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.

He crossed the room carefully, as if moving too quickly could hurt me.

“Rach,” he said.

I had not heard him call me that since I was twelve.

I tried to smile, and the effort hurt my ribs.

“I should have called you earlier.”

“No,” he said.

“He should never have laid a hand on you.”

I cried then, not because of the pain but because someone had finally named what had happened without asking what I had done to cause it.