My husband pushed me down the stairs, and as I lay shattered at the bottom, my mother-in-law called my father and said, “Come get your worthless daughter and take her back.” Dad gave her only one warning: “If she has so much as a scratch, your family will answer for it.” They laughed at him because they had absolutely no idea who my father truly was.

“What happens if Martin denies everything forever?” I asked.

“Then the legal questions will be decided on the available evidence, with all the limits that evidence has.

You may never hear the words you want from him.”

I looked out the window.

For months, I had imagined him admitting what he did.

In my fantasy, he stood in a courtroom and said, I pushed her.

My mother helped me lie.

We were wrong.