Mafia Baby! - The Shocking True Story

CHAPTER 1

My eyes narrowed as I searched the crowd for familiar faces. I had not seen most of these people in more than ten years. My daughter Alyssa was sobbing, while her sister Alyeena just sat, staring at the casket and trying to hold back tears. A figure in the crowd caught my eye, his hair still velvet black and his frame on the heavy side. I could never forget that face. How could I forget, when I’m reminded every time I look at my daughter?

He stared as well, not at me, but rather at Alyeena and the tiny baby that lay in her protective arms. The baby’s face was covered by a blue blanket, with the supportive hand of her husband resting on Alyeena’s shoulder.

Alyssa walked across the grass to stand before the gathering. Her body trembled as all eyes came to rest on her. Most of these people had known Alyssa and Alyeena since they were small children. Tears flooded her face as she spoke of the strained relationship she and her father shared.

Franco had never adjusted to being a father. He hated responsibility. God rest his soul, while he was alive, Franco would disappear for weeks at a time and he was always up to something.

Alyeena looked up at her younger sister and then to her left where she caught Carlo’s gaze. She quickly turned away with tears spilling from her brown eyes. I too began to cry as I watched both my daughters, each crying for their own reasons, yet each here today for the same thing… to bid a father farewell.

Were my tears for my ex-husband whose flag draped casket lay before me? Or, was I crying from a lifetime of unspoken love for this all too familiar face in the crowd, even though he was a stranger to his own daughter and two grandsons?

My attention turned away to search out my own mother Ava’s gravesite just across the road. How inappropriate, that these two should have their final resting places within feet of one another. In life, their hatred for each other had been mutual.

Thoughts of these two men raced through my mind, the two fathers of each of my daughters, as I blanked out everyone around me. I flashed back to countless memories of Franco and Carlo as well; of our meetings, and the events of the past twenty-six years, which led all of us here to this day. Our relationship had been anything but dull.

I met Carlo Capri for the first time when I was sixteen, and ever since our paths had crossed over and over, each time much different from the last. At that moment in time no one knew the secret I had carried with me for so many years, not even my mother.

When Franco and I divorced all those years ago, I raised the girls myself, and did the best I could with what I had, which wasn’t very much. My day job as a receptionist brought me enough money to pay the rent, with little left over for food. So, I made an important decision, one that would impact all of our lives.

I applied for and accepted a second job working nights as a data entry operator for a medical lab. The overtime alone paid more than my day job, but with both jobs together, I could at least make ends meet. I knew I would have to leave the girls home alone in the evening, but I had no choice. You do what you have to do. At this point, the girls were not exactly little children and I hoped that I was raising them to make right choices.

A month later I decided to run an ad in the local newspaper for a roommate. I figured if I put the girls in one bedroom and myself in another, there would be plenty of room for another person in the then empty third bedroom. I had never done anything like that before, and I was more than a little scared.

The first day the ad ran, Eileen phoned to inquire. We met that same day and she and her son Mark moved in the following weekend. She and I hit it off right away. We were both from Chicago. Eileen and I were the same age, and her son was the same age as Alyssa. So you might say that it was a perfect set-up, right? Wrong!

I moved the girls into the larger of the two bedrooms, and they were not very happy, for as clean and organized as Alyeena was, Alyssa was not. She was younger than Alyeena and she didn’t clean up after herself, which drove her sister crazy. I had hoped that these changes might make life a little easier for me, but moving them in together only provoked an already heated situation. Alyssa was acting out because she of course missed Franco. Alyeena… well… you never really knew what she thought; she kept to herself most of the time. She was involved with the 4-H Club, her dogs and ice-skating.

Alyssa just pouted, and she eventually began skipping school. One rainy morning I received a phone call from Alyssa’s school. When I arrived there I found Alyssa hiding in the bushes outside of the school. She was soaking wet, and all of her frustrations had come to a head. In her opinion, it was my fault Franco had moved out. No matter what I said, Alyssa wouldn’t accept any other explanation.

There was one good thing that came out of Eileen and Mark moving in. I met Lucy. Lucy was a close friend of Eileen’s. I met Lucy over the phone. She called, we talked; we had a lot in common and it made for a very long and close friendship.

Eileen was with me for about a month when she called me at work one Friday morning to ask if I ever went out dancing, or just for a few drinks. I’m not sure when she thought I would find time to socialize! Actually, I never drank or smoked, not once in my life. It wasn’t because I was being good…I just didn’t like the taste of alcohol, and smoking took my breath away due to childhood asthma. Free time? Working two jobs, my only free time was on weekends to catch up on some sleep, or to maybe go shopping, or to participate in my daughter’s activities, including the 4-H Club.

It was only then that I realized I couldn’t go anywhere in Los Angeles without running into someone Franco and I knew. I was certain by now that everyone would have heard we were no longer together. Where could I go if I wanted to?

I told Eileen to call me back later in the afternoon. I would buy a newspaper on my lunch break and look in it to see where we might be able to go that evening. I wasn’t ready for what I found.

As we entered the dark nightclub, I could hear Carlo singing. I knew that voice instantly. Suddenly, all of the memories flooded back; memories I had tried so very hard to forget.

•••••

It was New Years Eve, ringing in the new year of 1962 when I first met Greg Maclain. I was only sixteen years old and kind of thin, with long, red hair and deep hazel eyes. I didn’t wear much makeup yet, but people told me I had a natural beauty and didn’t need to. I guess I was starting to fill out, because I was starting to notice men sizing me up. But, Greg was not like that at all. He was very handsome, personable and nice to me. Greg was in his mid-twenties. He was a singer, working in the nightclub of the hotel where my mom was working. The night we met was my mother’s very first shift working at the hotel.

 

My mom had just moved us out to Los Angeles from Chicago to get away from my abusive father. My mother was the youngest of twelve children. She had a hard childhood, spending years in the hospital as a young girl with tuberculosis of the bone. She and my father were married after I was born, and he was a terrible alcoholic. He would come home drunk and beat us all on a regular basis. In the summer of 1960, he beat her so badly that she spent the entire summer in the hospital recovering. But it was on Christmas, 1961, when my father came home drunk, pulled me out of bed and beat me so badly that he broke my nose, that she knew that she had had enough. She had to move us across country to get away from him, and her sister was gracious to take us in.

 

On the night I met Greg, my aunt and I drove to pick my mom up from work. Her hours were three in the afternoon until eleven at night, so it was getting late when we arrived. I was standing at the front desk. I had just been introduced to my mom’s coworker, Lynn.

 

As the three of us spoke, the door to the hall opened. I turned and saw Greg for the first time. He moved to the front desk and kissed Lynn. Greg wished her a Happy New Year, and then he motioned to my mother. She walked to the front desk and Greg reached over the counter to kiss her. My mother then introduced me to him. Greg turned to me, and our eyes met. He stood in front of me, studying my very long red hair and my green knit sweater, and then he turned his head towards my mother and said, “She is sure a beauty!” With that, he reached over and kissed me on the cheek and was...