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 teach them what to do when sadness comes.”

I thought of the spilled juice, the soft hugs, the way Lily had begun sleeping through the night again.

Progress wasn’t a grand transformation.

It was her asking for a bedtime story without first checking whether the grown-ups were arguing.

“Thank you,” I said.

“For what?”

“For not telling me what to do.”

He laughed.