'No, Mom, just explain to Mike. I'm still working my own issues on this one.' He moved until he was in front of Micah. 'We both felt so sorry for Dad, remember. We were so mad at Mom for leaving him for the professor here, and all the time they were still seeing each other, still a couple.'

'That's not true,' Bea said. 'At first it was everything you thought it was. I loved Rush, but I couldn't live with him anymore. I met Ty while we were separated. Rush could have dated, too, but he chose not to.'

'He was waiting for you to come to your senses and come home, or let him come back home,' Micah said, and that edge of old resentment was suddenly very clear in his voice. Some issues stay fresh every time you open them up. It's like evil magical Tupperware it stays fresh forever.

'You are thirty years old, Micah David Callahan, too old to believe I can fix something that broke when you were twelve.'

Micah looked a little embarrassed but said, 'So did you cheat on Ty with Dad, or what?'

She looked back at Ty, and he moved up to take her hand again. 'She never stopped loving Rush, and by the time you left for good he was spending more time over here with us and the boys.'

'I remember Twain's fourth birthday party. I was so proud of all of you for being grown-up enough to give the younger kids such a family occasion.'

'Yeah,' Jerry said, 'but what you and I didn't know was that Dad was sleeping over.'

'That long ago?' Micah asked.

Jerry nodded.

'You want to tell this story?' Bea asked Jerry.

'Nope,' he said, and flopped down on the nearest couch.

'Then stop interrupting,' she said.

He spread his hands wide, as if to say, Sure, go ahead, I'm out of it.

She turned back to Micah and the rest of us. 'I didn't think I'd have quite this big an audience for the story.'

Bram said, 'We can wait in the kitchen if you like.'

'Thank you,' she said.

He and Ares went for the bar stools around the kitchen. Nicky and Dev looked at me. I nodded, and they went to join them. I didn't have the heart to tell Bea that with their more-than-human senses they'd hear everything she said anyway. Sometimes illusion is all the comfort you get for stories like this.

We all sat down on the nearly perfect square of couches. Ty and Bea were on one couch. The three of us sat on the couch opposite them. Jerry moved to the love seat that sat between them both. When we looked at him, he said, 'I want to see everyone's faces.'

'Jerry, this is not a show for your entertainment,' Ty said.

'I just want to see one of my siblings learn about all of this the way I did, that's all.'

'Beth knew sooner?' Micah asked.

'She was only twelve ten years ago. She lived with Mom. When I asked her after I found out why she hadn't told me, do you know what she said?'

'No,' Micah said.

'She liked having Dad here in the mornings and everyone having coffee together. She said it felt like home. You and I lost everything we thought was safe, but little sister got a second bite at the apple.'

'I don't resent Beth and Dad being happy,' Micah said.

'I do,' Jerry said, 'because I was still on his side about the divorce, and all the time they were shacking up. He let me be all sympathetic and it was all a lie.'

'It wasn't a lie,' Ty said.

'Well, it wasn't the truth either,' Jerry said.

Ty didn't have an answer for that.

Bea tried. 'You have Anita and Nathaniel in your life, and I have Ty and Rush in mine.'

'I only have one wife, not two,' Jerry said.

'You barely have enough social skills for one,' Beth said, as she walked in from the hallway. She looked at Bea. 'I've got Twain reading the kids a story.'

'Good,' Bea said.

Beth sat down on the love seat beside Jerry, and though she wouldn't have said it out loud the way he had, I was betting she wanted a good view, too.

Micah laid a hand on both our thighs and we automatically covered his hands with ours. 'Yes, they are both in my life,' he said, 'but it was that way from the moment I met them. We've always been a threesome, sometimes more.' I wasn't sure if he added that last bit of truth to shock, because two of the extra people were listening, or so that later no one could accuse him of leaving stuff out. It didn't matter; they ignored it. Maybe they felt that explaining themselves was enough for one day. I was all for waiting to try to explain the entirety of our love lives. I wasn't ashamed of what we were doing, but it was a lot to explain. One long story at a time; we still had to get dinner before heading back to the hospital. We'd save our romantic epic for another night.

'I loved Rush, but we couldn't live together. I fell in love with Ty, but I missed Rush.' She wrapped both her smaller hands around his one larger hand and smiled up at him. It was a look of love, but I thought it might have been more a reassurance to the man at her side. Maybe that was just me overthinking.

Bea looked at me and said, 'I know you understand what I'm talking about.'

What I wanted to say was, Don't drag me into this, but Micah squeezed my hand, which let me know not to say the first thing that came to mind. Prospective in-laws needed gentler handling than my usual. 'It wasn't exactly like that with Micah and Nathaniel.' In my head, I thought that was more like Jean-Claude and Richard, back when the latter was more in our lives, but since that hadn't worked out well, I kept my mouth shut again.

'I told you that Nathaniel and I came together with Anita at almost the same time. She knew Nathaniel before me, but they weren't a couple.'

Nathaniel leaned into Micah, smiling. 'I think if Micah hadn't come along, Anita and I would never have been a couple.'

'Why not?' Bea asked.

He glanced past Micah at me. I just gave him raised eyebrows, because I had no idea what he was going to say. He smiled wider. 'We work as a threesome. I'm not sure either of us would work with Anita as a regular couple.'

'That's it exactly,' Bea said, and she sounded relieved. 'Rush and I alone weren't enough for each other, but with Ty' she shrugged and gazed up at him 'we were.'

'And you were okay with that?' Jerry asked.

Ty looked at him. 'Bea and I were beginning to have problems, and I knew we loved each other, but something was missing.' He turned back to look at Bea, and his face glowed, the picture of a man who was still dead-gone on his wife. 'Rush helped us find that missing piece.'

Micah's hand tensed in mine, and I glanced at him. He looked stricken, or shocked. I wanted to ask what was wrong but couldn't in front of the parents. But Micah saved me the trouble, because he said it out loud. 'I understand that.' He turned and looked at Nathaniel, and whatever look was on his face made Nathaniel glow. I smiled at them both, my two men.

'Oh, for the love of God,' Jerry said.

We all looked at him. 'What's got your panties in a twist?' I asked.

'You guys are all looking at each other in the same damned way. It's the way Dad ... it's, fuck.'