“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.

Dad’s face was not angry, but full of deep emotional pain.

“Because I did not know the extent of their corruption,” Dad said softly.

“Your husband had you sign that power of attorney form last spring.

That’s when I started digging.

I stared at him, utterly surprised.

“A lawyer form?”

“It’s just a standard form for your health insurance after your little procedure,” Dad reminded me.

The memory came back to me in fragments.