The Proposal

by Kitty Thomas

  “We never intended for you or anyone else to find out about this because we know most people wouldn't understand or approve. And the last thing we would ever want to do is cause Livia any pain or harm,” Griffin says.

  My gaze shifts to Soren, wondering if what Griffin says is true and if Soren agrees with it. Obviously he does enjoy causing me pain, but maybe not harm.

  My mother shakes her head. “I just don't understand how this happened. Livia, I don't understand why you couldn't just have a nice traditional marriage like your father and I have.”

  Dayne speaks again. “Actually, polyandry is quite traditional. At least it was with my ancestors. The church had a hell of a time getting the Celtic tribes to stop doing it.”

  “Poly what?”

  “It means one woman with multiple husbands,” Soren says. “And while it may not provide very much comfort. Dayne is right. There was a time and place when normal respectable ethical society was just fine with the kind of relationship we have. It's not some new modern weird alternative lifestyle. We don't expect you to like it. We just need you not to try to break it.”

  Except that we are in some new modern weird alternative lifestyle. But my mother doesn't need to know that.

  “And are you in relationships with other women? If she gets three men... then...”

  “No,” Soren says. “It's only Livia. And it will only be Livia.”

  “I just don't understand...” she says, still at a loss. “Aren't you jealous of each other?”

  “No,” Dayne says. “We're a unit. It's not as though Livia is going to choose one of us and dump the others.”

  Yes, because I can't. But I definitely won't be sharing that informational nugget with my mother. And honestly after the honeymoon I'm not sure I would ever want to pick one or leave any. Somehow in the space of a week I no longer understand why I resisted this.

  Soren speaks again. “Judith, we don't expect you to understand. It's very unconventional, and to you it might feel unstable and insecure, or even dangerous. We just want you to know that we love your daughter and we will take care of her. She is safe. She is loved. She is provided for. All the contracts protect her financially should one of us be crazy enough to abandon her.” He's looking at me while he says this.

  Is all of that really true? Is this the only way he can say these words to me?

  “Mom, you can't tell anyone, okay?”

  My mother laughs bitterly. “Are you kidding? Your father would have a heart attack, then he'd rise from the grave and kill the three of them in their sleep. No, I won't tell anyone. Soren is right, no good can come of it. But when children come, you know eventually it might slip out. Kids won't understand why they can't talk about this.”

  “We'll deal with that when the time comes,” Soren says. “By that point we'll have all been together long enough that more people will be willing to give us a chance because they'll see how long it's already worked.”

  “I need to go talk to Macy,” I say. “Will you be okay if I...?”

  “Go,” my mother says. “I want to hear from them how this all came about.”

  I'm sure they're going to give her a very edited version of the facts, but I'm grateful to get away from the table and out of Soren's giant house which suddenly feels stifling and small.

  I find Macy locked in the passenger side of my mother's car, bawling her eyes out. I knock on the window.

  “Go away!” Even with the glass between us muffling her voice, I can still hear her clearly.

  “Please, Macy, we need to talk.” Suddenly I wish at least one of the guys was with me, though probably not Griffin.

  Finally she rolls her window down. “You knew I liked Griffin! I can't believe you would cheat on Soren! He loves you! What? One rich perfect gorgeous man wasn't enough for you?”

  Oh. Yeah. Macy still thinks she walked in on cheating.

  “I'm not cheating on Soren. I'm with all three of them.”

  “All three? Who's the third one?”

  I forgot she didn't see Dayne.

  “Dayne,” I say.

  “So you're basically fucking the entire wedding party? Fabulous. Don't save any good guys for anybody else, Livia, it's fine. It's not like the dating pool isn't totally fucked up for all of us as it is,” she says sarcastically.

  I go around to the driver's side and knock on the window. She grudgingly unlocks the door, and I slip inside. The keys are in the ignition, and the AC is running on full blast.

  “Are you going to tell anyone?” I ask. “You know people won't understand. And it would kill my father.”

  She looks away out the window again. “Liv, we've been best friends since we were five, since the day in kindergarten when you yelled at the kids who were bullying me and invited me to sit at your table for lunch. You know I'm not going to say anything. You know I have your back.”

  I bite my bottom lip and look out my own window. I can't tell my mother the real truth, but maybe I can tell Macy? I wonder if the risk is too great to have a single confidant outside of my official arrangement.

  I risk it because Macy could already destroy everything if she wanted. She's seen too much and knows too much and already has the power, but I know she won't because she's still that little girl I rescued when we were five.

  “I didn't intend on being with three men. You know how things were after I broke up with Robbie? How depressed I was because guys could just string women along and keep them as girlfriends, even live-in girlfriends without really giving them a life or commitment or any protection or security?”

  Macy nods, turning more fully toward me. She's stopped crying at least. It's as if she knows I'm about to drop something big on her.

  “Well, I discovered a way to stop them from doing that. My plan was to date multiple men casually while getting to know them well and seeing who was the most compatible and who was willing to offer me marriage. That way I wouldn't get overly invested in the wrong man or waste a lot of time on someone who couldn't give me what I wanted and was just stringing me along and playing with my heart. It put the power back in my hands. The plan was to end up with one man. The right man.”

