“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.

“Sweetie, it’s not broken,” I said softly.

“Only bruised.

Lying down.

Your ribs hurt bad, Grandpa said.

Maya added.

“They sting a bit, but the doctors are helping me,” I told her.

Does it hurt to laugh?”innocently she asked.

I smiled.