Page 10 of Nolan (The Doherty Mafia)
I left the house and got in my car. I didn’t know what I’d do the next morning, but I knew what I was going to do tonight. I just wanted to forget everything. I wanted to feel faceless and nameless in some hole somewhere.
Five
Amelia
Aldo made it clear I was free to leave his house any time I wanted.
It wasn’t like he kept me imprisoned there. But it’d been two days of me living in the hideout with him and the men who protected him.
I had called Ruby to let her know I wouldn’t be coming in. There was something that drew me to Aldo. Maybe it was because of all the stories he told me about my mother, or maybe it was just because this was the first time I felt like I actually had something akin to a family.
They’d given me a tiny room where I slept at night. The house had no heating, but the kitchen was always filled with food. I didn’t mind either way. I was accustomed to making-do in all kinds of living conditions.
“You should be out there, living your life, my dear,” Aldo said to me repeatedly. But I didn’t want him to feel guilty about it.
“I’m here because I want to be,” I told him.
“And I’m grateful for your company.”
I patted his shoulder and he presented me with his warm smile. The same smile I’d been so suspicious of when he first walked towards me.
“How did you find me?” I asked.
Aldo was smoking a cigar in the kitchen. The smoke filled the air between us.
“I had more resources than I do right now. I had a few trained people who tracked you down. I knew where you were, what you were doing for several years. But I wanted to leave you alone. I didn’t want to alarm you,” he explained.
“It’s kinda weird knowing I was being watched the whole time,” I said.
“I was watching over you, my dear.”
I smiled at him.
I considered myself lucky now that he’d found me. Maybe someone else would’ve found the situation strange, but I felt comfortable around him. I wanted to know everything there was to know about my mother.
“I wished you knew more about my father,” I remarked. This was only the second time I brought him up.
Once again, Aldo seemed to freeze up. It seemed like he didn’t want to discuss my father. Maybe there were stories my mother had told him that he didn’t want me knowing.
“Nora didn’t talk about him, so there isn’t much I can tell you myself. I don’t know what kind of person he was. Nora was…confused. She wasn’t doing very well…psychologically. So I don’t want to fill your head with the things she thought happened to her.”
This confused me.
What happened to my mother? What did my father do to her?
I stared at him questioningly, hoping he’d give me more but Aldo had already moved on. He didn’t want to discuss it any further.
“I wish I could bring you to my house. My real house. The one Nora had stayed in during her time with me.”
My heart raced again.
“Do you have more of her belongings?” I held up the photograph, which I carried around with me everywhere. I’d stared at her picture endlessly, and felt like I knew her.
Aldo nodded. “But we can’t go back to the house right now. I don’t know when we’ll be able to. I don’t want to put your life in any danger. The Dohertys have ruined it all,” he said in a low voice.
Even though I didn’t know anything about the Dohertys, I hated them already.
There was a girl I lived with once, when I was about eleven years old. We were both being fostered by the family and we didn’t like each other.
Mainly because we were the same age, and probably because we’d been forced to share a tiny room with bunk beds and no privacy. Growing up in the system, we were both suspicious of everyone. Especially of each other.
The more days that went by of living in such close proximity to each other, the girl decided she’d smoke me out of her new home. She started leaving me notes around our shared room. Notes about how much she hated me. How the family we lived with despised me. How ugly I was. How nobody liked me.
She tried to break me, and break my spirit. Maybe it was just one of her own survival techniques. If I voluntarily left that home, she’d have the room all to herself. She’d have all the attention from the family. She’d be able to eat my meals and wear the clothes that were now given to me. She’d decided she didn’t want to share.
For days, she tortured me psychologically while I stayed up at night questioning myself. I hated her, but I also hated myself…and I believed her a little.
