One day, long after my youngest stepson (Nick) had finished high school and was out of the house, I found out when it really became them against me!

Back in Nick's junior year in high school, he came downstairs dressed in a suit and tie for school. When I asked him what in the world was going on with that, he told me that his shop class was having a photo taken for the yearbook. He went off to school, as did my other kids, and I really never thought about that morning again.

Several years later, my eldest daughter and I were having an experience which involved her driving my car with me as a passenger while she had her learners permit, and she got pulled over by a policeman for running a yellow light. He let her off with a warning, and as we drove towards home, I commented that I was really surprised that Nick made it through his whole beginner driving experience without ever having gotten a traffic ticket.

That was when my daughter smirked and said: "Well, Mom, that's not exactly true!" She went on to ask if I remembered the day that Nick went to school in a suit and tie. She then revealed the true story about that day.

Nick had gotten a speeding ticket on the way home from school one day while driving his truck a little too fast. Trying to avoid being punished by parents as well as the law, he (with my daughters/his stepsisters' help) came up with the class photo story. Then he went to court instead of school that day, paid the fine for his ticket, came home at the usual time after school and I was none the wiser!

The fact that all of that deception went on, and that he had broken the law as well as having skipped school and gotten away with it, was amazing and shocking. But the strongest feeling that rose up in me was not anger, but extreme satisfaction. After years of the big stepbrother being against my biological daughters, those same kids stuck together and turned against me! Hallelujah! My kids, biological and step had bonded into regular siblings without me even knowing!