“Sell the house,” my father said, lifting a baseball bat in my grandmother’s living room while my mother begged me to think about my sister’s debts, and when the first hit dropped me to my knees and the front door burst open seconds later, the only thing that stopped everyone cold was hearing one of the officers look at me and say my rank out loud.

When the EMTs rushed in with a gender, their leader asked for my name and age for the report. “Commander Callista Sterling,” I answered firmly, leaning into the title that I had worked so hard to earn during my years away from this town.

As they wheeled me past the fireplace, I looked at the photograph of my grandmother sitting in her favorite armchair. If she were alive, she would have boiled a pot of tea and forced everyone to speak the truth until the anger in the room finally simmered down.

My father caught my eye as they led him out the door, and for a split second, I saw the man who used to take me fishing. He mouthed something that looked like my name, but I turned my head away, unable to reconcile that memory with the man who just broke my ribs.

The ambulance ride was a blur of sterile smells and the steady beep of monitors while I gave the medic a scale of my pain. At Fairview General Hospital, the doctors confirmed I had two clean fractures but was lucky enough to avoid a punctured lung.