In the Beginning: The Luis Battaglia Story

Prologue

The year is 1964. A young Luis Battaglia and his love, Maria Alfonsi, are living in a motel. Maria Alfonsi has been Luis' first and only love since they were ten and twelve years old. Five years later and seventeen-year-old Luis has been put out of his house. You see, his family was poor, and with seven other mouths to feed, there was no room for Maria and the baby. Yes, Maria is seven months pregnant. They tried to take the best care of her that they possibly could, but it was difficult, since they were both poor and living fifty miles away from the nearest clinic. But Maria is doing well—she became vegetarian and learned about the different ways to give the baby the vitamins it needed. Let's just say it involved a lot of tea. When Mr. and Mrs. Battaglia found out that Maria had become pregnant, they ordered her to get rid of the baby. But neither Maria nor Luis wanted that; they had wanted to be a family for as long as they could remember, and nothing was going to stop them, not even their families. So, they were put out. Now. Luis knew someone who owned a motel chain and they were given a room to stay in until they could get a job. Well, it's not so much a motel as a house where he rented rooms. They had been staying there for the past two months, and it has been getting harder and harder to feed two mouths. Luis needed to do something quick before the babies come or things would not be looking good for them.