Chapter 147

February 15, 2018

Dear Ms. Diary,

We brought Civia and Maren home with us after the pitch session and split into duos, except for Brett, for the shower, with Civia showing Maren the ropes. Having never played team sports, particularly team sports at a serious level, Maren was uncomfortable with showering with all of us, so Civia took her to the shower in the bedroom on the 1^st floor. Brett showered and dressed in one of the 2^nd-floor bedrooms.

The two younger girls joined us in the basement bedroom to dress for tonight’s dinner. Despite the two having dressed upstairs, Maren was a bit pink when she saw some of us with little or nothing on. Civia let a cat at least partially out of the bag.

“When I began playing soccer, we didn’t have showers at all, but last year, we did. I really didn’t like that at first, but I got used to it. Then I began hanging out with these girls. They were so used to it that they regularly showered at home in groups and developed a buddy-wash system. If you get more comfortable with ... showering with me or with all of us and you want to try that, we can do that.”

Maren looked at Civia for a few seconds, then replied, “I’ll see.”

We dressed in comfortable clothes, then headed to the W to join Carol to help with cooking. We were making a Brazilian fish stew and Carol already had the huge pot on two of the burners on the large stove heating up the fish stock. She was cutting up tilapia that she’d gotten from the grocery store on her way home. The recipe called for a variety of spices, and Rhee took on the tasks of converting the amounts of each from a recipe that feeds four to one that can feed the horde expected for the first of our expanded Thursday-night get-togethers, which, if Mom were home, would be for 18. Of course, just to make the conversions easier, and to allow for larger appetites, she simply quintupled everything, with Kim as her primary assistant, although Rhee could shanghai any of us to help in what would be a time-consuming effort.

The recipe called for ripe Bell peppers, but most of us prefer things like poblanos, so Carol had brought home some lovely-looking red ones. I chopped onions while Civia chopped peppers and garlic with Maren’s help. In a relatively short time, we had all ingredients added to the stock, Carol turned the burners down a bit, and we began setting the table for what would be a comfortably snug 17 diners.

When Dad got home, he immediately showered and came out wearing shorts and an untucked casual button-down with the top two and bottom two buttons unbuttoned. He stepped over to Carol, who was fretting overly much over the big pot, pulled her away from the stove, leaned her well over with her side to him like dipping his dance partner, and kissed her for 15 or 20 seconds.

Civia and Maren giggled and some of us smiled.

Dad stood her upright, hugged her tightly for a few seconds, then repeated the effort with Inez.

After releasing her from the hug, he said, “I love arriving home to my beautiful wife Carol; one of my other beautiful wives, Inez; and a small host of my daughters and daughter-like friends of the family. Are we expecting Andy to make it?”

Celeste answered, “Yes, although she might arrive shortly after our guests do.”

“Good. Before they arrive, I want to tell you all how much you enliven our lives, making what was formerly a bit of an empty house that had three residents knocking around in it. The excitement, the fun you all bring to this domicile is more than worth the huge cost of feeding all of you.”

There was much chuckling, and Meka stepped over and hugged him, then gave him a peck on the lips. I heard Civia inhale at that, but we had decided to show her a little bit more of how the family worked, although that little bit more would not include anything sexual. Obviously, Civia having seen the displays of Dad with two of the mothers would highlight the differences between the two sorts of kisses.

One by one, we girls each got a hug from Dad, although Celeste was the only other girl that gave him a peck on the lips. Since I was watching Civia at the time, I saw her give a small shrug as she stepped over to give Dad a hug. She did not give him a peck on the lips. I was surprised to see Maren follow Civia to Dad.

She looked up at him and said, “It seems you’re all very huggy and even the girls that aren’t your ... daughters – hug you. Civia explained to me that this family makes little distinction between actual daughters and what she called quasi-adopted daughters. It seems like I’ll be spending some time here. I’ve had poor luck with fathers, but all the girls seem to like you a lot, so I’m willing to take a chance on you being a good father, not an angry father or a silent, unhappy father. Civia vouches strongly for you, so I thought I’d ask you if it would be okay for me to hug you, too.”

“Maren, I’d be honored.” As a small smile appeared on his face, he added, “Besides, it would make my life easier than having to remember who’s allowed to hug me and who’s not.”

Maren grinned at him, then tentatively walked into his arms. He gave her a brief hug that did not include much body-to-body contact.

Civia remonstrated, “Charlie-Dad! That was a poor hug. You hugged me better than that the first time we hugged. Do it again and do it better!”

“Yes, Ma’am. I hear and obey, Ma’am!” To much chuckling, he turned back to Maren and asked, “Despite that Civia does run the household occasionally, this is your decision. Do you want a ‘better hug?’ [air quotes]”

When she nodded and stepped briskly back into him, he gave her a good hug.

Everyone helped with post-dinner clean-up, and it was done in nearly no time, after which we retired to the living room. We brought chairs in from the kitchen so that we didn’t have to use the Monstrosity for seating.

We had been gabbing for ten minutes or so when Kalina said, “I don’t want the enjoyment of the evening to come to an end because of the question I want to ask. If that question is too personal, please just say so, and we’ll carry on as if I hadn’t asked it. However, I’m hoping that you’ll answer it seriously, although I do not intend the question as too dramatically serious.”

Carol replied, “While we, like any family, have secrets, we don’t have many. We’ve come to love your daughter as our own and greatly enjoy her presence here. Your question would have to be very personal for us to be unwilling to answer it, so, please, just ask, and we’ll endeavor to answer it as best we can.”

Kalina responded, “I suspect you suspect the direction of my question, so here goes. Jeff and I have known about your plural marriage for a while, and Civia has kept us informed of ... recent changes in it, specifically that Inez is now part of it. Civia greatly enjoys your family, as do Jeff and I. I don’t want to delve into details, particularly with younger ears present, but I’ve wondered how you make such a marriage work.”

Carol smiled at Kalina, glanced at her spouses present, then began answering.

“I suspect that it’s not all that different from making a marriage of only two people work. Unfortunately, you and Jeff have more experience at that than do I, as my first marriage was crumbling well before Rhee turned 12. My first marriage didn’t work, but I did learn some valuable lessons from it, the most important ... at least, the lesson that seems most important to me is that no one person in a successful marriage can be the only one that gives. Each member of the marriage, whether there are two, three, or four must balance giving and taking. No single member of the marriage can always get what she or he wants and learning how to compromise in a sane manner may be the single most important aspect of a successful marriage.

“Obviously, compromising for two should be easier than compromising for three or four. However, successful compromises depend on all parties wanting to make the marriage work, with nothing else mattering as much as that and that’s something we have. We each love the others, and we talk a lot about where we’re going, what we’re doing, and even how we’re doing it. Fortunately, we’ve had very little real dissension. Although the failure of Inez’s marriage was hastened by something other than dissension, the existing unsolved dissension predating that something other certainly did not help.”

When she turned to Inez, most of the rest of us did, too, so saw Inez’s emphatic head nod.

“After that, if all partners, no matter how many, truly want the marriage to work, and this is probably most true for plural marriages as most or all probably have only a single male, they’ll work very hard at making the marriage work. There’s simply no way to have anything of true value without putting in the hard work required, and marriages require multiple people, whether two or three or whatever number, all to put in that hard work, and it seems that many individuals are unwilling to do so.”