Paisley, in one final act of rage, lunged toward me, but she stepped in the spilled wine. She slipped and fell against the champagne tower.

The glasses crashed to the floor. She lay there, soaked, her makeup smeared, and with a cut on her hand from a shard of glass, but not one person moved to help.

Raymond covered me with his jacket. “Let’s go, daughter,” he said.

We left the hall without looking back. Phone cameras flashed around us, but no one dared to stop us.

In the elevator, I finally breathed a sigh of relief. My father didn’t say anything, but he just held my hand like he did when I was a little girl.

That night I slept in my old room, in the family home in Shaker Heights. At dawn, the sun streamed through the curtains, and I awoke with a sense of peace I had almost forgotten.