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.

Together they amounted to far more than a temporary shortfall.

The funds had moved through an entity called Northbridge Project Services, a name that sounded reassuringly dull.

Martin had described Northbridge as a renovation vendor.

Yet the payment memo on one bank statement referred to a “retainer,” and the address on a mailed notice was a commercial mailbox that appeared on several unrelated company documents in our old filing cabinet.

I gave the records to Gabriel.