“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.

“Mommy?” she cried softly.

I immediately opened my healthy arm to her.

“Come here, darling.”

Nurse Marisol helped her carefully across the tiled floor, around the medical wires, and up onto the visitor chair next to my pillow.

‘The nurse said I mustn’t bump your tummy,’ said Maya very seriously.

‘You’re doing so well, my love,’ I assured her, blinking away tears.

She looked closely at my face.

Are all your bones broken?”