“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’s received a formal legal notice to stay away from the premises while they gather evidence,” Gabriel told me.

Did he even call the hospital to see if I was alive?“I asked bitterly.

My question made Dad’s face visibly harden.

“He sent one text message to my phone earlier tonight,” Dad said reluctantly.

“What did he say in his message?I pushed.

He said he was terribly sorry about your fall and hoped you would know that it was just an unfortunate accident’, Dad read from his phone.

His cold, calculating words sent a crawl of disgust over my skin.