  Macy just stares at me like I'm a complete stranger, which makes me feel more than a little defensive.

  “Men date like this all the time! You know how it is... the confirmed bachelor playboy who plays the field indefinitely until he randomly decides to settle down, taking his sweet time about it. I was doing the same thing. Except I wasn't sleeping with them. I was getting wined and dined. You know this is fair.”

  “But you ended up settling down with three.” She practically shrieks that last word at me.

  “Not by my choice,” I say.

  Her eyes widen. “What do you mean by that? How is it not by your choice? Did someone make you get together this way with three men?”

  “Soren did. I was dating all three of them, and they found out about each other. It turns out they already knew each other. Fraternity brothers, if you can believe it. I mean I knew it was a small world at the top but... wow it really is. They decided they were sharing me, and if I said no, Soren said he would... Macy he knows about spring break.”

  Macy's eyes grow huge, and I know she knows exactly which spring break I mean. It wasn't like we were disposing of bodies every year in our free time. “H-how could he know about that?”

  “I don't know. He had an investigator look into me... and... I have no idea how he could have found out. I've tried and tried to piece it together, but I can't. Somehow he did. He's smart. There must have been some tiny odd thing that sent him down a rabbit hole. I don't know. But he said if I didn't marry them, he'd destroy both of us.”

  I can see she's deeply conflicted. Her anger has shifted from me hogging all the men in the world to Soren. I know she wants to kill him, or report him to the police, or something.

  “We have to find a way to get you away from him, away from them. There has to be a way...”

  I shake my head. �
�Don't, Macy.” I take a deep breath. “I think I want this now—the three of them.” This may be the first time I've admitted this to myself. Hearing it out loud is strange and unsettling.

  “How? He's such a... monster.” Her face is horrified, filled with a new kind of judgment.

  “Just don't, okay? He's meeting my needs. They all are.”

  I don't have to say anything else because Macy and I have had big long talks about deep dark twisted fantasies. Over boxes of wine. Over margaritas. During late night slumber parties through the years.

  “Oh.” It's all she can say. And I can tell she's struggling between the absolute evil of Soren's behavior and the fact that it's meeting my needs.

  “I don't understand how this is going to work,” she says.

  “That's what my mother said.”

  “Your mom knows?”

  “Not what you do, not that this arrangement wasn't my choice. I'd rather she think I'm a slutty nymphomaniac than a hostage.”

  “Do you think they'd ever let you go?”

  I shake my head. “No.” I glance up at the tower on one side of the house—the one Soren threatened to lock me in if I tried to escape him. I still think he'd do it, and I wish I could be more angry and indignant about it. I wish I could hate him, hate them. The truth is, I want to be in their cage. It feels oddly secure.

  I can see how torn my friend is. I've felt all those same feelings. I know her well enough to know there's a part of her that wants to rescue me, a part of her that wants to be happy for me, and a part of her that might be a tiny bit jealous, then a giant part of her that feels crazy for everything but the rescue part. All these feelings play across her face in quick repeating succession until I'm afraid she'll short circuit or something.

  Finally she sighs. “Even if you weren't a hostage, how could this work? How can it last? This isn't realistic.”

  “Well, Dayne appears to be a history buff who knows all about how his ancestors supposedly made it work, so maybe he's got the recipe to the secret sauce stashed away somewhere.”

  Macy leans her head back against the head rest, looking up at the interior roof of the car. “Fuck. Don't hate me Liv, but part of me doesn't care if you're a hostage. Look at them. They're gorgeous and successful. I'm not going to lie, I'm totally jealous. I'd take that cage, too.”

  Is she actually teasing me about this? We might survive after all. I'll just have to remember to lock the front door.

  “I'm willing to teach my dating methods for the low low price of your silence,” I say.

  She laughs, and that's when I know we're going to be okay. She won't tell my secrets, and she won't judge me. Deep down I think I already knew this.

  “How big was your crush on Griffin?” I ask, still feeling bad that she'd hoped to get together with him.

  Macy sighs. “I really liked him, and it hurt me when I saw you kissing him, but I mean it's not like we dated or anything. I just thought he was hot. I thought I could have the fairy tale like you.”

  This admission crushes me. If anybody deserves the fairy tale it's Macy with her adorable auburn hair and freckles and all her historical wedding facts.

  “It's the dimple isn't it?” I say.

  “God, yes, the dimple kills me. But he did say he had a girlfriend at the reception, so it isn't like he led me on or anything. Wait... he doesn't have a girlfriend, right? Like, someone besides you?”

  I shake my head. “He doesn't have a girlfriend.”

  We sit in almost comfortable silence for several minutes until I finally say, “Macy?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Thanks.”

  “For what?”

  “For being someone I could share this with. You don't know how big of a relief it is to have someone else who knows the truth.”

  We spend the next hour or so talking in more detail about how all of this came about. She's heard all about Soren but she'd missed out on the stuff about Griffin and Dayne and how I met them. I jump when someone knocks on the driver's side window.

  “You're in my seat.”

