Thanks for the reviews so far!

The sensation of the hot water on my body was like being given a full body massage. I felt the tension of the day melt away, along with the grime that came with chasing after a fast moving nine month old who had turned crawling into an Olympic sport. As I soaped my body and the fragrance of coconut and honey filled the air, I let out a long breath and gave thanks that it was finally the weekend. It wasn't that I didn't feel confident in my own abilities as a mother, but it was nice having the security blanket of Ben parenting alongside me. He was so good with Kate, so patient and attentive and without needing to say it, I knew that he was desperately trying to make up for what he perceived as being the sins of the past.

As I watched the last of the suds disappear down the plughole, stepped out onto the rug and started drying myself, I found myself wondering, as I often did, how different things might have been if any of my previous pregnancies had gone to term. There was no way that Edward would have been anywhere near the kind of father Ben was. When I imagined it, I saw myself struggling with a newborn whilst Edward went out with friends or sat on the couch ignoring his child. More to the point, I saw myself being forced into doing things that I didn't want to do weeks, maybe even days, after giving birth. A shiver ran through me despite the steam in the bathroom and I pushed the thought from my mind.

Joyfully, I pulled on my sweatpants and t-shirt, grateful that Ben didn't expect me to make any kind of effort for him at the end of a long day, and opened the bathroom door in time to hear him and Pamela arguing. It wasn't anything new. Over the last few weeks in particular she had become more and more outspoken about the house rules and what she saw as being our attempts to stifle her artistic creativity. It was slightly bewildering for me being thrust in at the deep end of teenage parenting and often made me think back as to how I had treated my own parents at that age.

"I don't care, you are not going out dressed like that!"

"For God's sake Dad, you're such a dinosaur! Everybody dresses like this, everybody!"

"I don't care what everybody does Pamela. You are my daughter and while you live under my roof you will not leave this apartment looking like a streetwalker!"

As I ventured back into the living room, I immediately saw what had irked him. Pamela was dressed in her usual shade of black, but her top was cut so low as to reveal far more of her ample cleavage than was strictly necessary and her skirt slashed so high that it left little to the imagination. I fought down the ridiculous pang of envy that I hadn't had her figure when I was her age and tried to tread the fine line between friend and stepmother. "Wow."

She turned to face me, her face made up in a way that made her look far older than her years, and eyed me suspiciously. "Wow bad or wow good?"

"Well..." I glanced at Ben who raised his eyebrows at me. "You know Pam, I was always told that you should highlight one thing about your body. So, it should be chest or legs, not both." She frowned. "Now, you're lucky in that both your chest and your legs are great but, if I were you, I would choose one and cover the other up a bit."

"But I like this outfit and so does Andrew."

"I bet he does," Ben muttered, hoisting Kate up in his arms. "What hormonal teenage boy wouldn't?"

"He's not a boy," Pamela rounded on him. "He's nineteen!"

"Nineteen?!"

"And don't turn around and say I can't go out with him because I'm going whether you like it or not!"

"What about those new jeans you bought the other day?" I interrupted before the conversation took a whole other unfortunate direction.

"What about them?"

"I think they would look great with that top. They're skinny jeans, right? They'll show off your legs without, you know, showing them off." I waited, watching as she seemed to consider this and silently trying to communicate to Ben to stay quiet. After a moment, she nodded and moved past me back towards her bedroom, closing the door behind her.

"Nineteen?" Ben echoed when we were alone. "Nineteen?!"

"And she's sixteen, so what?"

"Jesus Evelyn..."

"One battle at a time," I said, taking Kate from him. "If you push this then she's going to go out with him regardless most likely dressed in even less."

"Did you act like this when you were her age?"

"No, I didn't have the balls to. You should be grateful that she's got some spark about her."

"Grateful?" he shook his head. "Forgive me, but right now all I want to do is chain her to her bed." The door opened and Pamela reappeared, dressed in the jeans that I had suggested. "Well, that looks a little better."

