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.

Sometimes I grew angry without knowing whether I was angry at Martin, at myself, or at the ordinary fact that a noise could return me to that night.

Dr.

Brooks helped me notice those reactions without treating them as commands.

She asked me to think about who I had been before my marriage and what parts of that person I wanted to bring into the life I was building.

I remembered liking my old job.

I remembered the satisfaction of balancing a difficult set of books and catching errors that might otherwise have cost a nonprofit a grant.

I called my former supervisor, who was now running a community foundation.