Smile

Chapter 11

July 1st 1988 (4:00 pm)
"Daddy?"

Mariah looked as if she was going to faint. "H-How-" She turned around and tried to keep herself together but she couldn't keep the tears from flowing down her face.

She turned herself back around and looked directly into her fathers eyes. She stared at him for a few seconds, she didn't know what to say and even if she did she couldn't say anything.

She never thought she'd see him again.
He still relatively looked the same as he did when she last saw him all those years ago. "D-Daddy?" She managed to say again.

1974

"Daddy where are you going?" The well-spoken 4 year old asked inquisitively.

Alfred continued to pack his things and ignored the little girl.

"Daddy stop it!" She told him and threw a pair of pants he packed across the room.

Alfred went and picked up the pair of pants and refolded them. "Your mama wants me to leave baby, I promise I'll come and pick you up around the weekend or something, hows that sound?"

Mariah frowned. "Daddy I don't want you to leave."

Alfred looked down at her sympathetically. "Your mama told me I've got to leave." He explained.

"Well tell her no." She replied.

"Mariah you're too young to understand these things now but remember what I'm telling you... Don't ever call that no man your father even if your mama tell you to don't because I'm your only father and you can tell your mama that too." He explained to her as he zipped up his suitcase and walked out the door.

Mariah watched him through the window, she watched as he put his suitcases in the car and continued watching as he got inside the car and drove off.

July 1st 1988 (4:18 pm)

Mariah looked down at the floor and let a tear slip out of her eyes. "Why didn't you come back?" She asked him. "Every night until I was 12 years old I waited for you by the window until I was so tired I fell asleep... but you never came." She explained. "Finally I just realized you'd never come back and started sleeping in my bed again."

"Mom's new husband has tortured me since I was 6 years old and all I ever wanted was for you to come and save me from there but you never did..."

Alfred started to feel guilty, this is exactly what he was afraid of. "Mimi don't you know I tried."

Mimi... He always used to call me that Mariah thought to herself.

"Don't you know I tried everyday to contact you in some way, that weekend after I left I went to your mamas house she had a new man there and he threatened to shoot me... I thought about going to the courts but I knew they'd never award me custody, hell I sent letters to you and your siblings everyday until I couldn't afford no more stamps." He explained.

Mariah sat down on the couch, put her face in her hands and started sobbing silently. "It was moms fault wasn't it?" She asked between sobs. "She screwed my whole childhood up."

Alfred sighed, he knew it was in fact Patricia's fault but he wasn't about to talk bad about his children's mother. "I'm not gonna put the blame entirely on Pat, I mean I could've done more."

Mariah rolled her eyes. "No... you don't understand what's she's put me through, she never stopped that man unless he went too far..." She explained.

July 7th 1988 (2:34 pm)

"Treated me kind... sweet destiny carried me through desperation, to the one that was waiting for me" Mariah sung passionately into the studio microphone.

This song in particular she had wrote about Michael, about all he'd done for her in the little time they knew each other.

He genuinely gave her everything she's ever wanted within a matter of 4 months. A record deal and to be reunited with her father. It meant a lot to finally get out all her emotions to her father, and to finally be able to understand why he just abandoned her.

"I had a vision of love and it was all that you've given to me."

Im running out of ideas so I'm going to skip a little bit of time for the next chapter