𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐁𝐄𝐆𝐔𝐈𝐍𝐄

𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐑𝐓𝐄𝐄𝐍, 𝐈𝐈𝐈

13. | BREAKEVEN, III

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It was a late afternoon on October 7, 1987, when Diana's son entered the world, red-cheeked and sporting the thickest mop of shiny, dark hair she had ever seen. It had been a rough pregnancy and a rougher fifteen hours of labor, but seeing the joy in her children's eyes and Arne's broad smile had made the pain worth it.

If her mother was here, how would she feel? Would she have counted each of his tiny toes and fingers just as she had done with each of her girls? Would she have laughed when Chico called the baby's hair a toupee? Or say "Diane, you really are somethin'" once she told her his name, Ross Arne Næss? Diana had nestled him close, caressed his taut, flaky skin, and let dreams of what could have been flow through her.

Caring for a newborn wasn't as easy as she remembered. More than a decade had gone by since Chudney had been a pudgy, squealing bundle of joy; she had blissfully forgotten the sharpness of a baby's cries, the hourly diaper changes, the late-night feedings, and the slog that came with post-partum recovery. Her body morphed into something strange, a part of her, but foreign at the same time. She became a bottle, pacifier, and security blanket all wrapped into one.

She didn't mind. Maternal possession and an obsession of another kind took over. No one could hold, feed, or console her baby the way she could. Diana could be exhausted, surviving on only one or two hours of sleep, and would insist on keeping the baby practically attached to her hip. It often took the nanny's scolding to talk some sense into her. Her capacity as a mother was only as good as her body's ability to function. If she didn't rest or eat she was of no use to anyone, let alone her son. The nanny would take over from there, offering help day and night, giving Diana time she didn't want or need. She preferred to be busy, to be so engrossed by her squabbling son that the need for sleep would trump any waking moment she had left.

She was no fool. She had always known what people thought of her. Of course it was bothersome, but it had never completely made her lose sight of what she wanted, of who she was. Michael had managed to inflict a different kind of wound, locating a chink in her armor she had forgotten was there. He had taken every phantom whisper and given it a body and a purpose. Every choice she had ever made had moved into a single file line. They weren't there to hash things out judiciously. They were there to back her into a corner, to tear at her like a pack of hounds—and they were succeeding, advancing farther than ever before.

The voices were powerful. To be lambasted by a stranger or someone she considered insignificant was one thing. To be lambasted by someone who had looked up to you, who had listened to you speak of the things that hurt, and for them to take those things and form them into a weapon was something far more torturous.

She thought she had come to terms with the person she had been when she was younger, but once again, she was back at square one. Could it be true? Would she always be the things people had called her all these years? Had it taken an extreme, public broadcast from someone who had seemingly accepted her to see it?

For the first time in a long time, she thought of the night at Smokey's mansion, how Marv leered at her and the flanking girls had smiled wide grins, gleeful to watch Diane Ross—some insults were formidable enough to go beyond a public persona—knocked down for size. She thought of moments before, where alcohol and other substances made her openhanded and malleable. That part of her life had taught her that sometimes you had to play someone's "good girl" to get what you want but, most of the time, the truth was simpler. Sometimes, she would be running on the high of a night of recording, mingling, or performing, and be aching for a tumble in the hay.

Then there was Berry. And when things turned for the worse, when she decided to leave The Supremes, ready to rid herself of the sickening feeling that always overtook her when she realized how much was on her shoulders, Mary and everyone else had looked at her with eyes heavy with scorn and suspicion. Their deprecation followed her, stuck to the surface of her skin in an invisible film. Every affront created a denser coating, with Michael's affront being the most pervasive.