My mom and dad had a girlfriend named Gwen. They had been with her for most of my life. Gwen lived in a cottage at the edge of our property line. In the summers, Gwen’s lover Janine moved in. Janine was not a poly so her relationship with my parents was strictly platonic. She was a teacher on the mainland but spent her summers with Gwen working on her short-story collection.

A few other lovers had come and gone, but the only other repeat offender was Vik. He kept a double-wide mobile home on the island’s northern tip and traveled a lot, but he occasionally shared my mother’s bed, and, when Janine was in the city, sometimes Gwen’s. (My dad and Vik were close friends but not romantically involved.)

The thing was, it worked for everyone but me. My parents and their partners really loved one another. They were caring and considerate of everyone’s feelings, warm and affectionate to us kids. My brothers had never known any different, so they loved Gwen, Janine, and Vik like stepparents. Or aunties and uncles. I was less enamored.

Perhaps it was because I was the eldest. I’d had loving, stable, normal parents until I was five. Then, they sat me down and told me things were about to change.

“You know how Mommy and Daddy love each other?” my mom began.

I nodded.

My dad picked it up. “We feel that we can love other people that way, too.”

“Like Grandma?” I asked.

They’d exchanged an amused look. “We love Grandma but not in that way,” my mom said. “We want to love other people in a mommy/daddy way.”

My father clarified. “When mommies and daddies are only allowed to love each other, that’s called monogamy. We feel that’s unnatural. It’s an outdated biblical construct that’s been perpetuated by conservative elements in modern society.”

I was five. Lost in their incomprehensible explanation, I had given them my blessing.

It wasn’t uncommon for couples to swap partners on the island. Locals called it the “Hawking Shuffle” or “the island way.” But this behavior was strictly sexual, a party favor even. My parents and their partners considered themselves a family. I didn’t realize it was weird to have three to five adults attend a recorder concert or a school play until the third grade. That’s when I noticed the whispers and sidelong glances of the other parents. That was the first time Evan Wilcox called me a hippie.

After my eighth-birthday party, when my guests’ parents came to retrieve them, our fate was sealed. They looked at our chickens and goats and the shelves full of my mom’s canning with a wary eye. They spotted Vik rubbing my mom’s shoulders while my dad, Gwen, and Janine served the birthday cake, and soon we were proclaimed a freaky free-love, hippie commune. I was mortified.

My parents were not ashamed of who they were. “We all love each other so much. It’s a beautiful thing,” my mom said.