“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 had a simple gallbladder removal and my husband had a stack of legal forms at my bedside, claiming they were standard administrative requirements.

“I remember now,” I whispered.

I would not sign them.

Dad nodded his head.

“You called me from your hospital bed before you picked up a pen.”

I could clearly see the scene from the past: my father sitting up in the hospital bed telling me to never sign anything without reading every page first, my husband standing in the doorway looking very frustrated.

I thought you were being over-cautious back then.” I said softly.