“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.

And what did you discover?”“ I asked tentatively.

Dad reached into his jacket and pulled out a small, white envelope, unmarked.

“I got this letter in the office three weeks ago,” Dad said.

“Who gave it to you?”I asked.

“No name or return address,” Dad said.

He opened the envelope gingerly and drew out one slip of paper.

The page was uneven, jagged, as if the handwriting had been done in extreme haste.

I bent forward to read the brief sentence.