You Ain't Bad || Michael Jackson

Chapter 80: How Things Change Over Time

*15 years later, March 14th, 2005*

"Guys, this is where your grandmother and grandfather are," I tell my children.

Since Janine's funeral we have had two more children, Electra, aged 13, who has black hair and blue streaks running through it, and brown eyes, and another boy, Dexter, aged 11, who has light brown hair and blue eyes.

Ryder is now almost 16, and he definitely has Michael's eyes and black, Jheri-curled hair. It looks like Michael's hair, when I first met him in college.

If you're wondering about Michael, he's 46 now, and he's currently at home. He's matured a lot these past few years, and he's decided that the beautiful curls he had in his younger years will only appear every so often. He mostly styles it straight now, but he still looks perfect to me.

I watch the children, looking at their grandparents' grave stone. I haven't been to see it so often lately, I've been so busy. The children have never been before, but I've been here while they've been alive... just on my own. But I owe it to them to tell them where mum and dad are.

"Mom, when did they..?" Dexter asks, rolling his eyes to the right to indicate he's trying to say 'pass away.'

I look at him, and pat his back. They know it was in the 70s, but the gravestone doesn't say the precise date.

"Oh, it was the 3rd of June, all the way back in 1978," I say softly.

Electra nods in understanding, and leans her head on my shoulder.

"I wish we could have met them.."

"I wish you could have met them, darling," I say quietly. "But they can see you, up there with the other angels. Uncle Jack and your great grandmother are there, too. Oh, and your half sister Alexa."

"Dad lost a child, or.. or you?" Dexter asks.

"Yes, sweetie. Your dad.. he was going to have a child with another girl, but that baby died, and then the mother died, too."

I'm referring to Janine and her aborted child here, and I'm watching my children listen to me, fascinated.

"So we have another sister that's in heaven?" Electra asks.

"Yes, Leccy."

That's my nickname for her, I find it rather cute.

"Didn't that girl die when I was like, a few days old?" Ryder asks, scratching the back of his head, reading the gravestone of mum and dad.

"Yes, she was called Janine, and.. she did some bad things in her time, but she made them right, and that was the last thing she did before she died," I explain.

"Where's she buried?" Dexter asks.

"Oh, she's buried about forty-five minutes away, in a little graveyard, it's charming, quite charming."

"Could we go and see her?" Electra asks.

"Maybe, one day," I reply.

I haven't been to see her since the funeral, it would be weird going all of a sudden.

"Did dad love her?" Ryder asks.

"No, not really. They were.. kinda.. friends.. but, there was nothing associated with love," I answer.

"Then why were they going to have a kid together?"

Ryder's follow-up question gets me thinking. How will I tell them that Michael was sexually assaulted?