Rose Garden :: MJ

Chapter 7 - Dark Pasts

Dark Pasts

Amanda's POV

I pulled up to my childhood home at 7:29, I looked over in the passenger seat at Michael, and he smiled and took my hand.

I took a deep breath and opened the car door; Michael met me on my side and took my hand again.

"My mom can get, um, what's the word?" I said biting my lip.

Michael sighed, "I'll be fine."

We walked up to the door and rang the doorbell; my mom swung the door open.

She hugged me, "Amanda, come in."

We walked in hand in hand, my mom looked at our hands and turned on her heels.

"Take a seat," she said.

Michael and I sat down at the kitchen table; my mom sat the food in front of us and sat down in front of us.

We started eating quietly until my mom decided to start the interrogation, "So, Michael, where are you from?"

"Well, I'm from a small town called Gary, in Indiana," Michael said.

She sighed, "When did you start performing?"

"I've been performing as long as I remember. Joseph started making us perform when I was I think four," Michael said.

"Joseph?" My mom asked.

"My father," Michael said, clearing his throat.

I could tell he was getting uncomfortable, I looked at him, and he gave me the 'I'm okay' look.

My mom looked at him again, "You call him Joseph?"

"He wanted us to call him Joseph," Michael said.

It was silent for a few moments, "You talk about him like you hate him or something," she said.

Michael sighed, "I'd rather not talk about it."

"I'd rather you did," She said.

"Mom, he doesn't feel comfortable talking about his father. Michael, you don't have to."

"Okay, does desert sound good?" She said changing the subject.

My mom questioned Michael some more and finally it was time to leave.

"Thanks for dinner, Ms. Thomas," Michael said walking to the car.

I waited on the porch with my mom, "So…"

"He's a very nice young man, I approve," She said smiling.

"Thank you so much mom," I said kissing and hugging her.

Michael and I got back to my apartment; he leaned down and kissed me.

"My mom approved of you," I said.

"Good," Michael said kissing my neck.

We walked back to my bedroom and sat on the bed; I closed my eyes and felt his warm breath on my skin.

Later in the night I woke to find my arm wrapped around Michael's bare stomach, he was staring at the ceiling.

I sighed, "Michael you don't have to tell me if you don't want to, but why do you hate your father?"

Michael took a deep breath, "As long as I can remember he's always been hard on us, but he got harder on us when we started performing. I would sing the wrong note and he would beat me so hard. While he was beating me I could hear my mother screaming, 'you're gonna kill him Joseph, you're gonna kill him.' When we had our big break into Motown the pressure got stronger on me and my brothers. My brothers got beat too, but since I was the lead singer I got it worse. I remember one night before a show I stood up to him, He was in the middle of beating me and I said, 'Joseph, if you hit me again I'm not performing.' I was so scared of him and I never got to play and joke around like a normal child. We would go to this recording studio and there would be a playground across the street. I would look at all the children playing and having fun and wishing that that was me. I came to hate Joseph, I still hate him. It's so bad that I've passed out and threw up in his presence because I'm so scared of him. I wish that I would've had a real father; I just wish I could call him a dad. Do you how much it would've meant to me if he would've taken one day in my childhood to say, 'Son, what do you want to do today? Today is our special father son day.' I was so unhappy, I wanted a childhood."

A tear rolled down Michael's cheek as his voice cracked.

I sat up and he did too, he started crying harder.

I held him against me as he sobbed into my neck, he looked up at me, "Then I think of people like you, who didn't even have a father, but you were probably happier than me."

"When I was little my mom and I lived in her car. The only thing my mom had to her name was that car. We had to steal food stamps because they said my mom wasn't eligible for them. Her mom wanted nothing to do with us because my mom got pregnant before she married. We were on our own Michael and I was scared all the time. One night two men came and one of them made me watch the other one rape my mom by holding a gun to my head. They stole our car and everything in it. We lived in an alley, Michael. My mom found one box and some blankets for my shelter and bed while she sat out in the cold and the rain. Every day she would blame my father for what was happening to us. She got food for me out of trash cans and she made me take baths in the lake at the park. A couple months before my mom opened the flower shop she finally convinced the people at the bank to loan her enough money to buy a small house, furniture, and start a business. My mom eventually paid off the loan, but I wasn't happy before she got that house for us. I too wanted to play, but we were always hiding from the cops so they wouldn't take me away and put me in a foster home. As soon as we moved into that house I became happy like nothing bad would ever happen to us again," I finished still holding Michael.

He sighed, "I'm so sorry."

"It doesn't bother me anymore, I'm just glad that I'm safe and now I have you," I said wiping one of Michael's tears.

He kissed me and we lay back down again, I hoped that I would never feel abandoned again, and I knew that somehow I wouldn't, as long as I had Michael.