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.

“Not to reread when you’re hurting.

To compare with the factual record we’ve assembled.”

I slipped it into the folder.

“Do you know what bothers me most?”

“What?”

“That they thought the bruises would make me less believable.”

He regarded me across the desk.

“Some people mistake vulnerability for weakness.