Sorry for the long delay!

"Yesterday really was so much fun."

"I enjoyed it too," I replied, crooking the phone receiver under my chin as I looked through the mail that had arrived that morning. "We should definitely do it again sometime. I feel as though I've known you forever."

"It's funny how you just click with some people that way," Michelle laughed. "I feel the same, not to mention the fact I'm constantly overwhelmed in your presence."

"Don't be ridiculous," I laughed. "I'm hardly someone to feel overwhelmed by."

"Inspired by then. And don't argue with me because it's true. I'm so looking forward to the ball you were talking about. Thank you so much for agreeing to get me some tickets."

"Not at all. Thank you for being a good friend even if we have just met."

"Well, I'd better let you go," Michelle said. "No doubt you'll be psyching yourself up for Pamela's boyfriend coming over."

I glanced over to the couch where Ben and Pamela were sitting together companionably watching some television over a late breakfast. The atmosphere had drastically improved, which was not to be sniffed at and I was hoping against all hope that dinner later would be a success, for all our sakes. "Got it in one," I replied. "We'll catch up next week?"

"Definitely. Have a great weekend."

"Who was that?" Ben asked when I rung off.

"Michelle," I replied, putting the letters that weren't addressed to me down on the table and slitting open the two that were. "Hopefully we might be able to meet up again next week."

"That's nice," he replied, though there was a slight edge to his tone that I tried to ignore. Although I had forgiven him for his previous inquiry as to whether or not I had been drinking, I could tell that, for some reason, he didn't seem too keen on me making a new friend. But in light of everything that had happened of late, I didn't want to get into it.

One letter was my credit card statement, which I had been expecting, and the other was a folded piece of white paper with a note in neat handwriting.

"Dear Mrs Stone, I just wanted to say what a huge fan of yours I am. I can't wait to meet you at the ball next month. Best wishes."

It was unsigned and when I looked back into the envelope to see if anything else was included, I found one of our crested pins that we gave out at fundraisers. Turning it over in my hand, I looked again at the note, trying to find some familiarity in the limited prose.

"What is it?" Glancing up, I saw Ben looking over the back of the couch at me but not wanting to say anything in front of Pamela, I slid the note and the pin back into the envelope and put it back on the table.

"Nothing. Nothing important anyway. I think I might take Kate for a walk when she wakes up from her nap."

"Can I come?" Pamela asked, jumping up from the couch and turning to look at me. "Please?"

"Oh, sure," I replied. "I just assumed you'd be spending the afternoon getting yourself ready for Andrew coming over."

"I reckon I could use some fresh air first."

"No problem." I glanced at Ben who merely raised his eyebrows at me. Twenty minutes later, wrapped up against the cold, Pamela, Kate and I were making our way down the street towards the local park. She hadn't said anything when we had left the apartment, but the silence was companionable enough. The wind was colder than it had been the day before and I made a mental note to keep Kate out too long.

"I wanted to talk to you without Dad being there," Pamela said finally. "It's just…too embarrassing to say some things in front of him."

"Ok…"

"It's just…" she paused. "I really like Andrew and I want you and Dad to like him too."

"I'm sure we will, once we get to know him better."

"I kind of feel, like, well like Dad already has a preconceived idea about him."

I opened the gate to the park and pushed the stroller inside. "Well, it was a bit of a shock for him, for both of us, seeing him for the first time in your bed. I know you're sixteen Pam and you think you're an adult, but your father still sees you as his little girl and no father wants to walk in on his little girl having sex."

"I get that."

"And I suppose, the fact that Andrew, who is older than you, was willing to sleep with you in our apartment when I'm guessing he knew that your father and I didn't know about it…well that probably rankles a bit with your dad too."

"You mean, because it's disrespectful?"

"Something like that." I clicked the brake on the stroller, lifted Kate out and placed her in one of the baby swings, pushing her gently. "If he really likes you and cares about you, Andrew should be prepared to wait a bit."