"You look great," I said as she turned to look at me. "And you'll be warmer too. It's cold out there today." She shrugged her shoulders and moved over to the hooks behind the door, lifting a small leather jacket and putting it on. "Maybe your coat would be a better choice."

"I like this jacket."

"Is Andrew coming up here to get you?" Ben asked.

"No I said I'd get him out front."

"It might be nice if we got to meet him."

Pamela rolled her eyes, "Yeah right. Don't wait up."

"Uh...hold on a minute." She paused, her hand on the door. "Home by ten-thirty."

"Dad..."

"I'm serious!"

"It's Friday night for God's sake and I'm sixteen! Everybody gets to stay out until at least midnight! If I have to come home at ten-thirty I'm going to look like a complete idiot and Andrew's going to think I'm pathetic!"

"If he thinks that then he's not worth dating, is he?"

"This is so unfair!"

"Maybe we could compromise," I said. "How about eleven-thirty?" They both looked at me. "Sound fair?"

"Ok," Ben said after a long moment, "but not a minute later, ok?"

"Fine..." Pamela wrenched the door open, dashed outside and let it slam behind her.

"Phew," I said as silence descended again. "Crisis averted. Do you want a beer or something?" I hoisted Kate onto my hip and turned back towards the kitchen. "I got some the other day when I was at the market. I was tempted to get myself some wine but we all know how that would most likely turn out so I opted for soda instead." I laughed to myself in the way only I could. Making a joke out of a drinking problem wouldn't be to everyone's taste but it certainly helped keep me from taking a step that could potentially lead to disaster, even though I hadn't really craved any alcohol since becoming sober two and half years earlier. I lifted a bottle out of the fridge and turned to hand it to Ben, only to find him looking at me with a concerned expression. "What?"

"I know you're only trying to help..." he said.

"But?"

"But at the end of the day she's my daughter and I should be the one to set the rules for her."

I straightened up and met his gaze. "You're saying I undermined you?"

"Not about the clothes, that was fine, but about her curfew. I said ten-thirty for good reason. She might be sixteen but she's still a child at the end of the day and I'm responsible for her. You jumping in and taking her side doesn't really help."

"I wasn't taking her side. I was trying to diffuse the situation. If you'd stuck rigidly to ten-thirty then she might have stayed out later just to spite you and then things would have escalated. This way, she gets a little more time but she's still home at a decent hour."

"But in her eyes, she gets to play you and I against each other," he said. "So the next time this happens, she'll look to you to back her up against me."

"That isn't..." I broke off, not really wanting to end up in a fight with him about it. Not when it was Friday night and we had the place more or less to ourselves. "Ok, you're right. I'm sorry. I should have kept out of it. She is your daughter and you need to set the boundaries."

"It's not that I'm not grateful," he said, stepping towards me and taking the beer from my hand. "I know it's been a big adjustment for you these last few years and especially now we have Kate but...I just don't want her behaviour to cause division between us. We need to be on the same page."

"Yeah, I get that." I kissed him, hoping to change the subject. "I'll go and put Kate down and then we can watch a movie or something. You can pick, so long as it's nothing boring or historical."

"When have I ever picked anything boring or historical?"

"I've seen your video collection, remember?" I carried Kate into the bedroom and started getting her undressed, my mind going over what Ben had just said. It was the first time that he had ever accused me of taking Pamela's side against him and, despite agreeing that it was his job to parent her, part of me couldn't help but feel as though I had done nothing wrong. I lived in the apartment too. It was my home and I should surely have some say in trying to keep the peace. Since we had gotten married and all started living together there had been some ups and downs but generally my relationship with both teenagers had always been good and I was desperate to keep it that way.

Maybe you're trying too hard to be good cop though. Maybe you're trying too hard to make up for the past. Maybe you need to remember it's not always about being their friend.

"Maybe..." I said to myself as my daughter looked up and me and laughed. "At least I get a definite half say in what you get up to though."

