“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.

“Yes, he did,” I confessed quietly.

“How many times did that occur?” Gabriel said softly.

“I don’t remember exactly,” I whispered.

“Sometimes in the old days.”

“What papers has he brought you?” Gabriel went on.

“They were medical insurance renewals, home loan updates or school documents,” I said, feeling foolish.

“I trusted my husband completely.

“You were his wife,” Dad said quietly.