“I said I am not coming home. I will never live with you and Mom again. Why don’t you try being nice to Mom? Then you’ll have at least one woman who won’t leave you.”

Her father’s face became even darker, his fat fists clenched and unclenched, his eyes narrowed. How dare she say no to him! How dare she defy him! How dare she disrespect him! She was only a girl. His daughter. He owned her. “You are a disgrace—”

She turned and walked back down the hallway. She would enter her apartment later, after they left. Tears spilled out of her eyes. When she had lived with them, she endured. But after leaving, after coming here, to college, to her job, where people were nice to her, gentle, funny, she was able to start seeing her life with her parents for what it was: Abusive. Lonely. Freezing cold.

Her father thundered up behind her, whipped her around, and smacked her in the face, her head twisting about before she crumpled onto the floor. Before she could struggle up and cover her head with her arms, two young men who lived down the hall shouted and intervened. They shoved Hansen away from her and slammed him up against the wall, his bald head crashing into the plaster. He was stunned, dropping heavily to the floor like a sack of potatoes.

One of the young men, who was studying biology in hopes of going to medical school, said, “How do you like being hit, dick?” He hauled Hansen back up and punched him in the face. “How do you like it now?” The bio student hit him again, Hansen’s head snapping back, and dropped him.

The other young man, who was studying to become a nuclear physicist, said, “You sucker punched a woman!” His face was outraged, sickened. “What the hell is wrong with you?” The physics student hauled him up and shoved him back into the wall, Hansen’s head again slamming into it.

Her father, on the ground, his head wobbling, stared up at the furious young men standing protectively in front of his daughter and was shocked. What had happened? How dare they hit him! His mouth opened and closed, opened and closed, like a gaping fish. His wife was peering down at him. What was in her eyes? Was it . . . triumph? Was it vindictiveness? Joy?

“Get out of here,” Betsy said quietly, but the rage was evident. “Go. I never, ever want to see either of you again. I’m not taking this anymore. If you don’t leave right now, I will call the police.” She couldn’t believe she’d said that. Even though her face was aching, her neck already knotting up, she was proud of herself.