Her father, trying to recover, trying to stand up, his stiff cheap suit rumpled, croaked out, “You are a girl and we will make you come home with us! Call the police and I will tell them the truth about your rebellious, slutty nature, your lies and your crimes. God will strike you down. He will punish you for your disobedience to your father.”

To which one of the young men said, “No, dude. He’s going to strike you down because you hit your own daughter, and I’ll bet you’ve been hitting her for a long time. That’s called abuse, asshole. Didn’t you know that?”

And the other young man said, “I was raised a Christian, and this isn’t the way a father treats his daughter. My dad never treated me and my sisters like this. Anyone tell you that you’re supposed to act with love if you think you’re a Christian?”

Her father cursed them then, his “faith” completely leaving him as he used the f-word, her mother huddled against the wall.

The kid who was going to medical school said, “I don’t like the f-word,” and punched her father in the gut. He doubled over.

“Get out,” Betsy said again. She could feel her face swelling. “Get out.”

They left, her father hobbling, her mother crying. Her mother turned to hug Betsy, but Betsy held up her hands as in “Stop.”

“You never helped me, Mom. If you wanted to live with a man like him, fine. But you never should have let me live with him.” Something sharp and pained flashed in her mother’s eyes, and Betsy knew what her mother knew: She was a terrible mother. She should have left her husband to protect her daughter. “You have premonitions, Mom. You chose to cower. You chose not to act, not to help people. You chose not to help me.”

That her mother knew what she should have done, and didn’t, made Betsy more angry, and sadder than before. She had been repeatedly abused by her father, and even now her mother chose her father over her. Hard to know who she hated more.

Her father turned, unsteady on his feet with his head all messed up. “Mary!” he boomed, spittle and blood flying out of his mouth. “Come! Now!”

Her mother shot one last look at Betsy, shame in her eyes, defeat in her body, grief on her face, and left to go to her father.

Betsy hugged the two boys who protected her, and they later became friends with both her and Johnny.