When I get home from school on Monday, I sit down at the computer. I don’t try to write my English essay or do my math homework or go over the chapters for the art history quiz.
I try to write a letter to my dad.
I’ve written him before. I write at least once a week, especially when I have fun things to tell him about Herbie, because Herbie’s always doing things that make us laugh, like lifting up his ears and tilting his head toward the TV if he hears a barking dog or something strange on Animal Planet. Or stealing dirty socks out of the laundry and hiding them in his bed.
But this letter is different. Michael wants me to tell him that I’m seeing him. I start the letter ten different times, each one of them different.
Remember the time Ro and I were stupid enough to take Dante’s car and cut school and drink beer and then a cop pulled us over, well…
Of course he remembers it because Super Mario probably charged him twenty grand for all the hours he put in bailing us out.
Dear Daddy, you always ask me stuff about my friends, so here’s something that I know you never expected to hear: The cop who picked us up on the Henry Hudson ended up being my boyfriend…
Dear Daddy, this is crazy, I know, but there’s something I have to tell you. I’m now dating a cop. And not only a cop, but small world, the son of someone who used to take payoffs…
I try to write it in different ways, goofing on myself, then getting serious, but no matter what I say, it all sounds wrong.
Then I realize why.
This is not something my dad has to know. He’s not home anymore. He’s locked up now, halfway across the country for committing horrible crimes. And as hurt and conflicted as I will always be about the man who was the most loving father I could imagine, I also see him now for who he is. I’m less than a year away from going to college now and whether he approves doesn’t matter any more.
My dad isn’t the feared mob boss now. Someone else has taken over. The police don’t come to our house anymore. Our family isn’t on the TV or in the newspapers now, at least not on the front page. The running is over. There’s a calm to our lives that I have never felt before.
For the first time in seventeen years, I can date whomever I want. I don’t need his approval. I’m not living in his shadow anymore.
Our lives are totally different since he left. We live in a small apartment now. Anthony and I sleep in single beds in a room we share with a screen between us. The fancy cars are gone and so is the jewelry. We don’t eat out anymore unless someone else pays. I take the subway to school.
My brother is different too. He works for a company selling Italian suits. He has an honest job, I think, at least for now. He seems calmer these days, more resigned to things. We lost so much, but along the way I gained something no one can take away from me: a separate identity.
I’m not the don’s daughter or Mafia Girl anymore. I’m Gia now. Just Gia.
And that feels good.