Mary and I

Mary and I spent a lot of time together in 1978. I drove her to work every morning. At the time Lenny and Mary were married. I would get up very early in the morning, drive to their house, pick Mary up and drive to her job.

One morning I over slept. I heard her say in my head, “Sam, are you awake?” I woke up and looked at the clock. Mary later said she was thinking that at just that moment. We were connected that way. I used to tell her we had that thing that’s called Radar Love. She could think about me, and I could hear her thoughts. I woke up in time to get to her and get her to work on time.

Mary and I went on both day and multi-day trips together. Our spouses watched the kids. Our favorite place to go for a getaway was the coast. On one such trip we barely escaped a head on collision with an oncoming car. I pulled over to the side of the road. We hugged each other. We cried, then we ended up laughing about how hard it would have been for our spouses to explain our deaths together to family and friends.

Since our spouses were siblings, Mary and I were also each other’s marriage counselors. Mary was both my wife Cindy and my best friend as well as our lover. Mary was able to give Cindy and I insights on each other without breaking any confidences.

Mary said the reason Cindy and I struggled was because we were both so much alike. Mary said Cindy and I had the same strengths and same weaknesses. I truly think this insight and the evolving polyamorous triad dynamic saved my marriage with Cindy and held our family together.

I told Mary many times that I had fallen in love with her. She told me that she was not in love with me. It was not until ten years later, after Cindy died in a car accident, that Mary told me she really had fallen in love with me. Mary said she felt she could not tell me she loved me back then because Cindy was both her sister-in-law and her best friend.

Mary did not want to chance breaking up Cindy and my marriage. Maybe it would have. I will never know what difference, if any, that would have made.