“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.

“It was cracked about half way,” I answered.

“Anyone in the office?“What’d you do?” Dad asked.

“I remember my father-in-law sitting at his big desk,” I said.

‘What was he doing at his table?” Dad pried gently.

A sharp spike of pain shot through my head and I pressed my fingers to my forehead.

Gabriel immediately noticed my discomfort.

“Don’t push it if it hurts.

The mental picture suddenly snapped into sharp focus.