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.

“We can demand records and argue for appropriate relief,” he said.

“But fairness doesn’t arrive as a single dramatic verdict.

It is usually a series of decisions, some better than others.”

I signed one routine disclosure after reading it carefully.

That was all the progress we made that afternoon.

Before I left, Gabriel handed me a photocopy of the first custody filing.

I recognized the phrase describing me as emotionally unpredictable.

“I’d like you to keep this,” he said.