Back to Health: Slow Recovery

Lesson 1: Don't Make Me Get Kingy

Neverland Estate, August 2012.

8:01 am

Lynnette crept inside the room, treading lightly. She held her stethoscope closely to not allow it to noisily swing around her neck as she carried Michael's breakfast. She looked into the bed, seeing him lied comatose in sleep on his tummy. His black hair was messily gathered at the top of his head in the small pony tail she'd made for him before he retired the night previous and she searched for a clear spot on his nightstand to rest his plate.

Michael was a notorious pack rat. His room was as unorganized as his mind, and she picked up the clearly forlorn copy of The Stand by Stephen King, his favorite author. She put his breakfast in its place. She began tidying his bedside, collecting his empty water bottle to refill in the Brita filter he kept in his bedroom fridge.

He snored lightly under the covers, and she remembered him asking for her to wake him after 8 to call his sister. She reached around her neck, knowing the best way to wake him after his famous joke of putting a piece of ice down her scrubs as she wasn't paying attention.

She lowered the cold stethoscope down onto his bare chest under the covers, and he groaned cutely with his eyes still shut tightly,

"What the fuck-"

Lynnette giggled and patted his arm, telling him what time it was. He rolled onto his back, groaning with every movement before he asked for his iPhone. She quickly pulled it away from the charger and began to fill his water bottle.

"Michael, this room is a pig sty. How many books have you restarted then never touched again-" She picked up the opened copy of Catcher in the Rye next to his pillow and said emphatically, "How many times have you read this?"

"Holden Caulfield is an intellectual." He murmured under his breath, squinting from the brightness of the phone in his eyes.

"He's a spoiled brat, actually." Lynnette reminded as she brought his plate close, setting his dining tray across his lap from the ground below. Michael giggled to her comment and said cheekily with a grin,

"Just like meeeeee..."

She sat behind him as he began to pick at his food, pushing the sliced apples and kale leaves around like the picky rabbit that he was when he ate. Michael was hypersensitive when it came to his weight. Any unannounced pound that came across his body was a crisis. He'd cry himself to sleep with Lynnette curled up at the end of the bed, talking him off his metaphorical ledge.

He was on new mood stabilizers that periodically made him tired. She'd find him throughout the day slumped over the sofa or the kitchen table asleep and offer to take him to bed. Being the audacious flirt that he was, he'd giggle and ask if she was coming to bed, too. She would have to hide her face when he'd say anything overly flirtacious or he'd consider it a victory. But with Michael Jackson, anything further than a first name basis with a young woman was fair game for a flirt.

She sat behind him on the bed as he sat up with his morning ritual of scrolling Twitter. The cesspool, he called it. She slid off her shoes to nestle into the bed further, she positioned herself to put her socked feet on either side of him as she began spritzing his hair with the salon brand detangler he kept for managing his morning tangles. Sweetly, he placed his dainty fingers around her ankle, brushing his thumb against her as he continued to scroll.

"How was Vegas, pretty?" He asked, setting down his cellphone after she urged him to eat something.

Lynnette had just returned from vacation the day before. Michael had previously been in the hospital briefly involving a scare with his heart, and she worked nearly 89 hours that week. She never left his side. He ordered her, begged her even to take a vacation as much as he admired her dedication to his wellbeing.