  I look up to find my mother standing there. I open the door and get out.

  “We're going to head back,” my mom says. “Is Macy okay, now?”

  “Yeah. We talked it out. Are we okay?”

  “Why wouldn't we be okay? You're a grown adult, and I already liked Soren. Griffin and Dayne are working on winning me over. No promises that I'm ever going to be even a little okay with this, but we'll see. I'm willing to keep an open mind.”

  “And a secret?” I ask.

  “And a secret,” she confirms.

  She gives me a hug and gets back into the car. I'm glad to see that at least her color is back to normal.

  “Oh wait, Mom, what were you coming over for?”

  She laughs. “We were just going to the spa for mani-pedis and wanted to know if you wanted to come along, but we'll do it another time. I think we all have a lot to process, and you've still got unpacking to do.”

  I watch them pull out of the driveway filled with the same worries they are, wondering if this can possibly last long term or if it's just a dream that must someday end in tragedy.

  30

  Soren

  Heirs

  New Year's Day. Eight years in the future.

  We're all at my parents' house for our annual New Year's Day tradition. Except there hasn't been much football today. My parents, along with Dayne, Griffin, and I are out helping Dayne's seven-year-old twin boys build a snow man. Griffin's little boy, age five, sits on a sled watching us work, gripping pieces of coal and a carrot in his gloved hands. He's waiting to do the fun easy part, letting us do all the work. He's figured this shit out.

  Livia watches us from the glassed-in sun room where she's nursing my six-month-old little girl, Lily—named for my mother. At first Dayne and Griff gave me shit for thinking of myself as the leader but not having the strongest swimmers after all—until it looked like we wouldn't be able to conceive.

  We didn't understand it. Livia was obviously able to have kids, and all my tests had come back good. We ran all the tests again and everything was fine. The doctor had joked that maybe my sperm got stage fright. Maybe they suffered from performance anxiety. Or maybe Livia's body saw them as invaders and was killing them on sight. It does happen.

  Though it seemed unlikely since it didn't happen with Dayne or Griff. Maybe her body was simply rejecting me. Because of what I'd done. After all, it was me who decided we were going to share her—her wishes and needs be damned. It was me who decided to bring Dayne in. It was me who decided I'd find a way to force her hand so she couldn't say no to our proposal—because I couldn't stand the thought that she might say no, or worse, choose Griffin over me. So it would only be right if it was me who couldn't have a child with her—some kind of cosmic punishment balancing the scale and ending my genetic line on this plane of existence forever.

  But I guess karma decided a more fitting punishment would be to give me a daughter—someone vulnerable I have to find some way to protect from men like me. I agree with the universe, it is the more fitting punishment. I worry about her and the men she'll date all the time, and she's still many years away from dating. Hell, she's still many years from her first day of school.

  I understand with a whole new clarity and respect why Harold was so cold that Christmas Eve when he found out his baby girl was getting married to someone like me.

  If some man walks into my house and snidely announces he's marrying my daughter, I might have to bury him in the backyard.

  The snowman is done. Little Cade is wobbling in his layers of clothes to our creation with the coal and carrot to give the snowman a face.

  One of the twins, Weston—we call him West, what seven-year-old is called Weston—puts a hat and a scarf on him. And the other twin, Eric, adds some coal buttons to his front. Cade claps delightedly at this frozen miracle we've created.

  “Okay, now boys, it's time to bake and decorate Christmas cookies
,” my mother says in an excited tone, shooing them into the house.

  My parents know the boys aren't mine. Early on they didn't, and so they didn't initially know about the struggle Livia and I had to have a child of our own—we'd had to keep that pain secret. But soon after the twins were born we realized the logistical nightmare we'd taken on. It wasn't fair for the boys not to know their other biological grandparents. And when Cade came, the same became true for him.

  We waited until the last possible second to tell my parents the truth, but they took it better than anyone else. They love Griffin and Dayne. I think they always wanted more children, and a part of them adopted my friends the moment they met them.

  The rest of Livia's family did end up finding out. Her mother was right, kids talk, and it was impossible for them to understand why they couldn't talk about their family. And it was unfair to them. Livia's father did not in fact have a heart attack. He's tougher than they all thought. But he hates us guys—me especially—and no doubt spends large portions of his time planning our grisly deaths.

  So far no scandals have rocked our businesses.

  We spend Thanksgiving each year with Griffin's family, Christmas Eve with Livia's, Christmas Day with Dayne's, and New Year's Eve and New Year's Day with mine. These kids basically get four different Christmases. And I know Lily will be the most spoiled because she's the only little girl. I can tell my mother is lying in wait to start the Disney Princess indoctrination as soon as Lily can focus long enough to absorb it.

  Instead of going into the house through the kitchen with everyone else, I enter through the sun room. I bend down to kiss Livia. She looks tired, and even though I'd love to have more kids, I honored the contract and didn't argue with her about getting her tubes tied.

  “You want to hold her, Daddy?” she says. “She's all full of milk and content and snoring.”

  I chuckle and gather up the bundle of fat baby in my arms and sit in the rocking chair across from Livia.