“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.

“No I didn’t,” I told her.

“Maya called for me from the bottom of the stairs, and I turned and left the room immediately.

Gabriel quickly made a note on his pad.

‘Do you remember the date of that Christmas visit?asked Gabriel. “

“It was the twenty-third of December,” I stated with certainty.

“Christmas Eve Eve.

“That date is very helpful for our timeline,” Gabriel said.

“Why is the date so important?” I enquired.