“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.

‘What did she want to show you?“Dad asked, excitedly.

I remembered.

‘A picture she did at school.’ “She drew a house with bright blue windows.

Dad’s voice was soft and patient.

“What happened then?””

“She dropped her stuffed puppy and it rolled outside the office door,” I explained.

“I went in to pick it up off the floor.”

“The office door was wide open?Gabriel checked.