"I told you before that he didn't rape me," she said quickly.

"I know and I believe you, but…" I paused, thinking how best to word what I wanted to say. "Rape isn't just…violence. It isn't strangers down dark alleys. It's people you know and sometimes, even when you think you're consenting, you're not really. I guess what I'm trying to say is that, I hope you wanted to sleep with him as much as he wanted to sleep with you and you didn't just do it because you thought it would make him happy."

"No, it definitely wasn't like that. If anything, it was me that persuaded him."

"Ok."

"You still think that's wrong?"

I turned to look at her. "I think you're young, that's all. You've got a lot of life to live yet."

"If you…uh…if you could do things over again," she said carefully. "Would you?"

"What things?"

"Well…with your first husband I mean."

I paused, wondering why she was asking me this now and thinking back to the assumptions I had made from comments she had made earlier that I had thought were being directed at me. Her words now gave me a strange sensation in my stomach, and I couldn't really put my finger on what I was thinking. "If I had known what was going to happen to me before I married him, you mean?" She nodded. "No, I wouldn't have married him. But there's no way I could have known."

Or maybe you just didn't want to know.

"What about…what about other things?"

I looked at her again and saw that she was deliberately avoiding my gaze, her eyes fixed on another family in the distance sat on a bench. This time, I felt as though I knew what she was alluding to and, perhaps against my better judgement, decided to tackle her head on. "If there's something that you want to ask me, Pam, just come right out and ask it. Don't tap dance around it."

She met my gaze. "When you were in London and you were drinking…were there…were there other men? Other than Dad, I mean. Did you…did you sleep with other men?"

I took a breath, knowing that how I answered her was going to set in motion events that I wouldn't be able to alter. I thought back to the conversation I had had with Ben when I had asked if she had known about London and he had declared it wasn't something he would discuss with his teenage daughter. Was it something I should be discussing with his teenage daughter?

"It's ok," she said after a moment's silence. "You don't have to answer. It's none of my business anyway."

"I did a lot of things in London that I'm not proud of," I said finally, choosing my words carefully. "They're not really things that I like revisiting. But I wasn't well at the time and I try to remind myself of that important fact when I do revisit them."

"Sure," she said hurriedly in a tone that I could tell meant that she thought I wasn't being entirely truthful with her, and I wasn't. But I couldn't bring myself to say yes, I slept around. For some reason I felt as though the information would be used as a weapon against me, rather than anything that might bring us closer together.

"You're not me, Pam," I said finally. "You're young and you have so much future ahead of you. You should be excited about all the things you're going to do over the next ten years and beyond. Once you leave high school, the world's your oyster."

"I think I'm going to marry Andrew," she said, meeting my gaze again, a slight look of defiance in her eyes. "I'm going to marry him and have lots of babies."

XXXX

I chose not to tell Ben about the content of the conversation Pamela and I had had in the park. Something about the whole thing made me feel slightly uneasy. Not just the way she had questioned me about London, as if she already knew the answers, but also the way she had casually remarked about marrying Andrew. I hadn't taken her on at that point, not wanting to get into another argument with her and we had returned to the apartment not long after. If he had felt any atmosphere between us, Ben hadn't said anything. The rest of the afternoon past without any great incident and at six-thirty sharp, the buzzer sounded, and Pamela excitedly let Andrew in.

He was a good-looking boy, I had to give him that. Sandy blond hair swept across his blue eyes, dark jeans and a polo shirt that set off the muscularity of his shoulders. I could almost feel Ben bristle slightly at the manhood Andrew exuded and I could only hope that he was able to keep himself in check. To his credit, Andrew had brought flowers for me and he was polite and courteous during introductions and whilst we waited for dinner to be ready and as we made to sit down at the table, took it upon himself to offer up an apology.

"I wanted to apologise for the last time we met," he said. "It was totally inappropriate for you to find us the way we did and I'm sorry for the embarrassment caused. I realise now that we should have asked permission before engaging in anything like the behaviour you saw."

