“Okay. Aunt Zoey, Uncle Arlo, and I have a good secret, but someone like Mommy would want to use it in a bad way.”
She frowns. “Like what?”
“Like on that video. Mommy could try to get us fired. She might try to lie to the judge to take you away from me.”
Confusion fills her face. “What is it?”
Terror fills me but I don’t want to live a lie. I just dinged her mother for the whopper of all lies, and eventually, when the truth comes out about us, Katie won’t trust us if we’ve been hiding this from her. “I love Aunt Zoey and Uncle Arlo, and they love me.”
She looks…relieved? “Oh, I know. Aunt Zoey told me.”
Both me and Arlo look at Zoey, who looks confused. “She did?” I ask.
“The day Mommy had the business trip and Aunt Zoey picked me up. She told me she loves you.”
That’s a face-palm look if I’ve ever seen one. “Not likethat,” Zoey clarifies. “Katie told me she saw you and Arlo kiss and I sort of…diverted her with the basic truth.”
“Oh.” I focus on Katie again. “You know how Aunt Zoey and Uncle Arlo are married?”
“Yeah?”
I twist the ring off my right hand and put it on my left, where it really belongs. She watches me do it. “They gave me this ring, because they love me like they love each other. Uncle Arlo and I have been in love since we were Lucas and Caine’s ages. But I was scared of what people would think. Eventually, Uncle Arlo met Aunt Zoey and married her, and I married Mommy.”
At the mention of her mother, Katie scowls. “Mommy lied about you.”
“Yeah. And, as you know, it didn’t work out with me and Mommy. But a lot of people would think it’s…wrong for me to be with Aunt Zoey and Uncle Arlo.”
“Why?”
Zoey snorts but doesn’t interrupt.
“Because a lot of people don’t understand you can love more than one person, and that it’s okay. You know how some people have a lot of kids, but they love all of them?”
She nods.
“Well, sometimes the reverse is true. Some kids have more than two parents.”
Her eyes widen as she gasps. “Are Aunt Zoey and Uncle Arlo my stepmom and stepdad now?”
I smile. “Pretty much, yeah.But,” I quickly add, “it’s okay if you want to tell people they’relikeyour stepmom and stepdad. The part you need to keep a family secret is that we’re sort of married to each other.”
“Why?”
Why, indeed. “Fornow,” I clarify, “it’s better if you don’t tell people. Once you’re older, and we know Mommy won’t try to tell more lies about us, then it won’t matter.”
She slowly nods. “You’re their husband?”
“Kind of. Yeah. Not legally, because the law is stupid.”
Back to a scowl. “It’s illegal?”
“Not the way we’re doing it,” I clarify. “There’s no law against me wearing a ring and calling ourselves married. But the law only lets two people legally get married. If I tried to legally marry one of them while they’re married to each other, that would be illegal.”
From there we end up straying into the weeds with a very basic discussion about what poly is, why some people are stupid, and what’s okay to tell people about us.
Lucas even tells her that Caine is his boyfriend, and we get into why that’s the good kind of secret to keep, because Caine could possibly be hurt if the secret came out.
Lucas also tells Katie about his dad throwing him out, which makes her frown and climb into his lap to hug him.
