Gone Unnoticed by Robin Mahle

Author:Robin Mahle [Mahle, Robin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: BluA
Published: 2015-08-06T23:00:00+00:00

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The room in which Nicola slept was little more than a closet, but her mother had just given her an old television handed down by a coworker and friend that made her accommodation slightly more palatable. At least she wouldn’t have to sit in the living room with her brothers watching them play video games or some basketball game. Nicola didn’t care for basketball, or any other sport, for that matter. She was a pretty typical twelve-year-old girl with the exception that she was an immigrant. Born in Croatia, her mother brought her and her brothers to America a couple of years ago.

It was a hard life where they lived before. Recession had gripped the country for the past several years. That was why, when Nicola’s father died, her mother brought them here. He worked in the shipyards, building cargo ships, and had a fatal accident. Her mother had family already living in America and so they all packed up and moved to Richmond.

Nicola’s mother was now working two jobs. A housekeeper at a hotel by day and a waitress at a local restaurant that her distant relatives owned by night. Of course, she was paid in cash. Her mother had no social security number. Nicola enrolled in middle school without any questions regarding her personal history, but she had no legal identification either. Nor did her brothers.

They could’ve worked, but Nicola thought they were just too lazy. Instead, they sat in front of the TV playing on the Xbox that seemed to magically appear in their living room one day.

Her brother, Gregor, was kind-hearted, but often fell into the shadow of Vito, the eldest of the children. Now, as Nicola sat perched on a small beanbag chair on her floor watching Cartoon Network, she began to hear the rumblings of the brothers’ return home.

It was Vito’s voice she heard. Harsh, like he was angry, and she wondered why. Nicola stood up and tiptoed to her bedroom door. She pulled it open just a crack and leaned an ear towards it.

“It’s not like we have a choice, Gregor. You’re in this now just as much as I am.”

The two spoke in their native tongue mostly because Gregor’s English was so poor. It was the only time Nicola was exposed to Croatian and she was glad to still understand it. It made her feel connected to her home, to her father. She continued to listen.

“This is your fault. You shouldn’t have gotten involved with Toma. I told you he was bad news. Everybody knows that. How could you do those things, Vito? How could you be a part of finding innocent girls and taking them from their homes?” Gregor asked.

“I only did what Toma hired me to do. I never hurt any of them. I swear it. How do you think I got all that money? You think Mama brings home enough money to support all of us? I did what I had to do. It was what Dad would have wanted.

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