"Thank you," I said, when it became obvious that Ben didn't trust himself to answer.

"I want you to know that I really like Pam and that I respect her. Truly I do. I would never do anything to hurt her and I would never knowingly put her at risk or anything like that."

"I'm glad to hear it," Ben said tightly.

"So, tell us about yourself then, Andrew," I said quickly, hoping to bring the conversation onto a more pleasant topic. "Pam told us that you met at art class so clearly you have that in common."

He nodded, "I love to paint. Watercolors are my favourite."

"He's really good too," Pamela enthused. "You'll need to see some of his work."

"Are you studying art?" Ben asked.

"No, English and Politics," Andrew replied. "My mom sees art as more of a hobby than a career. Pam's really good though. She could definitely make it at art school. NYU has a great course there." Pamela beamed at him. "I'm actually thinking of going to law school after I graduate."

"Oh?" Ben looked at him, his interest clearly piqued. "Well I suppose you came to the right apartment."

"I guess so. Pam told me that you're both lawyers."

"I told him you were an Executive Assistant District Attorney," Pamela said proudly. "The best in the city."

"Well I think that might be stretching it a bit, but thank you for the compliment, Pam."

"I've read about you," Andrew said. "You've had a lot of interesting cases over the years. I'd love to talk about some of them with you some time. It would give me a real insight, especially as I think I'd want to work at the DA's office if I did get my licence."

"Well I suppose that would be all right," Ben replied gruffly.

"And you do such wonderful work at Women In Need, Mrs Stone," he turned to me. "Really inspiring. My mother's a big fan of yours. When I told her I was going out with Pam, I think she was more excited about the fact that I'd get to meet you than anything else."

I blushed slightly. "Well, that's very kind, thank you. It's nice to know that you're seen to be making a difference. What do your parents do?"

"My mum's a bank teller in midtown," he replied. "My dad left us when I was seven."

"I'm sorry," I said. "That must have been difficult for both of you."

Andrew shrugged. "He reappeared about four years ago but…well…it was a bit late by then. I haven't seen him since. Pam's always saying how lucky she feels to have three parents who care about her."

I looked over at Pam who was still smiling at Andrew and couldn't help but think that that had been a slight over-exaggeration on her part, if she had said it at all. Andrew was very good with words but I would have been no attorney at all if I hadn't been able to detect a little bullshit when I heard it.

At least he's trying. You have to give him that.

"He seems nice enough," I commented to Ben as we made coffee in the kitchen, leaving the two lovebirds to chat quietly on the couch. "He certainly knows how to say all the right things."

"Huh, he's too smooth if you ask me," he replied. "All that crap about wanting to talk about cases and how inspiring you are to his mother?"

"Are you saying that I'm not inspiring?"

"Of course not, but come on! He's trying to get himself into our good books after what happened, no doubt so that we'll lift Pamela's grounding and they can go at it like rabbits again."

"Stop being so dramatic."

"I'm not being dramatic, Evelyn. I appreciated his apology but let's see it for what it was, ok?"

I chose not to argue the toss with him any further and the remainder of the evening passed pleasantly enough. At ten-thirty, Andrew excused himself to head home and I was glad that there had been no suggestion of a sleepover or even any request for him to be alone with Pamela. She saw him out into the hallway, and I made a point of switching the television on so that whatever was being said needn't carry. Ben and I set about the task of clearing up until I heard the apartment door close and Pamela appeared in the kitchen beside us.

"Well?" she looked at us expectantly. "What do you think?"

"I think he's very charming," I said. "And he clearly thinks a lot of you."

"Dad?"

"I appreciated his apology," Ben replied, turning around from the sink. "And I agree with Evelyn, he obviously likes you a lot."

"I knew you'd like him!"

"I didn't say that."

"But…"

"Pam, he's still nineteen, you're still sixteen and I'm still not happy about you having a physical relationship with him."

