Chapter 58

I sang a song over and over in my mind: Casey’s song. It haunted me still to this day.

We’ll reach the rainbows upon the heavens in the sky…

She happily clapped along as I played the guitar, something I never did. I wasn’t great at it, but she loved the guitar.

“Michael, I will play this when I’m a big girl?” she asked with her giant eyes, staring up at me adoringly.

Nothing in the world would erase that feeling of being somebody’s hero.

“Of course, honey, I believe in you,” I told her with a smile as I strummed aimlessly.

“Sing the song!” she patted the bend of my arm in a way that would have been patronising had she not only been four years old.

It didn’t matter how sick she was, she never seemed to lose her sprite when I was around. She was always so happy to see me.

We were in London. Her blood count was dangerously low and she had been hospitalised to start a transfusion treatment. She was deathly pale. Even the pinks of her eyes had lost their colour.

Her appetite had been lost from all the treatment so getting her to eat felt like pulling teeth.

“Okay,” I smiled, “are you sure?” I teased her as I sat on the edge of her bed.

She nodded enthusiastically. “Yes! I want the song!”

Diane watched on silently in the corner, her eyes full of tears. We knew Casey’s situation was growing dire. Diane knew it was probably time to start preparing herself for the worst. Casey’s body hadn’t really fought back the way it had in the past.

She weighed next to nothing and the doctors began talking about feeding her with a nasal tube. Her cheeks were hollowed out and her body ached almost constantly.

I put on a brave face when I was around her and when I had to walk out on stage almost every night. I wasn’t about to let Diane take her home; I wanted them to stay with me, for her to be able to enjoy every tiny minute of her life.

I also put on a brave face for Diane. She wasn’t dealing well.

“I don’t want to hear that song again!” Diane snapped loudly, startling both her daughter and I.

She never said another word; she got up and left the room. Casey looked at me in shock for a moment before she burst in to tears.

It was rare that Diane showed her emotions in front of Casey, but everything was getting to be too much and her nerves were worn. I set the guitar down and lifted my baby girl up.

“It’s okay, sweetheart,” I soothed her, rubbing her back, cuddling her close to me. “Mommy isn’t mad at you, she’s just upset because you’re not feeling well.” I told her, kissing her temple.

“Okay?”

She nodded.

“Here, let’s sing the song, okay?”

Let’s imagine that we can fly, we’ll reach the rainbow upon the heavens in the sky;
and when you feel weak, darling I will be your shield…
Imagine the rainbow with me;
we will reach the rainbow, won’t we?

It kept haunting me.

How close was my baby to reaching that rainbow? I could barely stand to think about it. The worst part was that no one would give me any information about her.

My heart hurt.

I wasn’t sure if that was a physical issue, or if it was just heartbreak consuming me all over again.

Somehow I had found the sonogram photo that I hid away after Diane yelled at me for leaving it on the refrigerator. I cried for our child and resented her for not being able to carry it to term.

Maybe if our child had been born in to the world, none of this would have happened.

Maybe I was unfair; maybe I should have agreed to have another child to help Casey live. If anything happened to her, it would probably be my fault.

Ugh.

The Xanax was wearing off. I wasn’t able to sleep anymore.

I thought about what Diane and Casey were doing – probably hanging out with her mother, too scared to back out now that the case had gone this far. She was never really a particularly strong woman, Diane. She always needed assurance that she was making the right decisions; she let herself get pushed around by too many people.

And she was frightened of her own mother.

I wanted to call, but I wasn’t even sure where she was.

I needed to remember more about who was around – who could have harmed her in those months that they spent with me on tour. I needed to write down everything.

I peeled myself out of the bed; my body felt heavy and burdened by a strangely weighted numbness.

I had to have a shower and clear my mind. Somewhere buried beneath the fuzziness of my brain was the fantasy of having my name cleared and having the opportunity to face Diane and ask to see Casey, to make sure she was okay – to continue having a hand in her treatment.

I knew it wouldn’t be cool with Malania, but … I didn’t really care.

Casey was the only link between my old, stress-free, happy and successful life and my current self.

And now I was left with the remnants; the leftovers, the after-effects of what happened when your life was classified more as an entity than a fucking human being.

I felt nauseous and I couldn’t seem to stop sweating.

As I stripped down to underwear and splashed some cold water from the basin over my face, I thought about Malania back at Neverland, probably hanging out with Kaito and appreciating the space away from me; the person who had hurt her with my lies.

I was such a huge fucking disappointment.

Selfish too, my conscience added, taunting me.

Imagine the rainbow with me…

If I got through this trial and cleared my name, I needed to stay the hell away from Casey; apparently I only brought harm to her life.

I took two Adderall, trying to block out the thoughts as I placed the pills upon my tongue, swallowing them with just a tiny bit of saliva. I almost choked on one and helped it down by cupping some tap water in to my mouth from my hands.

