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.

At the end of the visit, Lily pressed the stuffed fox into my lap.

“He’s brave,” she told me.

“You can borrow him.”

I wanted to beg the staff member for five more minutes, then ten.

Instead, I thanked her, helped Lily put on her coat, and watched her walk out with the fox’s empty place tucked beneath her arm.

In the parking lot, I cried so hard that Gabriel had to wait beside the car with a packet of tissues.

Dad did not tell me to be strong.