Broken Songbird

Chapter 6 Meeting The Family

Mike and I decided to leave the hotel so we could meet his parents. He told me that their names were Tonio and Lola. But, everyone called his father Tony. However, I better be able to speak Italian because, they expected him to learn Italian. His parents might want me to learn Italian as well; if I was to become his wife. Mike told me that he has a sister named Michela.

We walked down the street toward his house. Mike's parents lives in a moderately sized apartment. I follow him up the stairs and into his apartment door. He knocks on his door and a moderately skinny shojo walks up and greets us.

"Mike who's the girl next you?" she asks.

"Michela this is the woman I was talking about. Ottenere Mama e papà." Mike says.

"Alright." Michela says as she walked away from us.

Mike leads me to meet his parents. His mother was a slightly tan woman with a thick British accent in her voice, she had her long hair tied back in a ponytail. His father Tonio or Tony was a tall husky man with pale white skin, dark black hair, and green eyes. When he spoke to me he sounded like he had an Italian accent in his voice.

"So Mike is this woman you were talking about? I think she's great for you. She even looks like Michela a little. Is she Italian?" Tonio asked Mike.

"She's Japanese dad; she gets that a lot and people even think she emigrated from Germany because of the German accent she has when she speaks English." Mike told him.

"Well were is she from Mike?" Lola asked him.

"She's from Japan." Mike replies.

"I never would have guessed that. That explains why she's so quiet." Lola says.

"You two are probably hungry from the long walk from the hotel." Lola says.

"We both just ate earlier." I say.

"Meiko you really need to eat; you're just skin and bone. You don't have enough fat in your system. Even Michela is the same way. You should stop focusing on being skinny. I want you to be healthy." Lola tells me.

I laugh at the comment and tell her that I try to gain weight but nothing worked for me. I just have a fast metabolism. Lola tells me that it's more like I'm starving myself in order to stay skinny. Lola is making Mike and I some food to eat. I smell the pasta she is cooking, and the sweet smell of rosemary that is filling the room.

Lola brings over the whole pot and dumps the entire pot in my bowl and forces me to eat it. It was put on a family sized plate and the pasta was good. The white Alfredo sauce and long angel hair pasta was delectable. She gave Mike a normal portion. I bet she would put butter in my cannoli.

As I finished my plate of pasta and cannoli Lola picked up my plate asking me if it was good. I tell her how I liked the pasta. I felt extremely full after that meal so I started to talk to Michela about her school work.

"Michela what is your plans for after high school?" I ask.

"I don't know yet Meiko, but I'm thinking about joining the family business." Michela replies.

"That sounds great. I never felt like doing that back home." I reply.

Michela and I start talking a little and we got to know each other a little bit more. She taught me some Italian words and how to construct a sentence. So to pay the favor I taught her some Japanese phrases and words that will come in handy if she was in Japan. The phrases she shared with me were ones I should memorized which would come in handy if I'm speaking with Mike's family.

Whenever I look at Michela it seems that we share similar looks. Her hair is shoulder-length and she looks sort of like me, except she was far paler than me. Her face looked young. She looked like she was 12 even though she was 16 same goes with her voice.

"Meiko I bet you and Michela might be long lost sisters." Tonio jokes.

"I doubt it because she can pronounce her r's and l's. But even if we did do a DNA test it would be negative." I say.

"Alright I see your point, when is your birthday by the way?" Tonio asked me.

"November 5." I tell him.

"Really because that's Mike's birthday as well." Tonio tells me.

This was just a coincidence that Mike and I shared a birthday. I'm not sure what other surprise I'm going to see soon. His parents are great I seem to like them a little.

In the end I believe they are the family I have been looking for. Michaela and I have some common ground. His parents were extremely nice and the type I always desired to have. We spent some time and left eventually.

"Meiko I think they like you a lot." Mike says.

"What do you mean?"

"I think our relationship is going to work." He says.

We decided to have dinner at another restaurant speaking of our plan afterward. I knew now that Mike is the one I've always wanted.