4

Family Conflicts Take On A Whole New Level

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Angela's mom decided to get out of that environment, which sounds like a fine decision. The problem, as Angela says, was that "she wasn't supposed to do that." In mob culture, "the woman never divorces the man." It hit her dad right in the pride, and he indicated in no uncertain terms that the consequences would be dire. The threat went beyond cutting off child support (though obviously he also did that, too). "Mostly it's scare tactics," Angela says, "but her brakes were cut not long after."

Note that she says "were cut," not "my father cut them" -- that's the problem. Fortunately, no one was hurt, but there was no way to prove who cut the brakes, even though a mechanic confirmed it was no accident, the timing was more than a little suspicious, and also it was obviously the goddamn mafia.

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"Sorry, ma'am, but the warranty doesn't cover acts of God and/or godfathers."

3

You Will Be Followed

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Ever get the feeling that someone is following you? You're usually wrong. Angela is not. "In elementary, my siblings and I were followed home from school periodically," she says. "We were not aware of it, but the stalker would send taunting texts to my mom."

The family also regularly received death threats, which she was blissfully unaware of until she was older. "A lot of these death threats came from people saying that God told them to kill our family and that we needed to die," she says -- all matter-of-factly, like it's a normal part of childhood and not the most terrifying goddamn thing we've ever heard.

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You'd think God would occasionally tell someone to send a strongly worded letter instead of jumping directly to murder.

The divorce complicated things even further. Before then, it was always the authorities following them around. Afterward, they could never be sure if it was the FBI, some goon her father hired, or an enemy of their family. This caused some tense moments, to say the least. "There was an instance where my mom was driving home one night and about had a heart attack. A red laser point held steady on her from an unknown source. Was it the FBI? An enemy? Some kid with a damn laser pointer? We'll never know, but she booked it."

No kidding. We're just hearing this secondhand, and we're still hiding under our desks right now.

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We're going to assume it was a failed attempt to bait a cat so we can sleep tonight.

2

Work/Life Balance Is Tricky When Your Work Is Illegal

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It wasn't all terrible, all the time. "For the record, my father was an amazing dad when he acted like one," Angela says. "He really loved making us laugh, and you saw him early on trying to learn new skills, like cooking, to better care for us."

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Plus, that "I'm gonna make you a lobster you can't refuse" line was funny every time.

Angela's childhood memories are filled with gifts and laughter, but the older she gets, the more she doubts them. "I started seeing kind of the disconnect," Angela says. "That the reason he bought all those things was that he never really cared to bond with us, and he didn't know what we wanted."

Of course, it can't be easy to balance fatherhood with a demanding, wildly illegal career. It's not as if he could come home and regale the dinner table with tales from the office. There was a lot about his life that he couldn't share with them, for everyone's protection.

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"Anything interesting happen at work today?" was off the table for dinnertime talk.

"As we got older and figured out more and got confrontational ... he doesn't like confrontation, and he started pushing us more and more away the smarter we got," Angela says. It got to the point where he didn't even tell them when he was going to prison. "My mom had to," Angela says. "She was like, 'By the way, just so you guys know, he's leaving in about two weeks.'"

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"So Father's Day may be a little ... poorly attended this year."

1

You're Never Truly Out

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The movies had one thing right: Angela was expected to help carry on the family tradition. "As a woman, I wouldn't be able to own the business," she says. But her dad thought she'd make a great lawyer for the family, and for a while, she considered it. Despite coming to terms with her family's lifestyle, Angela couldn't see herself contributing to it. It's one thing to love your dad in spite of the criminal charges. It's quite another to help him get away with it.

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There are better ways to bond with a parent than over a "Not guilty" verdict.

Even so, Angela can never forget what her real last name is. It can be painful, like when her grandfather died, and she wasn't allowed to go to his funeral because her mother was worried about the reporters getting a photo of the kids. It can be scary, like the stalkers who still show up occasionally.

"If I ever tell someone about my family, it's because they're close enough to me that they might be followed too," she says. "It snowed last year during the night, and we awoke the next day to find a man's footprints circling the house, starting from my sister's window." The family joked about it, but "my boyfriend didn't find this funny."

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We're a little hazy on the punchline, too.

"The distinguishment between actual threats and those you create in your own head is a little more daunting when many of those threats have been proven prior," Angela says. "Think the difference between someone following you down an empty alley with their hands in their coat pocket versus someone chasing you down the street swinging a machete. One's a definite red flag, but the other one is hiding his flag in his pocket."

And now, if you'll excuse us, we have to see if GrubHub delivers to beneath a desk.

For more insider perspectives, check out 5 Things 'Breaking Bad' Left Out About Having A Drug Lord Dad and 8 Terrifying Life Lessons From A Former Terrorist.

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