Stay the Night

Chapter 44

December 17th, 2003

Michael shuffled downstairs into the living room after laying Melanie down for bed. He, Karrin, and the kids spent most of the day under Mariah's direction to get the house decorated perfectly for Christmas. His wife took every single holiday seriously and he appreciated her candor.

He returned to the living room to see Mariah and Karrin cuddled up on the couch watching A Charlie Brown Christmas. He stopped to observe the two women for a moment. They seemed completely comfortable with one another.

He raised an eyebrow. I wonder...

"Excuse me, ladies." He said, nudging his way in between Karrin and his wife.

Karrin nudged him back. "Hey! Stop bullying me."

"I am not a bully." He said, sticking his tongue out at Karrin.

Mariah giggled, resting her head on his shoulder. "You two are a trip."

Michael smirked at Karrin. "She's not gonna help you now."

"Whatever." Karrin huffed. "You can at least get off the blanket."

Michael got up and moved the other side of Mariah. 

"Fine."

December 19th, 2003

Michael was in his office, viewing the security footage from when Mariah was pregnant. He still had an old copy of her schedule and was just checking to make sure that the thing with Tommy was truly just business- as crude as it sounded. 

He rolled through a decent amount of footage for the days that Mariah was supposed to be at Neverland and in her later pregnancy, all seemed to be well. 

Maybe she was telling the truth.

He wanted nothing more than to move forward. Now that he knew Elizabeth was his daughter, he had no real reason to hold on to his anger towards Mariah. Of course, he would have to work on trusting her again, but he could make that effort if Mariah truly was mostly faithful to him.

He rolled back past more footage from while he was away and saw that Mariah was doing nothing more than she normally did: writing, singing, and watching TV. He found it a little adorable to relive those moments of her pregnancy since he wasn't around all that much. It was a regret of his.

I guess this makes us even.

He fast-forwarded through some more footage when he saw something disturbing. His breathed hitched as he hit play and watched the video run. 

There was a visibly pregnant Mariah standing on the patio taking a long drag from what appeared to be a cigarette. 

Michael pulled back in shock. He rolled some more footage and again, Mariah was smoking. He cut through a couple more days and on each of them, Mariah took several smoke breaks. 

His horror was quickly replaced with anger and he shot up from his seat. 

Mariah tried to kill Elizabeth.

December 19th, 2003

Karrin was sitting on the floor, playing with the kids while Mariah sat on the couch working on music.

"So, Kay how does this sound?" Mariah cleared her throat. "I'm saying, I just want to make sure that you really want me just for me because it's not just that I'm so impressed by your cars and jewelry-"

"No." Nicole shook her head. "Sing something else, Mommy."

Karrin burst out laughing.

Mariah hit her with her notebook. "Stop laughing."