Polly’s leg bounces up and down with nervous anticipation as we wait in the brightly-lit hallway of the hospital’s oncology wing. Clyde is inside having another scan. Her hand is balled tightly around the wad of tissues she’s been using to dry her watery eyes.

Madden is pacing, wall to wall to wall. He won’t sit still. His non-stop movement is making everyone nervous but he can’t seem to control himself. Ben is next to me, knees wide apart, head dropped down, completely silent. He still isn’t talking. I wrap my arm around his back and lean my chin on his shoulder just to let him know that I’m here if he needs me.

“Why is it taking so fucking long?” Madden scrubs his hand over his scalp as he stomps around restlessly. He glances up at the clock on the wall. “It shouldn’t take so fucking long.”

Still, Ben doesn’t move an inch. His silence is driving me crazy, getting under my skin.

I find myself rambling to fill the quiet. “I’m sure that everything is fine,” I say, even though I’m not sure at all.

Polly’s eyes meet mine. “You think so?” she asks expectantly. “You’re a doctor. His chances are good right? He’s gonna be okay?” She’s so vulnerable and she just needs all the reassurance she can get.

I smile at her. “Of course he’ll be okay—”

At that, Ben surges up out of his seat.

"You don't know that, Angie! None of us know anything." He turns to his mother. "You have to be prepared for the worst. You can't let it take you by surprise like the last time. With dad, we weren't ready. This time, we have to be."

Polly shivers at her son's frigid, detached tone. “Don’t you talk like that!” she cries sternly.

“I just don’t want you getting your hopes up,” he says in defense.

His mother rises up out of her chair. “That’s my husband in there!” She jabs a finger in the direction of the room where Clyde is being scanned. “It’s my job to keep my hopes up for him. I’m the one who’s going to have to pull him through this. When he’s too weak to fight, I’m going to have to be his strength. So it’s your job to keep my fucking hopes up!”

The silence in the room is so charged that it crackles. Ben hangs his head and drops back into his chair, delivering a grumbled, “I’m sorry.”

Polly eyes him sharply. “You need to be apologizing to Angela. You still don’t seem to get it.” The woman blots her eyes with her tissues. “Love is fragile and fleeting. You’ve got to cherish it. You’ve got to preserve it. You don’t ever dare disrespect it because it hurts like hell when you lose it.” She drops into her seat. “Some people are lucky enough to have one true love in their lifetime…Me? I’ve had the misfortune of having two.”

Confusion invades my mind. “The misfortune?” I question quietly.

“The more love you get, the more opportunity you have to lose it.” Her words are tangled with grief. She closes her eyes and runs her tongue along the seam of her lips. “I’ve had two loves. And once upon a time, I thought I was the luckiest woman alive because I had them both at the same time…”

My confusion deepens. “Both at the same time? You loved them both at the same time?” It’s nearly impossible to imagine a woman like Polly in the middle of a love triangle. But that’s what her words seem to indicate.

The smile that covers her lips is both rueful and wry. “Oh honey, the three of us loved each other in every sense of the word.”

Ben’s head shoots up. Madden’s pacing halts and he pins his mother with a glare. “Mom, what the hell are you talking about?”

She hesitates, seeming to regret her words. Then, she heaves a breath. “Well, I guess that now is as good a time as any to tell you all the truth…Clyde was more than just your father's best friend. In fact he was more than a friend to both of us.”

A loud, wheezing sound accompanies my harsh intake of air. Next to me, Ben’s whole body goes rigid. Madden braces himself with a hand on the wall.

My voice comes out as a squeak. “Like…like a reverse harem?”

Polly’s cheeks are flaming red. “Well, I don’t think they call it a reverse harem when there’s only two men involved. I think that ménage might be the more appropriate term.”

The questions just keep pouring out of me. “So sort of like MFM?” I ask innocently as I try to make sense of this new information.

“Actually, more like MMF most days, to be honest. Don’t get me wrong—they treated me like a queen but those two big, strapping men had a hell of an appetite for each oth—”

“Mom!” Madden grits out, completely horrified. If his stare goes any wider, his eyeballs will come rolling out of their sockets.

Polly waves a hand in the air, shooing our condemnatory energy away. “Oh stop it with your judgmental stares. What can I say? It was free love. We were trying to keep the 70s alive."

"I don't need to hear this," Ben roars as he lifts out of his seat again.

The woman watches her son with a cocked brow. "Well, I know the two of you would like to hold onto your image of me being as pure as the freshly-fallen snow but sorry to inform you that I busted free of my chastity belt a long time ago. That’s how the two of you got here, in case you didn’t know." 

Ben’s features are crumpled with revulsion. “I need some fucking air,” he announces as he heads off toward the stairs. His body radiates pure rage.

“Ben—I wait,” I call after him. He doesn’t even slow down.

I run after him, taking the stairs, two by two.