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got debts up to your eyeballs again. This isn’t living.’
    Angela felt the sag in her body. ‘I wasn’t expecting Nigel to come back, and I only need the extra card to get Claudia’s fees paid. I’ll pay it off again soon.’ She hoped she sounded convincing.
    ‘Don’t you see what a great opportunity this is?’ Janice’s voice was soft and coaxing as she stepped around the bench, closer to Angela. ‘Driving trucks pays better than what you’re earning now. You can get away from Melbourne, make a new start and not have to run into Nigel.’
    For a few seconds Angela was mesmerised by the offer.
    ‘And I can help.’ Janice laid a hand on Angela’s arm. ‘If you do this for your father, I’ll pay off one of your cards.’
    Angela snapped to her senses and pulled her arm free. She’d rather keep her debt than owe Janice anything. ‘I’m not going to drive interstate, Janice. Our life is here. Now please go home. Dad will want his dinner and I’ve got to get organised for tomorrow.’
    ‘I’ll give you a little longer to think about my offer.’ Janice leaned in close. ‘If you go, I won’t tell your father about the credit cards … or the new television.’ She pulled back and stepped to the door. There was no mistaking the threat in those words. ‘Oh, and Claudia can stay all weekend.’ The older woman’s face was pulled into a smile, but there was no warmth in it. ‘That way you can have a few drinks and enjoy the wedding without worrying about her.’
    The door closed firmly and Angela stood planted to the spot. Then she slumped back down at the table and pushed away the plate of food. The encounter had transported her back to her teenage years, to Janice’s arrival in her life.
    Her father’s marriage to Janice had coincided with Angela’s late but blossoming interest in boys and drinking. Janice was good fun back then, and living in a house of men, Angela had been taken in by a woman who shared her interest in clothes and makeup. By that time, it was long enough after her mother’s death for Angela to accept that her father needed a companion. But truck driving took him on the road a lot and Angela’s brothers were already leaving home, so it was left to his new wife to deal with Angela’s minor teenage rebellion. Janice tried her best, but she knew nothingabout children, let alone how to deal with adolescent delinquency. Besides, she still liked to spend the lonely nights with her friends. Janice quickly tired of playing parent and organised to send Angela to boarding school.
    Angela held her head in her hands, recalling the night she’d first confronted Janice. She knew her father loved her and would never send her away, and she’d told her stepmother as much. The older woman had sat her down and, in a quiet voice inflected with a tone of absolute certainty, she’d told Angela the facts of life. Not the birds-and-bees stuff, but the cold, adult reality. She made it quite clear that Angela’s dad was a husband first and a father second, and that he would support Janice in anything she requested because she was his wife. Angela shuddered as she remembered Janice explaining that a wife could do far more for a man than a daughter could, and if Angela were to make him choose, she would lose.
    From that day forward they’d lived by an uneasy truce: they were civil to each other, but never warm. Angela’s father was a good man. He knew there was something between his wife and his daughter, but after a few initial attempts to get Angela to talk, he’d left it alone. Her life with him since had centred around his trucks. She’d never tried to take the lead female role at home again and had never put Janice’s theory to the test. Up until tonight they’d managed to muddle along with an outward veneer of civility, but Janice’s parting words had been very clear.
    Angela dragged herself up from the table and peeped in on her sleeping daughter. There was no way she would move her across