.

My mother-in-law, Eleanor Sutter, in our front hall, glaring at me with cold eyes.

You have no right to snoop in our family business.” Eleanor’s voice resounded in my memory.

Clutching the hospital blanket tight, the memory unfurled.

I remember, I said out loud.

Dad stooped down near my side.

“Rachel, what do you remember?

“I just told her I had no right to be there,” I described, the words spilling out.

“What happened after she said that to you?” “Dad,” I prompted gently.