Then—a click.
The door. Footsteps.
A voice I know better than my own:
“Dar, wanna get breakfast with the family? Why did you disappear without sayin’—”
Silence.
I freeze.
Avonna stills above me and pulls off Linus with a pop. Linus stops mid-grind.
“Liam?” Padraig’s voice tears through the living room.
Sharp. Confused.
Avonna scrambles off me and clutches a pillow to her breasts, giving me a clear line of vision to my twin brother standing in the doorway. My card key in hand.
Staring at the three of us. Mouth open. Eyes wide.
A bag of chips falls from his hand to the ground.
I’m still inside Linus. He and I don’t move. We’re frozen. Fused.
Only one thought resonates, louder than the blood pounding in my ears.
There’s no going back.
fifty
Avonna
Four Months Later
Seattle’sskyhangslowand heavy as we wind through Capitol Hill.
The streets are glassy from the lingering drizzle. Liam drives with one hand, the other rests over mine on my thigh. Linus sits in the back but leans forward between the front seats, fingers curled around the headrests with enough force to break them.
We’re silent as the car creeps toward the McGloughlin house.
I place my palm over the slight curve of my belly beneath my sweater. Four months. We haven’t told anyone. Not Padraig. Not Liam’s family. Not Linus’s either.
This time it’s the fear of what we can’t yet define. There’s no blueprint for raising a child in a trio, considering the circumstances. There’s a lot to figure out.
We have a doctor’s appointment tomorrow and an ultrasound. We’re not sure who our baby’s biological father is. Linus doesn’t want to find out. Liam agrees. Then they change their mind. Then change it again. I need to know and we’ve danced around the prenatal tests long enough, but had to finish Fireball’s tour in the midst of it all.
The truth is, despite all of us talking a big game, none of us has come to terms with the fact we’re actually going to be parents.
My dear friend Marcella’s text flashes across the my phone. Something about affidavits and coparenting forms. I silence it. We’ll deal with the legal stuff after we get through tomorrow.
It’s crazy to believe I used to be the hostess at her family’s restaurant and now she’s helping us figure out how to legally protect my polygamous family. None of us expected it to be so…challenging. Linus and I are legally married. We both want Liam to be in our marriage with us. Add in triad parenting? We’re suddenly juggling guardianship clauses, hospital access forms, power-of-attorney triggers, custody frameworks.
We thought the toughest part would be coming out of hiding. Turns out, no. We also have to protect our chosen life and the parental rights for our baby. There’s little precedent and a lot of potential pitfalls.
It’s strange how something so tender, so intimate, can start to feel like a grind. We try to remind ourselves every form and every contract is a promise. A safeguard. A modern family. We’re in this. All the way.
I glance at Liam. He hasn’t slept much. None of us has. Stepping out of the shadows has been wonderful on one hand, disheartening on the other. In Albuquerque, the threeof us went out for dinner. We held hands. I kissed my men. Stupid. The hostess’s face pinched like she was looking at animals out of their cage. The waitstaff all stared like we were zoo animals.
