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.

But I was grateful someone had listened without asking her to choose a side.

Celeste testified that she had been in the kitchen when I fell.

Gabriel asked about her first police statement, in which she said she witnessed the accident from the upstairs landing.

“I was in shock,” she replied.

“You also told an officer that Rachel was alone,” Gabriel said.

“I said she was acting alone.

There’s a difference.”

The judge asked her to answer the questions directly.