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.

She stopped calling me directly after counsel made the boundaries explicit.

I never received an apology.

For a while, that absence bothered me.

Then I noticed how much energy I spent imagining a conversation with someone who had never wanted to hear my side.

I put down the imagined conversation.

One evening, Dad found me sorting old photographs at the dining-room table.

In one, Martin and I stood smiling in front of the estate.

Celeste had her arm around my shoulder.