Whitney's POV
I had just finished up my call with Missy 'Misdemeanor' Elliot and went to go check on my family, and my beautiful babies told me that their Daddy was in our bedroom on the phone with his mother. So I went to go and check on him.
As I'm heading over to our bedroom, I stop at the bedroom doors to overhear the stressful conversation between Michael and his mother. When listening through the door, first I'm hearing about someone named Debbie, then I'm hearing about secrets that were apparently being kept from me, and now, I'm hearing that Michael doesn't want me thinking that he cheated on me?! What exactly is he trying to imply here?!
Is this the same Debbie that helped treat him for his vitiligo and lupus condition? Did he cheat on me with Debbie? I don't know, but something's seriously wrong here!
As I remained behind the door, I heard Michael say to his mother over the phone,
"I know, mother. And you're right, now that Debbie's life is in Peril, I have to step up as a father and help protect them. Believe me, I will be telling Whitney about this."
Feeling that I've heard enough, I opened the door to our bedroom and stood in the doorway, asking,
"Tell Whitney what?"
Turning to me in alarm, Michael said quietly, "Mother, I'm gonna have to call you back."
And with that, he hung up the phone and turned back to me with a nervous yet guilty look.
Knowing that something was up, I asked,
"Michael, what's going on? And don't you dare lie to me!"
Michael tried to explain, "Whitney, now before you get angry. There's something that I have to tell you."
Too angry to listen, I said, "What are you going to tell me? That you've been sleeping with your dermatologist's nurse behind my back?! And that you somehow got her pregnant? Mike! I overheard your little conversation about Debbie! I want to know; how long have you been seeing her? Hmm? How long have you been seeing Debbie?
Michael tried to say, "Whitney, I promise you that I haven't been seeing Debbie like that!"
I interrupted and snapped,
"But you've been seeing her long enough to get her pregnant!"
Michael tried to tell me, "Whitney, it's not like that! I'm telling you the truth; you just have to listen to me-"
But I let my anger get the better of me and shouted,
"Bullshit! You know what, Mike? I actually thought better of you! I actually thought that you of all people wouldn't be capable of doing something like this! But you sure as hell have proven me wrong! You are no better than Bobby! You men are all the same! You'll have a nice and faithful woman in front of you, and then you'll go dispose of them and the rest of their children and go fuck anything with a skirt!"
Hurt that he was being compared to my ex-husband, Michael argued,
"Don't you dare compare me to that motherfucker! I am nothing like Bobby! I wouldn't throw my wife and children away for a small moment of pleasure! Whitney, you got it all wrong, I have never, nor would I ever cheat on you with Debbie!"
Too much in pain to even hear what Michael was saying, I went on to shout,
"See? You can't even try to be honest with me! And that hurts Michael! Do you even care about how bad that makes me feel?!"
Fed up, Michael snapped,
"Whitney, what I had with Debbie wasn't an affair!"
I demanded to know, "Then what was it Mike? What?!"
Michael shouted at the top of his lungs,
"IT WAS AN ARRANGEMENT!!!"
Shocked by what I was hearing, I asked,
"What?"
Taking a deep breath, I began to explain to Whitney,
"Whitney, what Debbie and I had was an arrangement to help her have children. Her husband Richard was having a hard time getting her pregnant, and because he was desperate to have children and because I was the only guy friend that she had, Debbie turned to me for help."
Listening to what he was saying, I responded,
"Even if you were trying to help your friend, that still means that you had to have slept with her to get her pregnant. Michael, have you forgotten about how babies are made? Do you even realize how bad that makes us look?"
Michael went to explain,
"Yeah, but you can also make a baby through artificial insemination. And that's what I did."
Confused, I asked, "Artificial insemination? You mean like how some women will go to a sperm bank to try and get pregnant that way?"
Michael explained further as he went to one of the drawers for his dresser, and grabbed and a packet of documents to give to me,
"Exactly! What I did was that I went to the doctors, and they did a procedure on me to help get the sperm out of my body. And they had a separate appointment for Debbie to insert the sperm directly into her body, so she could get pregnant and so I wouldn't have to sleep with her... And in case you don't believe me, I've kept both receipts from those appointments if you want to look at them."
Taking a look at both of the receipts, I was able to see that they had the same name as Michael's doctor and that they were marked down for artificial insemination.
Realizing that Michael was telling the truth, I asked,
"So... You weren't cheating on me?"
Michael went on to say, looking me straight in the eyes,
"Why would I go and throw away the best thing that's ever happened to me? Whitney, you are the first thing that I think about when I wake up in the morning and the last thing that I think about when I go to sleep at night. The children that we have together are the light of my life. And I wouldn't give it up for anything in the whole world... And that's what I was trying to give Debbie and Richard. A chance to have a wonderful family of their own."
I went on to ask him,
"Why didn't you think to tell me any of this?"
Michael answered as he painfully turned away from me,
"Because I was afraid of you getting the wrong idea about this situation. Whitney, I knew how badly affected you were when Bobby was cheating on you and I thought if I told you, you would've gotten the idea that I was cheating on you. And yes, I know that's not a valid excuse and I was an idiot for not being honest with you about it. But Whitney, you have to know that my only intention was to help Debbie and Richard start a beautiful family of their own... Unfortunately, that's not even gonna be the case for them anymore."
I asked him with concern,
"What do you mean, Mike?"