Twenty minutes later, having fed Kate her last bottle and sung her our special lullaby, I left her twinkling in her crib, crept out of the room and softly closed the door over, finally free of all parental responsibility for at least a few hours. Ben was sat on the couch flicking through the channels and as I flopped down beside him, I caught sight of the letter he had mentioned still sat on the coffee table.

"Did you pick a movie?" I asked, lifting it and ripping it open.

"What about Hamlet?" he asked, looking at me out of the corner of his eye.

"I think that qualifies as both historical and boring." I pulled the contents of the envelope out and frowned. "Hmm..."

"What?"

"It's a newspaper clipping." It was an article from the previous week's Ledger about a speech I had given at a conference on behalf of Women In Need. We were currently knee deep in fundraising and the opportunity to speak at a womens' business networking event had been too good to pass up. The article summarised the main points of my speech and also included a rather unflattering photograph of me. I checked the envelope for any letter or note but there was nothing.

"Who's it from?" Ben asked, taking it from me.

"No idea. Maybe someone in the office thought I'd like it and forgot to include a note. I don't recognise the handwriting on the envelope though and it's post marked Clinton County." I racked my brains, but could think of nobody I knew who lived in that area.

"Maybe you've got a fan," he suggested, handing it back to me.

"Maybe...well, whoever it's from I guess it's nice that they took the time to cut it out and send it." I crumpled it in my hand and tossed it onto the table.

"Don't you want to keep it?"

"No, I've already got a copy," I said, blushing slightly at what he might think of me keeping clippings of myself, wondering if perhaps he would think it egotistical.

Or perhaps you need to remember that it's ok to be proud of yourself and your achievements.

Perhaps you need to remember that Ben isn't Eddie.

"That's good," he said, putting his arm around my shoulder. "It'll be nice for Kate to see all these things when she's older."

"Yeah," I agreed, snuggling down into him. "I guess you're right."

The rest of the evening passed quickly. We couldn't agree on a movie so, taking advantage of the almost empty apartment, we made love on the couch then, once our bodies had cooled, drank hot chocolate and watched the news before retiring to bed shortly before eleven-thirty so that Pamela wouldn't think we had deliberately waited up for her. A few minutes after her curfew, I heard the front door open and close followed by the bathroom door and finally her own bedroom.

"I guess you were right," Ben said quietly. "Maybe I should let you set the rules after all."

"No, I think it's best if you do it," I replied. "That way when she goes completely off the rails I'll be able to stand back and say that it was nothing to do with me."

"Very funny," he tickled me and I squirmed away from him. "I should have said thank you."

"For what?"

"For being willing to take on my kids in the first place."

I rolled over to face him, his outline barely visible in the dark. "You come as a package and I really wouldn't have had it any other way. Besides, I think it's me who should be thanking you. We both know who got the raw end of the deal in this relationship."

"Don't say that," he said urgently, pulling me against him. "You're my wife and I love you and the past is the past. Gone. Dead. Buried. We've come a long way together and I wouldn't have missed any of it."

"Are you sure?" I took his hand and drew it down to my abdomen where the jagged scar was an ever present reminder of that fateful night outside my apartment over three years earlier. It was strange to think sometimes that if it had never happened, if I had never been shot, then we would possibly already have another child. An older sister or brother for Kate. But then, had events not turned out as they had, perhaps we would never have had Kate and the thought of being without her filled me with dread.

"I'm positive," he replied, kissing me gently. "Everything happens for a reason, Evelyn. I have to believe that or...or sometimes I think I'd go mad."

I rolled away from him then pressed my back against his chest and drew his arm down around me until I felt warm, secure and, most of all, safe. He was right. We had come a long way together and had we never met, I had no idea what my life would be. It certainly wouldn't be there, in our bed, in our apartment with our baby daughter sleeping a few feet away. Despite everything that had happened, we had so much to be thankful for. I had so much to be thankful for.

"I love you," I whispered, as I felt my eyes grow heavy.

"I love you too."