Turning a Youthful Romance Into a Nurturing Family


By JENNIFER 8. LEE. NEW YORK TIMES
Published: November 22, 2005
Theirs is a love story that starts in the heart of tobacco country, in the cigar capital of the Dominican Republic, in a languid town called Moca.

They were teenagers, looking for a plot to their lives in the summer of 1997. He, Luis Rosario, was visiting relatives and had a swagger he had developed as a child on the streets of Brooklyn. She, Kirsaris Corsino, lived across the street, and began lingering in the neighborhood when she spotted the handsome stranger.

She used to spy on me," Mr. Rosario said. Ms. Corsino blushed.

After they were introduced, Mr. Rosario made a bet with a friend to see who would snag the girl with the long eyelashes. In the end, it was Ms. Corsino, 26, who did the snagging. During a walk in the park, she asked Mr. Rosario for a kiss. "I said O.K.," Mr. Rosario, 25, recalled. "I was surprised. It's so unusual."

Their joy was simple and pure. It could have been just a teenage summer romance, one put aside when Mr. Rosario returned to New York City. But he called her in Moca night after night, spending hours on the phone, running through calling cards by the dozen. Those calls, their continued contact, maintained a stability that filled a void for both.

Ms. Corsino had bounced from household to household since she was 8, when her mother moved to Puerto Rico and left her behind. She went from mother to aunt, aunt to grandmother, grandmother to neighbor.

In the summer of 1998, when Mr. Rosario was 18, his father sent him to Rochester, Minn., to keep him from getting into trouble on the streets of New York. Ms. Corsino joined him. For a boy who grew up in a city where squirrels were considered wildlife and a girl who grew up with tropical surf, Rochester was, well, different. In the winter, the snow was sometimes so thick they couldn't see out their windows. As spring came, the snow was replaced by another vista. "Wherever you look, it's trees," Ms. Corsino said, in Spanish.

They decided they could not raise Spanish-speaking children in Minnesota, so they moved to New York City when Ms. Corsino became pregnant. In the spring of 2000, she gave birth to Gregory, a shy boy whose skin was smooth and dark like his father's. Two years later, they had a daughter who never stopped smiling. They named her Sherlyn.

Mr. Rosario relishes his duties as a father. Once, when his wife was pregnant, he went out at 5 a.m. for fresh bread. Ms. Corsino said she has never had to wake up at night for a crying baby. Mr. Rosario does. He wanted his wife to stay at home and provide their son and daughter with the childhood they had only imagined for themselves.

As a high school dropout, he managed to find work as a landscaper. But each winter, the seasonal work stops for three months - along with almost all their income.

A year and a half ago, they fell two months behind on the $712 rent for their Washington Heights apartment; they received an eviction notice from the landlord. The balls they juggled were falling to the ground.

Ms. Corsino arrived at the eviction hearing with a letter from the Children's Aid Society, one of the seven local charities supported by The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund, promising that the fund would pay $712 for one month's back rent. The couple raised the other month's rent, and their lives were held together.

"The reason they were deserving of help is that this is a young family that believes in working for the betterment of their family," said Marilyn J. Cordero, the family partnership coordinator with the society who worked with Ms. Corsino and Mr. Rosario. "They've come from a very long way.

"They have not only been able to maintain their marriage, but their household. There is no aunt. There is no mother. There is no distant relative financing their experiences."

But they do have each other. Two years ago, the couple were married in Santo Domingo, in the Dominican Republic. A wedding picture shows them holding their children, next to a four-tiered wedding cake. It doubles as a family photo.