“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.

“You and Maya are coming straight over to the house,” Dad said.

I’ve already set up the guest room for you.

“I can never go back to that house again,” I whispered.

“You’ll never have to set foot in there again,” Dad promised.

I told him I still had my daughter’s clothes and toys in her room.

“Then we’ll have law enforcement escort us to get all her personal items,” Gabriel smoothly cut in.

And I nervously looked at Gabriel.