Michael explained,
"Before you came in, I got a call from my mother. Apparently CPS showed up to Hayvenhurst with their son, Prince. Whitney, Richard's been beating up on him and Debbie. When he was dropped off, he was covered in bruises on both his body and face."
Shocked at what I was hearing, I asked,
"Oh my God! Michael, are you serious?!"
Michael responded, "Yes, CPS alleged that Richard may have beat down on them because he might've found out that he wasn't the biological father of Prince. He beat Debbie up so bad, that she's been left in a coma. And now, Prince doesn't have his mother and Debbie's due with her second baby any day now. That's the only reason why they're keeping her on life support, to help the baby inside of her survive."
Hearing everything that Michael was telling me about Debbie and her husband, my heart immediately went out to her small children. I can't believe that anyone would try to lay hands on a small child, biological or not. I had a child from my marriage to Bobby, but that didn't matter to Michael. He went and adopted Bobbi Kristina not too long ago, and he still loves and accepts her like she's his own.
Why couldn't Richard be the same way with Debbie? He still had a chance to be a father with Debbie's children and he blew it over the fact that he couldn't conceive. Maybe in the future he and Debbie could've been able to conceive a child of their own. And now we'll never know. Because thanks to their scumbag of a father, those poor children don't have their mommy.
Michael went on to say as his own emotions were beginning to rise,
"Whitney, I know my only job in this situation was to be Debbie's sperm donor. But now that her son and unborn baby are on their own and Debbie's been left helpless, I feel like it's my responsibility to be there and protect them. They're biologically mine, so that makes them my children too. Whitney, you have every right to be angry with me about this situation and for not telling you about my deal with Debbie. A-And it would really break my heart... But if it means that you want to-"
I know what Michael was trying to get at, and I knew I had to end it. Although it was definitely wrong of him to keep that kind of a secret from me, I knew him and I knew that his heart was in the right place. I also knew Debbie as well, and I knew that every time we would go to the dermatologist, she would talk nonstop about how lucky we both were to have such beautiful kids and how much she wanted that with her husband. So I never once got the impression that she was a cheater.
I wasn't going to leave him just because he has to now take care of his biological children. Prince and his unborn baby brother or sister were innocent in all of this.
Bringing my finger to his lips, I said to him as I silently hushed him,
"Michael, you don't even need to worry about that. I promise you that I'm not going anywhere. And I want to help them."
Stunned by my decision, Michael asked,
"Really? You want to help raise them? Whitney, I'm truly grateful! But I don't understand, why aren't you angry?"
I explained, "While I don't like the fact that you kept this kind of secret from me, Michael, I know your heart. And I know your heart was in the right place when you wanted to help Debbie and Richard have a family of their own. Those poor little babies don't deserve to suffer from what that motherfucker did to them and Debbie. You were able to be kind and accepting towards Bobbi Kristina when you and I found our way back to each other, and you even went and adopted her to help protect her from the antics of both Bobby and my in-laws on the Houston side of the family. It's only right that I do the same for your children. I only want you to just promise me one thing."
Michael asked, "What is it, Whitney? Just say the word and I promise it'll be done."
I went on to say, "I want you to promise me that you will never keep a secret like that from me again. Michael, in case you forgot, it's no longer just you. It's you and me now, and whatever decisions we make, it's gonna affect our children too. I grew up in a dysfunctional family where both my parents would go behind each other's backs and hurt one another in the worst way possible. And both my brothers and I would turn to other alternatives to try and block their drama out. Alternatives that I wish I never would've come across. But since I found my way back to you, I don't do them anymore. Because I want to grow from my mistakes and I want to set a better example in front of our kids than my parents ever did for me and my siblings."
Michael nodded and explained, "I understand that... I mean, I didn't necessarily grow up in the most functional family either and I didn't really have much of a role model when it came to my father. But at the same time, if I didn't grow up into that, then I wouldn't be the person that I am today. Unfortunately, my father didn't have the best childhood either, and that's a great reason as to why he became the person he became. But the difference between me and him, was that I was able to look at my own upbringing and think about the stuff that I don't want to repeat with my children. And that's a great reason as to why I want to be the best father in the world to our children. Because I don't ever want to lay a hand on them or have them to think that I have any hatred towards them like my father did for me and my siblings."
I nodded in support of my husband and said,
"I'm glad to hear that you also want to grow from the messes that came from our upbringings. Our children don't deserve to suffer from the pain that was brought by our past generations. And Prince and his unborn baby brother or sister are a part of that now. Just promise me that the next time you go through something like this or do anything else to help out another family, that you'll let me be a part of it. Please promise me Michael, that there won't be any other secrets between us."
Michael said reassuringly as he placed a gentle hand onto my cheek,
"I promise, Nippy. As long as we're still together, there will be no more secrets."
Relieved to hear his promise to me, I said to him with a smile,
"I'm happy to hear it, Applehead."
And with that, we pulled each other into a comforting embrace. I knew this wasn't going to be easy, for not only Debbie's children but ours as well. But Michael and I both knew that our children, whether biological or not, were our greatest love of all. And as long as Michael and I stayed together, there wasn't anything that we couldn't do.
With that being said... Damn we're getting to have too many kids in this house!
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Hey guys! Here's basically the second part of the previous chapter. I just got back from a family trip to Florida and was able to work on the chapter there! Glad to have more time on my hands for this story!
Anyways, I hope y'all enjoy this and please stay tuned for more! ;)