"I told her I don't like pineapple!"
Shania says shaking her head as the hospital room shut closed during lunch rounds. Shania curled her lip in disgust and she smelt the opened lid in the Jello container.
"Smells like old lady perfume!"
Dee looks over her People magazine and she says,
"Would you like some coffee pity baby?"
Shania tossed the Jello aside and she says, "I'm on a sugar free diet according to nurse whatever the hell her name was."
Faith comes over and she picked up the Jello.
"This can't be that bad.."
The girls had stayed in the hospital room like a camping trip and they waited patient fot Shania to be discharged as she had recovered so fast. Never minding the paparazzi on their heels about Neverland Inn, they stayed by each others side.
"Have you heard anymore from your mom?"
Dee asks Shania as she crunched on her trail mix from the vending machine,
"Nope." She crunched, "Which is oddly suspicious."
Faith turned around with a spoon in her mouth and a horrible grimace across her face. She sat down the Jello and she gargles from the horrid taste,
"This aint...no damn pineapple..."
She spat it into the trash and she sat back beside Dee.
Shania changes the channel with her bed remote and she asks casual,
"So Dee, have you thought of names?"
Dee looks over half paying attention from her magazine and she says,
"Names of what?"
Shan rolled her eyes laughing and she says,
"Names for the baby.."
Faith becomes interested and she looks over her glasses grinning.
Dee avoided the topic reluctant to go further and she says,
"I'm not naming what could or could not be there. Not yet."
Shan leans back getting comfortable and she says,
"Yeah but if you knew for sure?"
She put down the magazine and crossed her legs thinking. Faith poked in and she mentions pondering,
"I'd name my son Elijah."
"Why Elijah?" Shan asks.
"That's a pretty ass name."
Dee giggles and she tosses the magazine nonchalantly to her side and she hums thinking. No one ever really thinks what to name their child unless they're put in the situation so she answers.
"If it were a girl...Maybe Johanna. I love that name...."
Shania smiled and Faith asked,
"But what if you had a boy..."
Dee actually had a name in mind her entire life and she frowns looking down until the room door swung open.
"Hello, I'm doctor Patel."
He stepped around the corner and the girls all gave their attention,
"You guys have drawn quite a crowd. Celebrities are we?"
He clicked his pen looking up from his papers and the girls sighed,
"Seems like it." Shania said with crossed arms.
He flips a few pages and hums,
"Good news, I have your discharge papers in order. You'll be in an arm cast for a few weeks for that wrist and that rib should heal accordingly."
They all cheered and he handed her a clipboard to sign and she gawked,
"Oh god I'm right handed."
They all laughed at her struggling with a left handed signature and he helps her into a sling.
He exited the room and the girls all smiled,
"Shan's going hooome."
She kinda shrugged and Dee notices her bland expression,
"Aren't you happy babe?"
She put her shirt back on from her bag and she tsked,
"I'm just worried."
Dee leaned back to her chair and she knew exactly how she felt. Faith sighed heavy and she said low,
"Guess there's really only one way to find out.."
~~
The car ride back home was unnerving and not a sound was heard unless it was from the radio.
They approached Neverland gates to find them shut and Faith squints,
"That's weird."
She goes to the pin pad and types in the code. It beeps back to her harsly and she spat,
"The pin isn't working!"
Dee rummages through her purse confused and she says,
"Here's the master key. But I thought we left the gate open?"
"We did." Faith says and she gets out unlocking the massive bronze gates until they swing open. Pulling in, they notice commotion in the distance and she turns down the radio.
Shan looks up from the backseat and she screams,
"You gotta be fucking kidding me!!"
Black Mercedes' were parked all around the cricled off drive way, which surrounded Marisha holding a clipboard barking at movers to haul away piece after piece of Shania's belongings. Men were loading things into U-Hauls and slamming the car hatches closed.
Shania jumped from the car and she angrily trudged over on one crutch,
"That's it!" Faith shot, "I'm calling Janet!"
Dee and Faith shut their doors hurrying to help Shania and Dee mentions over her shoulder,
"I thought she was on vacation with Wissam and Eissa?"
Faith held the phone to her ear with her shoulder and says,
"Well she's about to be interrupted."
Shania struggled up the front steps to her mother and she growled,
"What the fuck is going on?!"
Marisha looks over her clipboard and she says,
"Were moving you out. You're coming home immediately, Shania. No more of this Bed and Breakfast nonsense!"
