He has four sisters; one older and three younger. They all cram themselves into a three-bedroom apartment that half the size of her own residence. However, she never doubts that every nook and cranny is filled to the brim with love.

They sit on the fire escape together, when the noise inside gets to be too much. Distantly, they'll be able to hear his mother cooking in the kitchen and two of his sisters arguing over the single bathroom. And, there always seems to be music; loud and upbeat adding to the general fray.

And he'll tell her how he feels like his family sprung off the page of, "Little Women," making a vague joke about how his father never made it home from the Civil War. (It's the closest he ever gets to talking about his father.)

They'll swing their feet off the edge and, sometimes, when she's tired or when she can feel his pain radiating across the distance between them, she'll let her head rest against his shoulder.

And, she wants to be a part of it. The craziness, the laughter, the family conversations where no subject is barred. It's so different from the law and order that rests over her own home, or the awkward silence that can always be found at Maya's.

They never let her doubt that she belongs with them. And she's never been accepted so easily, without any reservations.

Somehow, his family starts to feel like hers and whatever she can't feel seems trivial in comparison to all that she wants too.