"Dont you ever, ever, ever !" she screamed so loudly into her mobile - also straight into my then boyfriend (who later became my husband) ear that the four young girls bouncing around on the back seat of his car, as we travel along, stopped bouncing and talking to each other. His daughters for sure recognised their mothers voice. Sitting in the front passenger seat I opted to continue to do what I was doing before the phone rang and that was to keep looking at nothing flying passed as we headed back to his apartment after collecting his two daughters from his Ex for their every-second-weekend-stay with their dad that started on a Friday at 6 pm and ended on a Sunday also at 6 pm. I remember real well, on that day, in the car, before the phone rang, indifferent to the noise made by my two daughters, my younger and older daughters the same ages as his two children - perhaps because I was real pleased that our children were getting along or maybe because at the time I was working as a pre-school teacher and so for me four children chatting away was easy on the ear compared to an average day of twenty children trying to grab my attention. Perhaps my indifference was more contentment I was in love and he was in love with me and together we were going to get this I love your children and you love my children thing to work and together we were going to have four perfect daughters. "Dont you ever, ever, ever bring THAT woman and HER children around to my house when you collect OUR children - I dont want her outside my house - not even sitting in your car !" his ex continued to scream into his ear. Because of the raised volume of her voice her words went into every nook and cranny of his car and straight into my ears As I heard him promise her he will call her back as soon as he is home I tried to understand why my sitting in his car, outside her house, with my daughters, while he disappeared into her house to fetch their kids was so bad she found it necessary to make a phone call to him so soon after we left her house to yell at him with real hate towards me and real anger in her voice. I was the not the reason for the breakdown of their marriage. He was divorced, yes recently divorced - still divorced for six months when I met him. I have no recall of the rest of the trip to his apartment - it was 14 years ago but I remember him walking straight into his bedroom and closing the door behind him. I could hear him on the phone. Though the door I couldn't make up a word he was saying. When he came out of the bedroom I was angry with him and I stayed silently angry with all night. Why does he have to close the door when speaking to his daughters mother buzzed round and round in my head for hours. "He doesn't" I told myself as I drove home with my two daughters falling asleep in the back of my car. "He doesn't have to explain his relationship with the mother of his children - not to you". I didn't like that - not then and not right up to the day we said goodbye for the very last time. Perhaps if over the years I got to accept that his children and his ex-wife have nothing to do with me I could have been a better wife and a perfect step mother.