She turned and instructed to men to move a painting inside the truck and Shania yells in shock,
"I painted that last year for gallery week don't touch that!"
She hops over and begins to pry it from their hands making Dee take over,
"Ms. Zimmarmen you can't do this! We need Shania here!"
She paid Dee no attention and said only half caring against the items on her paper,
"Is that right? Well I'm her mother.."
She clicked her pen cheekily and Dee argued getting angrier.
"She's a grown ass woman!"
"Who's going to stop me?"
Marisha asked with a thumb on her chin devilishly and Dee gave. She knee exactly who could stop and she trudged towards Faith who was hanging up the phone.
"I left Janet like three messages. She's not answering."
Dee pulled her by the arm and headed inside.
"What's going on?" Faith asked and Dee answered,
"We gotta find Michael."
~
They raced upstairs and they bursted into Michael's room.
"Mike?! Michaaael?!" They called and not a sound was heard.
"It doesnt even feel cold.."
"I don't like this, Dee." Faith said looking around worried and Dee felt the same. She didn't even feel the hair on her neck stand up and she felt her lip quiver. His things looked so dusty instead of kept and polished and even in the entire mansion, things just felt too different. A different that seemed unbearable sithout Michael's presence.
She couldn't live without Michael and now reality was sinking in a little too fast.
They heard a commotion in the hallway and they both rush out hearing Shania's voice.
Joseph was carrying one of her canvases downstairs and she stopped him yelling,
"You're doing this too?! I thought you cared about me!?"
Joseph turned around with his blond locks falling in his face and he said,
"I want what's best for you, Shan. And what's best right now is that you move back to Wisconsin. With us, with me."
She shook her head in disbelief. Her eyes rolled all over the room.
"My life is fucking over now huh?"
Tears streamed down her face and Faith and Dee held her side consoling her. They held her close and she sobbed more but the grip on her one crutch got tighter. She looked around to her scattered things and to the moving men and a wave of rage lept up inside.
She turned to the door and screamed to the top of her lungs,
"EVERYONE GET OUT!"
She waved her hands forward and with a sudden burst, every shutter door and window in the mansion clammered. The doors clapped open and shut in a constant beating and the lights flickered. The moving men dropped everything to the sudden chaos and they hurried like mice scurrying to the door.
The girls couldn't believe their eyes and once there was peace, Shania dropped to her knees. There on the top step she held the bannister still crying and the girls heard the ominous silence still in the air.
It was like they had blown the last breaker and the house was dark. The knelt beside Shania on the stairwell and held her as she cried. They cried too knowing it would never be the same without the head of house and the heart break was excruciating.
In the midst of their tears, footsteps on the bottom level were thumping across the foyer and stopped at the stairs. The girls heard nothing until a beam of light breaks the dark and it glowed there at the bottom of the stairs.
Faith looks up and rubs her glasses not believing it.
"Look!" She says and the girls rose up.
A white light shone on their face and stood so bright at the bottom of the stairs. It was more than silent until they heard the lyrics now sung like woven silk and slow acapella,
"I Am Your Joy...Your Best Of joy.."
The song stopped and Shania stood up going downstairs. They were pulled in like a trance knowing that voice from anywhere and they faced the light.
It morphed into a figure so familiar and Michael seared with beams of light burning his form into vision, slowly unfurling his lines into clearer view and he was beautiful,
"I Am The Moonlight...You Are The Spring...Our Lives a Scared Thing..."
He bursted with light as he completed his appearance and his smile shined like the glow of a thousand suns in their eyes.
He spun like the enigma he was and he sang,
"I Am Forever...."
The girls smiled their widest one by one and Shania spoke with tears rolling for a better reason,
"We missed you."
Michael smiled and he stretched his arms out wide and when he opened his palms, his magical luminescent butterflies fluttered away like a dream. They danced around the girls making their widened and their hearts smile and Michael spoke,
"Come 'ere"
They lept to him in a hug and they covered their wet eyes. Dee sniffled and she whispered over his shoulder,
"What do we do, Mike? People think we're gonna shut down the business. Shan's mom is trying to take her away."
Michael pet their heads in their embrace and he said grinning,
"You'll do what you've always done girls. You'll get through it. What do I always say? Hm?"
