#hickorycreek francesca donato

[hickorycreekrp-blog]

Out of Character:

Name/Alias: Pippa.

Pronouns: she/her.

Age: 24.

Timezone: GMT.

Face Claim Preferences: Angelina Jolie.

Character Basics:

Full Name: Francesca Giada Donato.

Nicknames/Prefers: Frankie.

Age: 43.

Occupation: Obstetrician.

Pronouns: she/her.

Gender: female.

Hometown: Queens, New Jersey.

Current Neighborhood: Rose Acres.

Highest Education: MD - Doctor of Medicine.

Religion: Atheist.

Family and Relationships:

Parents: Giada Donato (Mother, passed away 1980), Frank Donato (Father, passed away 2016)

Siblings: Domini Donato (Older Brother, 50); Joseph Donato (Older Brother, 47).

Children: none

Other: Anita Donato (niece, daughter of Dom, 20)

Pets: N/A

Sexual Orientation: Bisexual

Romantic Orientation: Biromantic

Marital Status: Single

Personality:

Favorite Film: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

Favorite TV Show: House MD

Favorite Book: Atonement

Favorite Song: Can’t help falling in love - Elvis 

Favorite Color: Italian Red

Likes: Children, cooking, Johnny Walker black label, second hand books, laughing until her sides hurt.

Dislikes: People who talk down to children and animals, being patient, pre-packaged/pre-made food that is full of artificial chemicals and no love, being late, birds.

History:

Francesca Donato was born in a broken down taxi off the New Jersey turnpike on a rainy New Jersey Sunday. Her father, the son of Italian immigrants, along with her two brothers and the taxi driver, stood in the rain as her tough-as-nails Italian mother pushed her into the world while Sinatra crooned on the radio. After a replacement cab arrived her parents made a beeline to their local deli, rather than the hospital, to show her off to their neighbours and friends. “And that’s why you smelled like salami when I saw you that afternoon!” her Grandmother would say with a laugh. That was how she arrived. It wasn’t a particularly fancy entrance into the world, but she was loved from the moment she took her first breath. That summed up life in the Donato household before her mother died. Her father worked menial jobs, running errands and picking up labour where he could. He married his high school dropout sweetheart and amateur hairdresser, Giada, and they had fallen pregnant with their first son quickly. They had a little apartment above a bodega, and they were in love and happy. Another son soon followed, and baby Francesca made three. Money was scarce, the home was tiny, but they got by with smiles on their faces. They had eight happy years, before life changed dramatically. A wet road and a young driver took Giada from her family, leaving three children motherless and Frank a widower. Her mother had been a huge part of her life, as most mothers are. She was loud, funny, fiery and wonderful, and her absence was a hole in their home that would never be filled. From that point onwards all three of the Donato children changed, coping with the loss in different ways. Frankie threw herself into her schoolwork, determined to get the education her mother never had. She had few friends in school, spending her time studying, but she worked out her frustration at the world in her academic achievements and in her promiscuity. Particularly in her final school years, her reputation was in tatters, and her academic transcripts were golden. It was a strange place to be, in between two extremes. She left home the first chance she got, unable to bear the changes around her. Her father remarried, and her new stepmother was a lovely woman, though Frankie couldn’t cope with the change and fled, coming home rarely. She started partying hard, blacking out and waking up in the arms of people she didn’t know, and marking her skin with tattoos for the pain and the rebelliousness of it all. She pursued medicine with the same ferocity she pursued high school study, and her tenacity paid off. She graduated with her medical qualifications, and pursued a specialty in obstetrics and women’s health, with a considerable focus on general family practice and children’s health. She was the only graduate with a nose piercing and an angry expression, but with commendations and excellent grades. Unhappy to work in a normal hospital, she headed overseas. She made several trips to Africa and Asia working in clinics with poorer communities. She was living the jet setter life, no strings, no fuss, enjoying her freedom and her vices. Years passed, and she returned home only at the desperate request of her brother to be a godparent for his first daughter’s christening. So the prodigal daughter returned, and she made her way back to Queens. The trip home, and the birth of her niece Anita, shook her up. It was at this family gathering that she looked around for the first time in a long time and realised how abnormal her life was. Her brothers were both happy, with families and lives. Her father was living well with a lovely woman. She felt she barely blinked and her friends from high school now had babies who were grown and having their own babies, and she was single, living out of suitcases, and struggling to put roots down. Everyone had moved on without her. Frankie decided then and there to make some changes. She called an old friend with connections to the Hickory Creek Medical Centre, and she packed her bags, heading for clean air, open spaces and a community of people to find a new life for herself. And she did, for a while. She found a community, and even a man, and she fell pregnant. But her vices had followed her, and she hadn’t been able to shake her demon of drink and her fear of commitment. The minute she got wind of a job opportunity outside of Hickory Creek, she did what she knew and flew the coop. She tried long distance, and planned to tell him about the baby, but within a few short months she lost the baby. Unexplained miscarriage. Her heart broke, and she cut off all contact with him. He never knew. No one knew. She threw herself into her work once again, but this time around it wasn’t distracting her enough. She turned to old vices she has always battled with: drink, adrenaline, dark places with dark desires. But nothing filled the growing hole inside her heart where her baby had been. Maybe after all these years she had lost the ability to lie to herself. After another few tours of Africa, facing Ebola with no resources and liquor cheaper than water, her heart and her liver began to ache for home. For home cooked meals, a familiar bed, and familiar faces. And then the call came. Her father had passed away. Grieving, for him and for herself, Frankie came home. Upon her arrival, amidst the grief and funeral proceedings, she also received a formal warning from her employer and medical licensing board, reducing her licence to probationary on disciplinary reasons. She had been working drunk, and people had noticed. Word traveled, even from far away countries. Ashamed, grieving and angry, Frankie contacted that old friend again and was fortunate enough to find a position back in Hickory Creek. She has disclosed her probation to her new employers, but her colleagues don’t know. She undergoes compulsory regular sobriety testing, and has to attend meetings. But her hope is that she may be able to find some life here, in this familiar place, if she can keep her demons at bay.