Hypertext Family Portrait #1

            "It depends on what you think is married."

            Their father snorted.  "Married is married." He was standing by the window, considering the flat clouds of Illinois stretched low over the grandparents' now suburban backyard. "You mean, married in a church, like?"

            "Hi!" said Nanny, attempting to derail the exchange. She leaned towards Braden. "Bradley, han me de ting."

            "What thing, Nanny?" Braden had one bud of an iPod threaded inconspicuously under his shirt.

            "De ting for de teevee."

            "Oh, sure." He dug the remote out from between the seat cushions of the threadbare sofa and handed it over.

            "Well, when you marry inside the Church, God see you do that." Uncle Emilio was perched on the ottoman, petting the dog. Every time Emilio petted him, the Boston terrier’s already enormous eyes seemed to bulge.

            "Man, it's amazing what these Catholics believe.” Their father laughed that particular, staccato laugh. “So God only sees you in a church? What if you get married in a hotel?"

            Uncle Emilio shrugged.  "Hotel, bar, restaurant, whatever you want. As long as the priest marry the people, God see."

            "Oh, now, it's the priest that makes God see."

            "Dad."  Sarah was kneading roti with Aunt Sajel in the kitchen. 

            "Eh-eh?" Nanny had turned on the television and was seemingly transfixed by Oprah.  "Look, dis woman got Book Club."

            "I read a book from Oprah's Book Club." Cousin Jamie chimed in. "It was called the Red Badge of Courage, we had to read it for school."

            "Oh yeah? How was it?"

            "Really incredibly boring."

            "Wherever the priest is, there is the church."

            "You think that if someone else marries the people, they're not really married?"

            Nanny turned up the volume on the TV. Oprah was detailing the saga of a woman adopted in Manitoba, now a resident of Las Vegas, who, after 30 years, had found her birth mother living practically next door.

            "I'm not saying you not married, I just saying some people, they do everything married people do, but they do it before they married."

            Their father laughed again, this time louder.  "So what, man? This is the twenty-first century!"

            "Hi!" Nanny told him. "You upsetting de dog!" Billy the terrier had ambled over to Nanny’s easy chair and was sniffing the Ben Gay she’d recently rubbed on her feet. 

            "You can say is twenty-first century, but the babies born when people is not married, they home is not stable. Plus, there is disease that people get when they sleep with so many different peoples. They don’t want to do things the way God want, but is God the one who get to decide."

            "Honey, I'm sure the kids don't want to hear it." Aunt Sajel was rolling out the dough now, pounding rhythmically on the counter.

            Cousin Jamie rolled his eyes dramatically, arching his back and sliding off the couch.  "Oh yeah, we definitely don't want to hear it!"

            "James, please get off the floor."

            "They don’t want to hear, but they is the ones that need to hear!" Uncle Emilio chuckled. "We is all old people here, we don’t have to worry. But the kids, they don’t need to get in no troubles, right Lara?"  He leaned towards Lara and winked.

            Lara looked up from her magazine and around the room.

            Just then the door to the garage opened and Poppy stepped lightly inside carrying his battery-operated radio. The musical clock in the living room chimed four and suddenly, polka music filled the air. It was his favorite program, from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, called the Goodtime Radio Polka Hour. Poppy settled on a dining room chair and nodded to himself.