Sure, there were some challenging moments, especially following conception, but being a young mother of four children was all doable with four loyal men there to help out.
“Finally,” Ryan said as he sulked out onto the back porch with Noah and me. “They’re asleep. Somehow, someway, after three and a half bedtime stories, those kids are unconscious. Are you one hundred percent sure I can’t just pop vodka in their milk?”
He slumped onto the railing and joined us in gazing out to the distance.
As much as the men complained, it was all just banter. They were good at it from the start, and spending so much time together only enhanced their harmless word-slinging skills.
There had been no paternity tests either in the following years.
Sure, we knew one of the twins had fathered the twins, but we all agreed we’d rather not know apart from that. Ellen and Daisy might have come from any of the four men’s seeds.
Being around through a child’s life was what made a real father, and these kids were lucky.
“What’s up out here?” Sam arrived on the porch, nursing a small glass of wine. “Why is everyone looking tired? Did I miss something?”
That was Sam’s idea of a joke, being the one to escape daddy duties for the evening.
Our beach house. Our dream house. Something we wouldn’t have been able to accomplish at our age if there were only two of us together, but united? We made it happen.
We made everything happen.
That was the most amazing thing about it. Seven years from the start of this chaos, and my worries about being perceived as some wanton slut were long gone. I don’t think anyone would mistake me for that girl now.
It was still working. Sure, we’d had our clashes. But it worked. We were still together. Still supporting one another, still building a wonderful family together.
Even our parents had started to understand and accept things.
Mine were just confused, but they didn’t mind setting up many places at Thanksgiving, and they adored the babies. But most important of all, I think they could see we were happy.
For a while, it was Noah and Brandon’s family who wouldn’t talk to any of us and certainly not entertain us visiting them. Of all the parents, they were the ones who found our poly relationship hard to accept. I think our unconventional family strongly conflicted with their Christian values.
But when the babies came, the barriers crumbled, and they were more interested in getting to know us.
After we’d been together for a year, they started to see we were seriously sticking together, they started to accept our overtures of friendship, and they actually turned up at our wedding, albeit at the last moment and stayed only briefly.
They struggled with the idea that they were grandparents to children who might not have been fathered by their sons. But I could see they were trying to open their minds and hearts and accept us.
“Today is technically our anniversary.” Noah’s words were completely without emotion, just as if he were observing the weather.
“Technically?” I replied.
“Like, we married six years ago. This, dearest wife, is our wedding anniversary. And neither of us seem to care.”
Technically was the perfect way to describe it.
We wanted a marriage in place, just in case the worst should happen, and after debating it all, Noah was the right choice for my husband, just as he’d said from the start.
Noah and I married, officially, shortly after the twins’ birth. And we drew up contracts to guarantee the rights and duties of the three other men. If Noah and I were tragically wiped out in a car crash or a speedboating accident, for example, we needed to know that the children would be okay and the other fathers would have custody.
Noah also formalized the structure of his business, making us all shareholders. He farmed out bits of lucrative work to us from time to time, so we all felt like we contributed and had a stake in his business. We weren’t just reaping the benefits of living with a rich benefactor.
“Our real anniversary is seven years ago,” Noah continued. “I guess on that night we all came together.”
“Wouldn’t that be more of our first date?” Brandon wondered aloud.
“Nah, we’d dated before that. Since we can’t be collectively married, we may as well go with when we made the vow to one another.”
“Sounds right to me,” I said. “And that was when I realized this madness just might work. Where it did or didn’t, I knew I needed all of you.”
“The day we came out of the closet.” Ryan pushed himself up and stretched out.
I giggled.
Even though he wasn’t an active teenage athlete anymore, Ryan still worked out and kept himself in magazine-model shape, just like his brother. And I wondered how much sibling rivalry continued to drive them.