PROLOGUE
A few months ago we celebrated the third marriage of this tale. The groom was the son of my sister Annie and the bride was my daughter. They were in love for some years and passionate friends for many more. Both my sister Annie and I followed with some amusement the years’ long romance. Annie was the only person apart from my wife and her mother who knew that our offspring were first cousins in name only and had no blood affiliation. We kept it a secret because we thought the implied semi-incest fired their passion, plus it had been a secret for so many years that its revelation might have disturbed my daughter. As it happened, we later found out that she suspected it and kept her suspicions secret even from her future husband. When they decided to marry they asked us if we had any religious hang-ups because I, and my sister Annie, were, in name, Christians of the Greek Orthodox Church which would have forbidden this union of first cousins. Of course, we had none. They married in a civil ceremony where few questions of family are asked and we avoided the ridiculous rituals and fairy tales of our religion. Happily our children are as free as we are from any pious spiritual ties. This is all I shall say as an introduction to my story, which humdrum and boring as it may be at times, is an ordinary yet passionate tale of the ups and downs, turns and twists of life. It will be a first-person narration where I was directly involved and a third person account of events which came to my notice and which I followed with discreet avidity for they involved my family and persons I loved dearly.