3 Is a Magic Number Ch. 14

"Absolutely not!" I tried to sound as matter-of-fact as I could.

"I love you, Jack." It was her little girl voice.

"Do you want to have an abortion?" I had to know.

"N-N-No!" I put my hand under her chin, and raised it so that I could look directly into her eyes.

"Then let's hear no more about it. We are going to have a beautiful, healthy baby, and we will raise it together."

"I think you should consider every option," Julia said bluntly. "I'm sure that when Jack and I have kids it will be planned ahead of time."

"You said when." This was the first time since I entered the room that my sister's voice had sounded normal.

"What do you mean?" Julia asked, defensively. I know exactly what she meant.

"You said 'when' you and Jack have kids, not 'if' you and Jack have kids." Julia looked confused for a second, and then she looked a little pissed.

"So does you being pregnant put an end to our polyamorous arrangement? Am I out on my ass, just like that because you are knocked up?" Julia's eyes blazed with anger. A lot hinged on my sister's answer; both for Julia, and for me.

"No. No, not at all; I just meant that you were always saying how you were never sure that you would want kids, and how kids would keep you from having a career. Now you say it so matter-of-factly, like it's a foregone conclusion that you will have kids; I guess I was just surprised by your change of heart."

"I guess finding the right man can change how you look at things." Julia smiled beatifically, and Katie joined her. Now that the bomb in the room was defused, I needed to know something.

"So how did there get to be a soldier involved in this?" Katie's grin melted, and Julia's morphed into a crooked smirk.

"Well," Katie started, "I couldn't tell her who the father really was, so I made up a one night stand that they could never find. Who better than a National Guard soldier who could be from god knows where?" Her smile returned.

"Would you rather that I would have told the truth, so that dad could have kicked your ass into the middle of next year?"

"No," I said, which got a hardy laugh from both Julia and my sister.

"So what happens now, Kay?" I would have thought that Julia and my sister would have talked about this, but I guess that Katie had been keeping her own council on this matter.

"I'll start college, and go the first semester," Katie said. "I'll take the next semester off to have the baby, and then I can resume school afterwards. We can all three live together in an apartment off campus, and we can raise the baby. Yeah, it is a deviation from the plan that we had, but it is something that we will have to deal with. If either of you two have any objections to this, you don't have to speak them now, but we all need to be on the same page before school starts." I looked at Julia, who was looking back at me. I think she was trying to gauge my opinion on the matter.

"I don't have a problem with that," Julia said, "but I think that you might find school a lot more challenging when you have a tiny baby to take care of. I will help, of course. We will be sister-wives, after all."

"Sister what?" I asked, dumbfounded.

"Sister-wives," Katie said, flatly. "I keep forgetting that you don't watch much T.V. It is a term that polygamists use to describe the relationship that the wives have to each other. Of course, Julia and my relationship will be much deeper, since we not only share a husband, but also each other. It's not totally accurate, but it's the best thing that we have come up with, so far."

"So, it's settled?" I asked, looking first at one sister-wife, and then at the other. They both nodded in the affirmative. I welcomed Julia into our hug.

"We're like the three fucking musketeers," Julia quipped, "only without the muskets, and a whole lot more fucking." All three of us laughed as held one another.

The winds of change were coming; whether the change would be for the good, or for the bad, I couldn't know. The problem with wind is that it can't be stopped, because it is a force of nature. The wind can cool your face on a hot summer day, or it can blow your house down, or erode the pyramids. Only time will tell what this wind will hold.

*****

Author's Note: Thanks for reading everyone. Every opinion is a valid one. Please feel free to comment, or to send me a message with your emails. I try to email back as soon as life allows. I take suggestions. The only suggestion that I definitely won't do is to have the parents join in. This is a story about the 3, not the 5 or 6. I am rewriting the END of the story now, and I would enjoy some input from you guys.