"This too shall pass." Faith reminded wiping her face and Michael nodded,
"Yes ma'am. But honestly, I don't think those guys will be back. They ran outta here like little girls. Did you see those clowns?"
The girls all laughed and Michael sees their glassy eyes and he asks,
"What's wrong, girls? Man you guys always get so emotional don't you?"
He chuckled but Dee shrugged,
"Yeah I guess we do."
"Well dry it up." Michael spoke laughing but he mentions,
"We now have a reason to celebrate."
They looked around confused and Shania choked,
"LIKE WHAT?!"
Michael laughed high pitched like a child and he clarifies, "No, no." He looks over to Faith and he sings,
"Someone's going to Stanford.."
The other two gasp in shock and Dee stammers,
"For real?! You got in! That's awesome!"
"I knew you'd rock that test, I mean god, you studied for weeks, girl."
Shan said but Faith shook her head sadly.
"But that means I'll have to leave you guys. I don't wanna do that next fall."
Michael stopped the conversation from being so quiet and he says shortly,
"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it." He clapped his hands as they laughed and he hummed,
"Let's get some lights going shall we?"
He focused around the ceiling and with a flash, the lights in the mansion returned to their fullness and the girls cheered.
"I vote, we have a dance party to celebrate miss college ready? What say you?"
Michael says traveling upstairs but Shania buts in,
"Yeah well I'm gonna be doing the peg-leg shuffle. Look at me!"
"We'll hold you up." Faith and Dee remind and Michael roars laughing.
~
Shania tossed and turned in bed that night and she covered up trying not to lay on her broken wing, which it felt like. She huffed into her pillow in the dark and she pursed her lips together. She felt obligated to ask Michael about the dream she had after the wreck and there she said quietly to the four walls in the dark,
"Hey Michael?"
A few moments pass and through the floor, Michael poked his head up phantom like and she chuckles,
"It's so creepy when you do that."
He smiled pulling the rest of his body through the floor and he sat on the bed,
"How're you feeling dear?"
She tsked her lips and she rambled,
"Cut the crap. Did you talk to me after the wreck did I almost die?"
Michael fixed his gaze and he looked to her deeply, he moved hair from her face and he says,
"Shania, you did die. You died behind the wheel and you came to me. You were inside my head as a spirit and it should never be that way."
She turned her head and she couldn't believe what she was hearing.
"I heard you calling for me. I heard you here at the house. Did you look for me?"
She only nodded and Michael took her hand. He spoke gravely and serious when he said,
"You died, Shania. But when I met you in that place of somewhere else I brought you back. I showed you the way back to life because that's where you belonged. You belong here, with Neverland and with the girls. I had to show your spirit the way."
She felt her throat form a lump so heavy and she muttered,
"I knew it was you. It felt like you. More real than anything you've ever shown us. It felt real."
Michael stared at her nodding and he says coy,
"Who's to say it's not?"
He smiled wide and devious and she punched his arm. He tugs on her sling and bawks like a chicken teasing she had a chicken wing and she punched his arm again,
"Jerk."
He laughed but asked,
"Do you know that song I sang today?"
Shan nodded and she yawned,
"Yeah, it's off your postumous album."
He sighed and said, "I was gonna unveil that song during my tours in 2009 but boy did that go well."
Shania laughed loudly with her head craned back and Michael chuckles,
"I don't really think it went that well for me. But ugh.."
He crossed his legs and went on,
"I wrote that song in the back of a car in Vegas and ugh..."
He smiled to the ground then looked back to Shania,
"I really never thought I would mean the lyrics so much. Words are only sounds made by your throat until you mean them."
Shania became quiet and she blushed but Michael went on,
"Those lyrics are gospel. We need each other. Our love is from the heart. And we are forever."
She blushed darker and she covered her face,
"You're putting me on, Michael. But you shoulda saw me. I got those movers to run out like a bunch of sissies. All by myself all I had to do was focus and boom."
Michael egged her on and he chuckles, "Maybe you brought something back from the other side, huh Shan?"
He chuckled and he kissed her head,
"I really missed you in the hospital. I was so worried that you weren't gonna be here anymore."
She says half asleep and Michael covers her up tighter,
"What do you mean?" He smiled, "I'm always gonna be around. Someones gotta take care of my girls."
She nestled deeper into her blankets and said,
"But what about when you have to go up to heaven?"
He shook his head in a smile and he says,
"No darling. I am forever.."