I got in to the shower and curled up in the corner of the recess, letting the water wash down right over my face hoping that with it, it would take my devastation and grief.

And this stupid fucking new reality.

**

I heard the front door rattling and I heard someone yelling my name. It felt distant and despite some small part of me knowing that this meant something serious, my brain couldn’t seem to do much about it. I just sat stoically in the middle of the kitchen floor upon the ice cold tiles.

All I could seem to focus upon was the blood. It trickled in a thin line down my left arm, leaving me transfixed with my heart beating so hard that I could hear it as if it were pulsating right by my eardrums.

“Stop…” I slurred.

The kitchen had grown darker as the sun went down and now all that remained was a faint light through the window shade.  I couldn’t remember how long I’d been sitting there. I could smell the vomit that I hadn’t completely managed to clear up.  When had I thrown up?

My head pounded with pain, sparking bursts of light behind my eyeballs that could only be explained as nothing short of torturous.

“Michael!” I heard more banging on the door, “open the door, Michael!” it was Malania’s voice.

“Mal…” I murmured to no one. I smoothed the tiles on the floor as if doing so would smooth out their firm indentations and turn them into fluffy pillows, and laid my heavy and aching head down upon. “Leave me alone…” I whispered.

I let my eyes fall closed.

We’ll reach the rainbow, won’t we?

**

“Please take a seat-“ the doctor motioned for both Diane and I to sit down in front of his desk.

I pulled the chair for her and waited for her to sit before I sat besides her, once seated, I naturally reached for her hand to comfort her.

We’d left Casey with Larry in the waiting room where she could play with the toys.

“Before we start, how is Casey today?”

Diane looked at me, as if I had somehow been spending more time with her than she had. Perhaps I had, I was constantly present with her. Diane sat in the corner watching on, only loaning herself to her daughter when she needed a cuddle.

I came to realise in that split instance, that I was caring for two people.

Diane had all but bailed on her daughter. She went through the motions but didn’t really show her child all that much warmth anymore. Not if I compared the level of affection and love she had shown to her when I’d first met her.

“She’s good, happy, but… not feeling very well, obviously,” I replied, ignoring my sudden discovery, trying to concentrate on our appointment.

“Our results show, and I’m sure you will both agree with me, that at this present moment, Casey’s tumours are too large for the chemotherapy to really gain a foothold. It’s almost like we’re playing a losing game of whack-a-mole,” he explained.

I felt Diane clenching my hand tightly as if she were bracing herself for something she wasn’t about to like.

“Okay…” I said slowly.

We had taken Casey to just about every renowned specialist in every country that we touched down in, hoping that we would find someone who could offer us a cure. So far, miracles weren’t really in our immediate future.

“I’m thinking that Casey’s only hope at this point is a kidney transplant. She is quickly losing function in that area.”

We knew that. We knew dialysis was on the cards.

“But, the last doctor told us that kidney transplant is only feasible if the chemo kills off the cancer cells that spread elsewhere…” Diane pitched in, covering her mouth with her hands.

“Yes, that’s the hurdle we must face, Ms. Hargrove, at this point, we can see from the last results that there are a few more legions appearing on her liver and stomach.”

I felt a little woozy with shock and the room had a sense of surreal to it. It was not at all the news I expected to hear. I tried to regather myself while Diane just fell apart. I didn’t blame her. I scooted my chair closer to her and pulled her inward toward me. I wrapped my arms around her and held her tightly.

“I thought the treatment was going well, we thou-“ I let my voice trail off.

He got up, placing a scan against a backlight that was mounted to the wall. He drew his finger the scan, circling a spot, explaining that it was a new hot spot for the cancer.

“Right now I believe we should change her course of treatment and start incorporating a low dose of radiation on her stomach area.  We would then know within a few weeks if it were helping.  If so and her vitals are strong enough, we could then and remove those tumours, - ”

“Okay,” I agreed again.

“- the chemotherapy is going to be aggressive and we’ll undergo some tests first to determine whether or not Casey is healthy enough to go through with it.”

Diane breathed out a sobs.

“I understand this is very difficult to hear,” the doctor told her gently, “but it is sincerely what I feel to be the best course of action against such late stage cancer.”

Late stage cancer…

I hated that I had researched the back end out of Wilms Tumors, I knew everything about it and I knew that treatment was usually quite successful if the diagnosis was made during the early staging.

Casey’s hadn’t been, but according to Diane, she had been given no reason to believe that she wouldn’t make a full recovery when she had been originally treated. The recurrence was what had thrown them – it had been found later and had been given 4th staging. It was still treatable, but more serious as it had spread beyond her kidneys.

