“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.

I didn’t tumble down those stairs today.

This morning I’d come home to find my old appointment planner in the hall closet, and I’d confronted my husband, who’d been drugging and lying to me for months.

When I had tried to leave, Maya’s hand in mine, leave forever, he had caught me by the shoulder from behind and flung me down the flight of steps.

I remember every second of it now,” I said, voice steady and strong.

Gabriel looked at his watch, then at the lead police officer in the room.