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.

“I may have given a few opinions.”

“You gave me room to decide.”

He leaned back in his chair.

“That’s what you were always supposed to have.”

Later I went inside and found Lily’s party crown on the dining table.

It was made of flimsy yellow paper with a sticker jewel at the center.

I placed it carefully on the bookshelf.

The Callahans had called their estate a legacy.