I cast a hasty glance at the cover that is clinging haphazardly by a little piggy-shaped magnet to the hopelessly congested exhibition of art our refrigerator has become ever since our three-year-old daughter started pre-school. "No," I tell him as I set a carefully prepared meal featuring each of the four food groups considered vital for a child's health and growth in front of our daughter. "He is with the heroine in that picture, and she doesn't handcuff him."

"I don't like this," my daughter announces, screwing up her face as she pushes the plate away. "It's kind of yucky."

"If he isn't handcuffed, then what is the key for?" my husband wonders, staring at the shimmering key the heroine is dangling down the muscled contours of the hero's naked back. "Is he in a cell?"

"You do like this," I assure my daughter brightly, sliding the rejected plate back in front of her. "Mummy put extra butter on the broccoli. Try one. And no, he isn't in a cell," I add, shifting my attention back to my husband. "At that point he would be in her home."

My daughter pokes a tiny finger into the center of the melting pat of butter, expertly spears it, then plops it into her mouth. "I tried one," she informs me, looking utterly angelic. "I'm finished." Her greasy hand pushes the offending plate away once more.

"She keeps him locked up?" My husband sounds somewhat startled by the possibility.

"No," I reply, now engaged in a plate-sliding match with my daughter. "But after she has helped to rescue him from the prison he cannot leave her, first because he is too weak, and later because he is forced to pretend that he is her husband."

"I want chocolate pudding," my daughter announces, giving up on the plate-pushing competition and regarding me with forlorn sweetness. "Can I have some, please?"

"Does he mind?" my husband wonders.

"You can have chocolate pudding after you have eaten your dinner," I promise my daughter, stabbing a small cube of chicken and raising it to her tightly pressed lips. "Does he mind what?" I ask, returning to my husband's question.

"Does he mind being forced to pretend he's her husband?"

"I don't like chicken," my daughter informs me flatly, apparently oblivious to the fact that she had specifically requested it.

"At first he does." I abandon the chicken in favor of a tiny carrot. My daughter examines it suspiciously, then opens her mouth like a baby bird and permits me to feed it to her. "But later he falls in love with her and her brood of orphaned children, and then he doesn't want to leave."

"There." Having swallowed the miniscule carrot, my daughter beams at me. "Now can I have chocolate pudding?"

"How many children constitute 'a brood'?" my husband wonders.

"Six," I say, suddenly awed by my heroine's fortitude. How was she able to successfully raise six children with wildly divergent problems and temperaments when I seem barely capable of getting a nutritious dinner into one adorable but headstrong three-year-old? I lean back in my chair and absently stroke my very pregnant belly, wondering if chocolate pudding counts as a dairy product among the recommended food groups.

"Genevieve," my husband begins, sensing my frustration as he seats himself beside our first-born, "if you eat just three bites of everything on your plate, then you may have a chocolate pudding. Here now," he croons, lifting a piece of broccoli up to her smiling mouth, "this is a little green tree and you are a very hungry giant..."

I watch in tender fascination as my husband successfully coaxes much of the dinner into our little girl, including the previously spurned chicken. And suddenly I understand how my heroine managed to raise all those children.

She had her very own hero to help her.

The Prisoner will be appearing on shelves as my darling husband and I anxiously await the arrival of our second child. Two children is not exactly a brood, but I expect we shall be extremely busy nonetheless!