Casey had undergone tumor removal surgery three times, but so far the results had been disheartening.

“If this treatment doesn’t work,” he began, “it would be in Casey’s best interests to begin to consider quality of life over quantity of life and making her feel as comfortable as we can.”

I could have vomited, but I took a few deep breaths and waited for the dizziness to dissipate.

“Okay,” I said for the third time while Diane had barely spoken as she was too consumed by her tears.

“Would you like a minute to yourselves?” the doctor asked us, “I understand this is not really the news you expected to hear.”

I nodded again.

He left us for the moment and closed the door behind us.

I turned to Diane and pulled my shit together, like I always did, despite the fact that I wanted to crumple in to pieces along with her.

I blinked back the tears filming over in my eyes and took her by the shoulders, “Di, we need to believe Casey will be okay? Alright?” I told her desperately, probably trying to convince myself as well. “She is going to be fine, we are going to trust God that He will take care of her and bring her healing.”

“God!” she exclaimed loudly with a half laugh and half sob, “God!” she repeated, “Are you kidding me, Michael? My daughter has been dealing with this for more than HALF of her life and you’re telling me to trust God?!”

I figured that maybe Diane wasn’t ready to have a rational conversation about any of what we had just heard. I didn’t try to discuss God with her any further; instead I just pulled her in to an embrace and told her that I loved her and that we’d see it through.

When we were done seeing the doctor, we went to find Casey and Larry. Neither was to be found. Diane made her way to the receptionist, “Where did my daughter go?” she asked, “She was with our security guard!” she added urgently.

“They were just headed out for a walk, Casey got a little upset when she couldn’t come in with you both.”

Diane placed her hand on her chest with relief. She did suffer a little separation anxiety from her daughter. I understood; I had felt it when I left for my tour.

“Let’s just wait here,” I told Diane, “I’m sure they’re not far away, Larry probably just wanted to calm her down.”

She agreed and sank down on a hard plastic waiting room seat. I held her hand and she actually initiated physical contact first. It wasn’t too often that she did that. She leaned in, encircling her arms around my waist, burying her head in to my chest.

It was nice to feel needed.

Less than fifteen minutes later of the two of us sitting in almost complete silence, Larry was carrying Casey up the hallway toward us. She was grizzling away. Instead of reaching her arms up for her Mommy, she looked at me, crying out for me, saying my name over and over. 

I felt bad but if Diane felt hurt by that, she didn’t say anything. She just wiped her cheeks and I wiped mine too, noticing that I had shed a few tears. I took her from Larry. She entwined her tiny limbs around me, wrapping her arms around my neck.

“It’s okay, don’t cry, Mom and I are here…” I told her. I looked up at Larry who was red-faced and irate, as if her upset had really bothered him.

“What happened?” I asked.

“I don’t know, Mr Jackson, I’m not a babysitter,” he said with a little chuckle. “She got upset, so I took her outside for a walk…”

He shifted uncomfortably, probably because he had suddenly realised he’d walked in on an intimate family moment; that from the looks on our faces and the heavy footsteps with which we paced down the hallway that something was not right.

When we got back to the hotel, Diane totally fell apart. She checked out on me and went to lay down. I knew she was sad, but I needed her to get up and be Casey’s Mom. I also had to work. I tried never to take our problems on stage with me, but I knew that night’s show would be tough.

My tour camp was a well-oiled machine. We had everything on point right down to a very rigid time line. It began from the time I was to leave the hotel, the time I spent getting ready in my trailer, make up, hair, a quick run down with the band, a meeting to inform me and anyone else of any tech issues or any factors that I should keep in mind.

I also had a tour assistant whose job it was to bring me up to speed on things to do with the country’s culture. What I could say, what I should say, if there was a song to avoid singing for fear of offending. The assistant also reminded me what city I was in since it was easy to forget.

I needed to start warming up my vocals and spend some time stretching to get ready to dance. For me, dancing was a very good outlet of emotional stress, so was singing, so the concert that night was probably going to be full of energy.

“Sweetheart,” I disturbed Diane softly, sitting on the edge of the bed where she lay with her head buried beneath a pillow. “Sweetie, I have to start getting ready…”

“…you’re going to be able to still go out on stage tonight,?” she asked in monotone. Even though she spoke without any emotion, I was still able to pick up some surprise.

“Yes, I have to…” I replied simply, “I’d rather be here with you both, but I can’t.”

“Okay…” she nodded. I leaned over and kissed her forehead. “Casey is having a nap right now. I’ve gone ahead and ordered room service for you for dinner and I asked them to bring some steamed vegetables and brown rice for Case… if you need anything else, just call Larry.”

“Thanks, Michael…”

She had been so cagey with me leading up to that appointment, picking apart every single thing I did; nothing ever seemed to be right. But, in that moment, I remembered how nice she could be and how gracious and appreciative she was.

