My parents were married for 14 years and had four kids together. I was 12 when they got divorced, Alice was 10, Amber was 8, and Andrew was 6. My father remarried in less than a year. He spent months talking on the phone to Bridget, a girl he had met years before when she was married to his best friend's brother. After that first meeting my father declared that he knew who he would marry if anything ever happened to my mother.

When the initial craziness after the divorce wore off and he was able to stop focusing solely on revenge against my mother, he began calling Bridget every night to talk for hours. She had been divorced for over 5 years and was living in New Jersey. She accepted my father's proposal on the strength of those phone calls, seeing him for the first time in a decade with the ring he had mailed already on her finger.

My father made one trip to New Jersey to meet Bridget's family and help her pack. Then she drove down to Florida. The four of us were with our father that weekend, waiting impatiently for her to arrive. I was glad to see him happy again and distracted from my mother, but at the same time I was angry, because my parents couldn't possibly get back together if he remarried. Don't expect rational feelings from a 13-year-old.

Bridget called from a payphone to say that she was right around the corner, so the five of us were waiting on the front steps when she pulled up in an old silver Chevy. She waved and opened her door, and then the back door opened and we saw two boys around Andrew's age.

They were Bridget's sons, Matthew and Nathan, and in a very short time they were our stepbrothers. Our new brothers were fascinating, and we bombarded them with attention, telling them everything we could think of about their new home, new dad, new sisters and brother. We paraded them in front of all our friends, who were not lucky enough to have stepbrothers. They looked entirely different from us, with black hair and olive skin, courtesy of their Italian father. Nathan had a long, braided 'rat tail' at the nape of his neck, the epitome of 80's elementary school cool. They were set up in our old bedrooms, and we four were now guests in the house we used to live in. It was fun, like a perpetual sleepover.

After the marriage, weekends in Dad's custody were very much changed for the better. Instead of spending our time trying to entertain him, we could play and leave him alone with Bridget. Having stepbrothers was like having friends who never had to go home. They were a lot younger than me, but I was used to everyone being younger than me.

Three months after the wedding, Bridget was pregnant. My baby brother Cole was born in March and became the greatest source of entertainment in the house. Bridget never had to worry about him being ignored or neglected, she spent most of her time making sure we didn't overwhelm the baby and hold him too much. If she hadn't kept us strictly regulated, Cole would never have touched the ground his first year. Between the six of us we would have carried him around all day.

My father received orders to Germany when I was 14. He and Bridget and our brothers were gone for five years.

My mother dated very rarely after the divorce, but while I was in high school she met Paul, who fell in love with her and moved into our house. My mother has never married him because she doesn't trust marriage anymore, but I call him my Stepdad. It's just easier and more formal, more respectful I guess, than calling him My Mother's Boyfriend. He came with his son Rob, who is younger than Alice, older than Amber. Rob lived with his father because his mother abandoned them when he was a toddler. Stepdad also has a younger son who lives with his mother (Stepdad's 2nd wife).

I call Rob and Shawn my brothers, because it's easier than saying My Mother's Boyfriend's Sons. And because I love them like I do all my brothers and sisters.

Occassionally, some stupid asshole will insist that I have only two sisters, one brother, and a half-brother. I cannot fathom why anyone would want to dismiss part of my family just because we don't share DNA, or because my mom doesn't wear a wedding ring. Those people need to mind their own fucking business.

My siblings are all growing up to be very interesting people. But that is a story for another time.