Stay the Night

Chapter 53

March 30th, 2004

"He had a baby with Diana Ross? Like an actual baby?"

Karrin nodded quickly. "Girl, I'm looking at a videotape right now! It's from like '89."

"So he got a daughter that's our age?" Amber asked. "Where is she at?"

Karrin's scanned the death certificate in her lap. "She's dead,"

"Whoa!" Amber exclaimed. "How did nobody know about that? I've never heard anything about it. All I know is Michael and Mariah met, broke up, got married, and they lived happily ever after...until you came along at least,"

Karrin rolled her eyes. "Well, looks like Diana got to him first."

"Wait! How did she die?" Amber asked. "That's the most important information,"

"It says 'blunt force trauma' and 'internal hemorrhage'" Karrin answered, scanning the paper. "Car accident,"

"Poor baby," Amber cooed. "I know that fucked him up. Especially if he was the one driving,"

Karrin looked over the paper a couple more times, looking for any other information on Michael's secret child while Amber droned on in the background.

"--Probably why he was always tripping on Mariah--"

"Wait, what did you say?" Karrin interjected.

Amber clicked her tongue. "I was saying, that his daughter's death is probably why he was always tripping on Mariah, calling her bad parent and stuff, like you were telling me he said. He was probably projecting,"

Karrin pursed her lips. "Well thank you, Dr. Jones. Are you a psychiatrist now?"

"Well, I do have a master's in psychology," Amber retorted. "But no seriously, I think that's something you want to look out for."

"I don't see why he'd lie--"

Amber cut her off. "See, it's not lying. It's more like, say he feels guilty for his daughter's death, and I don't see a world where he probably doesn't feel that way, it's more like he blows things out of proportion. Like for example, if he and Mariah had different parenting styles, he might not agree with how she does something and that's normal, parents have squabbles like that all the time but if he feels like a bad parent then he's sort of looking at her with a microscope and if she does something he doesn't quite agree with then he'll perceive her as a bad parent because he feels like a bad parent, does that make sense?"

"...kinda?" Karrin responded, not really wanting to take in her friend's analysis.

"It's like if he doesn't feel confident in himself as a parent then she has to be a bad mother because if she were a good mother then she wouldn't have had kids with him," Amber explained.  "A good mother wouldn't have had kids with a man whose child died, it's his insecurity being put back on her, she might not be a bad person at all or she's made a few mistakes that he's making bigger than what they are because of his own issues."

Karrin remained quiet, taking in Amber's perspective. "I'm just gonna ask him about it,"

"No!" Amber shouted. "Don't do that, anything but that, you might trigger him,"

"Trigger him?" Karrin echoed, wrinkling her nose. "What do you mean?"

"Like, when people have trauma like that asking them thing before they're ready to talk about it can make them re-live the trauma and it hurts more than it helps," Amber said. "Ain't no telling what he's been doing to cope. He's a boomer, you know they don't believe in doctors,"