As I drew away from her, she lifted her head and kissed my cheek back. I managed a smile. “How are you feeling?” I asked, stroking her hair, speaking to her in a hushed tone.

She shrugged and gave a half smile back to me. “I don’t even know anymore…”

“However you feel,” I began, “those feelings aren’t wrong, okay? If you feel anger or sadness, resentment, whatever – it’s all normal.”

“I know…” her voice trailed off. “You’re so good at all this, Casey just loves you so much, probably more than she loves me…” her tone was tinged with a little hint of bitterness.

“I doubt it,” I replied, but both of us knew that her daughter chose me every single time over her. Maybe it was jealousy, maybe that was the issue with Casey calling me Dad, I wasn’t sure, but I tried not to buy in to it. “You do all the hard stuff, I’m just the one who comes home and makes her laugh…”

I knew that wasn’t really a fair appraisal of my relationship with Casey. I too had done my fair share of changing diapers earlier on. I fed her, bathed her, put her to bed, I read stories, held her head over buckets when she was unwell. I held her hand when she was enduring needles and IV lines and all of her doctor related stuff.

In fact, often Diane checked out. She was moody and cold and sometimes a little insensitive when Casey vied for her attention.

It wasn’t her fault though; I felt like her daughter’s sickness was just too all consuming for her to deal with some days. Although, she made no effort to get any help from the social workers that the hospital was always trying to push upon her.

“What time will you be back tonight?” she wondered, ignoring the lie that I had just told us both.

“Probably just after midnight. Don’t wait up, okay? You need some sleep.”

My doctor had prescribed Diane some Valium to help with her insomnia. She hated to take it, but sometimes it was necessary.

“I’ll get up in a minute…” she promised.

“Don’t worry too much. Casey has only just gone down for a nap. I’m going to the show with Franco tonight. Larry is hanging out, keeping an eye on her if and to be here if you need anything.”

Larry wasn’t happy about that, but I didn’t care. I knew despite his huffing and puffing, he had a soft spot for Casey. How could he not?

“Thanks Michael…” she said again, “you’re wonderful.”

I just smiled and kissed her again. “I gotta jet, I’ll come in and give you a cuddle when I get home…”

“I’ll look forward to that.”

For the first time in awhile, she reached her arms out. I almost laughed, she looked gorgeous despite the concern filling up the worry lines on her face. She looked exactly as Casey did when she was demanding a hug.

I obliged her and held her for a moment.

“See you later, sweetheart…” I murmured, getting up to leave.

**

There were two hands on either side of my face. I wanted to open my eyes but I couldn’t seem to lift the heavy lids that kept them tightly closed.

There were voices too, familiar ones that sounded far away. I couldn’t focus on them. The words reached me in a blur that I discarded as quickly as I heard them.

I cursed myself for taking too many pills. Every single pill that made it down my throat came with the promise that it would be the last.

Until the bad thoughts came back and the urges to push deeper with the sharp objects passed.

I was too much of a fucking coward to go through with it, so dulling the pain with the cocktail of drugs that the Adderall ironically gave me the focus to find, seemed like the most logical thing to do.

We’ll reach the rainbow upon the heavens in the sky

I heard my own voice trying to say something, but my tongue seemed too heavy to move properly. I was trying to feebly protest.

Why?

I couldn’t really figure out what was happening. Something cold hit my face. More words, they got louder, frantic even.

We’ll reach the rainbows, won’t we?

I was moving. Flying in to the sky, maybe, I wasn’t sure. Tiny pin-holes of light burst in through my eyeballs almost blinding me, burning my retinas; or at least that’s how it felt.

I anticipated the rainbows. I smiled to see Casey. I hugged her tightly. She smiled back, looking healthy and happy.

Everything turned to black again and instead of words trying to find their way out of my mouth, I felt liquid filling my mouth involuntarily, making my body spasm uncontrollably.

I was moving again.

Hands all over me, my body fought against whatever was trying to make its way out of my body; probably all the darkness getting rejected by a lifetime of trying to be fucking positive in the face of constant shit storm.

And when you feel weak, darling, I will be your shield…

I failed.

I failed. I fucking failed.

I repeated myself, my words meshing with the toxic fluid that spilled from my mouth and the water that escaped the corners of my eyes.

“I’M SORRY!” I yelled loudly, the words finally making their way from my lips, unencumbered by whatever force was guilty of sucking me inside myself, unable to coherently respond to anyone else who happened to be in the room with me.

I gave up fighting, trying to focus, trying to stop the expulsion of feelings.

Instead I felt a shower of rain falling upon me. I stopped flying. The bursts of light seemed to halt and the voices got quieter, but they didn’t stop touching my face and calling my name.

Imagine the rainbow with me…