“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.

He squeezed my fingers reassuringly tight.

“She was worried about you but I told her I was giving you the best medical care I could,” Dad added.

Did you tell them why I’m in the hospital?I asked, fearfully.

“I told her you’d been in an accident and doctors were fixing you up,” Dad said carefully.

“I told her that none of this was her fault and that she would see you as soon as she could.”

Hearing those comforting words eased the tension in my shoulders a little.