"My father left me in the Maui Hilton for two days and didn't even realize I was missing until he got the bill."
When you said it lightly, in an easy manner, no one could see the pain of the abandoned seven-year old.
Tony turned away and went on with his job. This kid needed them now, he shoved aside the memories that had no place in his adult world.
Young Tony Dinozzo rose bright and early that Saturday morning. Seeing the sun already shining through his window he ran breathless into the living room of their suite, hoping that just this once his father would remember he had his son with him, remember his promise that they would go site-seeing together.
Still, he wasn't terribly surprised to find his father had left for the day already. Again. At the young age of seven, Anthony Dinozzo was used to being low on his father's priority list, somewhere below his checkbook balance and the liquor cabinet.
Tony took it in stride and took care of himself as he had learned to do. He refused to bathe if there was no one there to make him. But at seven, he'd already learned the value of a sweet and charming smile, so he brushed his teeth and changed into a t-shirt and jeans. He called room service and ordered all his favorite foods – French Toast and pancakes, bacon and biscuits and gravy.
After his breakfast, he left the mess for the maid to clean up, he sat and watched movies for most of the day. It was actually a pretty good way to spend the day. If he had been with his dad, they would have eventually arrived at the litany of how young Tony didn't measure up to his father's expectations. At least this way Tony could still pretend to himself that his dad trusted him enough to leave him alone for the day.
It wasn't that different from how he usually spent his days. In Maui he was surrounded by the hotel personnel who answered his calls to room service and took care of him because of his dad's name and credit card. At home he was just as alone, but he was taken care of by maids and the staff hired by his father.
The only difference was at home he wasn't allowed to watch all the movies he wanted. He reveled in his freedom, flipping from channel to channel, pausing to watch whenever he came across something interesting.
It wasn't until hunger intruded again that he went into his dad's room to try and find out where he had gone. At first Tony was careful not to disturb anything lest he be accused of spying. But he only had to pull out a drawer or two and to look in the closet to quickly figure out that his father was gone. All of his clothes were gone, along with his suitcase.
Tony couldn't help it, he sat in the middle of his father's empty room and cried. It wasn't fear that made him cry or even grief that his father could so casually leave him behind without a thought, he was used to that. It was anger that caused the sobs that racked his small frame.
His father had always told him, "Dinozzo's don't cry," so he'd been holding in the anger for years – anger at the neglect, anger that his dad didn't do the things with him that other kid's dads did. Anger that there were no hugs or loving touches. He only ever met with a distant disapproval from his father, and he knew now that it was the best he could ever expect.
He cried until he had no more tears left in him and he crawled onto his father's immaculately made bed and slept a while. When he woke the room was shrouded in shadow and Tony could hear the sound of the vacuum in the other room.
Swiftly he rose, furiously rubbing at his eyes, hoping he didn't look like a little kid who'd just been on a crying jag. He pocketed the room key his father had left on the desk and went into the living room. The maid started when she saw him.
"I'm sorry," she said, "I thought you checked out this morning." She was an older woman, plump and comfortable looking.
Tony smiled at her shyly, the one that made women want to mother him, "No," he told her, "my dad's just gone on business right now."
She made a small 'tsking' sound with her tongue, "And he left you here all alone?" She was properly scandalized.
He squared his shoulders, "I can take care of myself," he asserted fiercely. "Although I was... getting kind of hungry."
The maid began winding the cord around the vacuum, "Well then, you just come with me," she told him firmly. "I'm going to take you right down to the kitchen, and get you some dinner."
"I don't want to be any trouble, I'll just call room service."
"You'll do no such thing. A young boy like you shouldn't be eating up here all alone. I can just imagine what you'd eat left to yourself. I have a son your age," she informed him, "and I have to watch him every second or he's having cookies for breakfast and ice cream for dinner."
Then she took him down to the kitchen where they fed him the best hamburger and fries he'd ever had, and finished his meal with a chocolate shake thick with home made vanilla ice cream and whipped cream. The woman, whose name he found out was Mrs. Brown, chattered about her son and life in the hotel, putting him at his ease while he ate. He was replete from the food and the company by the time she took him back to his suite. He was a little disappointed when she gathered her cleaning supplies and left him alone.
It was truly dark in the room now and for the first time that day fear stirred in Tony. He was alone in a place far from home and he didn't know how to get back home. Sure he could call the front desk and tell them that he'd been left behind. But then he would have to admit that his father had forgotten him, left him behind for the next person who used the suite.
He decided he would rather die first.