“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.

“He said you were under extreme emotional stress.

“He said you were getting nervous about ordinary household expenses, and he wanted to know if I was putting wild suspicions in your head about his family.”

I remembered the nite of the telephone call well.

I was in the kitchen doing dishes when my husband walked in and stood close to me.

His face was full of concern.

My husband said softly, “Your father’s been asking odd questions about my family’s business.

I switched off the water tap.