"Even now that you've met him?"

"It would have been nice to have met him beforehand."

"You just said you appreciated his apology!" she exclaimed.

"And I did, but it would have been nice…"

"Yeah, if he had come to the door and said, 'hey Mr Stone, do you mind if I fuck your daughter?'"

"Pam…" I said warningly, knowing only too well where this was going to go. "It's been a nice evening, let's not spoil it."

"I'm not spoiling anything, he is! Uptight, sanctimonious asshole that he is! You think you're so fucking perfect, Dad, don't you! You've never made a mistake in your life, have you?"

"Stop this Pamela, stop it right now," Ben said, his voice quiet with anger.

"You got that woman killed, that witness, didn't you?! You made her testify and she got killed, because of you!"

Ben froze beside me, and I could see the look on his face, the one he always wore whenever Ann Madsen was mentioned directly or alluded to. The circumstances of the case were no real secret and his name had been in the press after the event, but to my knowledge, it had never been discussed around the table, never aired as a family issue, nor was it likely to be.

Pamela stared at him, her fists balled at her sides, as though she expected a response from him. He didn't say anything for a long moment and then turned back to the sink. "I think we've said enough, don't you?"

"You can't even deny it, can you?" Pamela said, her tone mocking. "It was your fault she got killed and you can't even deny it! You expect to be forgiven for that mistake and yet you won't forgive Andrew for sleeping with me?"

"Pam, there are things that you don't know about," I said, desperate to shut the conversation down, "things that you don't need to concern yourself with…"

"Oh, isn't there just?" she turned to me. "Like what a fucking slut you are?!"

Though her words weren't a surprise to me, given the subtext of the conversation we had had earlier that day, they still winded me. The word was one that I had used on myself over and over since London, though not one I had shared out loud outside of therapy, not even with Ben. The misogynistic, sexist undertone of the word was bad enough to think about internally without giving to anyone else to band about.

"What did you say?" Ben asked, and I could hear the incredulity in his voice.

"I called her a slut, because that's what she is," Pam said viciously. "How many men did you sleep with in London, Evelyn? Can you even remember? I hope you made sure she got tested before you fucked her, Dad!"

"No!" I stepped in front of Ben as he took a step towards her. In my head, I knew that he would never lay a finger on her and yet, in that moment, it seemed as though anything was possible.

"Go ahead and hit me! See if I care! I'm going to marry Andrew and there's nothing you can do to stop me!" Pamela whirled around and ran for the apartment door, throwing it open and then letting it bang loudly behind her.

For a moment, Ben and I stood in the kitchen in stunned silence, the only noise coming from the ticking of the clock on the wall. After what seemed like forever, he turned to me. "How does she know about Ann Madsen?"

"How does she know about London?" I countered, suddenly feeling nauseous. Grabbing a glass from the counter, I quickly ran it under the tap and then drained the contents.

"I'm calling the police," Ben said, moving back out into the living room.

"She's sixteen," I reminded him. "The police aren't going to do anything about her running off."

"I'm not talking about that," he said, lifting the receiver. "I'm going to report Andrew for statutory rape."

"Ben, don't…"

"Why the hell shouldn't I?"

"Because he's not the one who kicked off with us tonight, Pam is, and if you do this, you're only going to make things worse, a lot worse."

He held my gaze for a moment and then replaced the receiver with a sigh. "I suppose you're right. We don't even know his last name for God's sake."

"It's Swann," I said, sinking down onto the couch. "Andrew Swann. Honestly, why did you have to start the argument with her? Why couldn't you just have said that you liked him and leave it at that?"

"What did you say?"

"I said, why couldn't you just have said that you liked him…"

"No, before that." He loomed above me. "Andrew's last name, what did you say it was?"

"Swann," I replied, "why?" His face suddenly paled and my insides turned cold. "What is it?"

"We need to call the police."

"But…"

"We need to call the police now!"