“What do you care? This is my family.”

The Sad Girl looked at her Father quizzically. She looked at her Baby Sister bitterly posed behind him. Then at the Woman with the Rock in her Shoe, who stood silently by, fascination playing on her face as if she were watching a scene from a movie play out in real time.

And once again the Sad Girl was confused.

As the Sad Girl left, she closed the door on the catchphrases- Neurotic-Crazy-Liar.

She thought her Father was just being cruel.

When she told the Sad Boy and her Favorite Sister, they echoed the sentiments of cruelty and added thief. The Sad Girl had asked for a notebook of her work that she left in their care detailing family history.

It was 2 years later, while putting ancestors in a picture frame that the scene replayed in the Sad Girl’s head.

She called the Sad Boy. “Holy shit! What if he meant that he wasn’t my father?”

And in that moment, science began to catch up to the lies.

He landed at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York on November 4, 1988. His long hair curled over the collar of his faded brown leather jacket as he walked out of Customs and into New York. Black boots and jeans complimented the serious expression on his face as he scanned the crowd for the Sad Girl. Maybe he worried that she wouldn’t be there.

The Sad Girl stood at JFK International Arrivals with her Favorite Brother-Law waiting for the Sad Boy. She was in a beautiful outfit borrowed from her Favorite Sister’s closet; Her Favorite Brother-in-Law in his mechanics clothes with a greased smudged face.

An eternity passed. “What if he didn’t arrive?” her mind whispered. But her heart, her heart knew he would. With her entire being, she knew he would.

She spotted the Sad Boy. She could barely breathe. Every step brought him closer to her. He saw her. Instantly the smile curled the sides of both their mouths. Their eyes locked on each other as they beheld forever and a day.

He kissed the Sad Girl on both cheeks in a traditional Italian greeting. She enfolded his hand in hers. She just needed to touch him. He tightly held on to hers as she introduced her Favorite Brother-in-Law.

In the car he handed her back her Teddy Bear.

Her Favorite Brother-in-Law turned to her and with a twinkle in his brown eyes, his mustache turned up in an approving smile exclaimed, “So, I see you went for the pretty face. I thought you were gonna go for the money!”

He should have known the Sad Girl better than that! You can’t sleep with a man’s bankbook wrapped around you.

When she arrived home with the Sad Boy, they were greeted by her Mother and Father, her Favorite Sister and her three girls, her Youngest Sister and her Grandmother.

The Sad Boy came with many gifts. Among them a beautiful wide band 18 carat Italian gold engagement ring with a diamond in the center for the Sad Girl. Both of her parents gave the ring the eye.

In later years, her parents said to her “…and he didn’t even buy you a real engagement ring and if you think that diamond was real…” They did not understand that the ring was worth just as much as any of her sisters’ rings and probably more. Moreover, the Sad Boy had selected it for her; it came with all his love. It was not a standard American engagement ring because the Sad Boy was not an American man. The Sad Girl did not want a typical American man- her parents did not know that. They still don’t comprehend the Sad Girl.

The sitting room was converted into a bedroom for the Sad Boy.

Her father asked the Sad Boy if he intended to marry the Sad Girl or if he was just in America on a vacation. The Sad Boy declared that he intended to marry the Sad Girl.