I do recall Michael’s having a difficult time making friends his own age. He had tried, but a couple of boys had been nasty to him -- out of jealousy. Michael thought.

     REBBIE: Also, Michael was hurt by Randy’s decision to move out at that time. He and Randy were very close, and did a lot of writing together.

     RANDY: After I moved out, we stopped collaborating, which shook everybody up in the family. “You’re such a great team!” they said. But for me it was a blessing in disguise. Looking back, I had depended on Michael a lot. He was “the singer,” and I felt that all I could do was play and arrange good music. I didn’t know that I could sing, too, because I hadn’t tested myself.

     Despite these personal setbacks, Michael seemed to me to be happy. Extremely driven and increasingly private, but happy.

     However, as I reflected on that period of time, I realized that I wasn’t in a good position to “read” Michael, or any other person, for that matter. I was going through a hard time of my own.

     In 1975, my mother suffered her first stroke. It partially paralyzed her throat for a while and permanently affected her memory. She was still able to visit me and the family in California for the first time that year, but it was sad for me to see her in a weakened state. She had always been so strong and vibrant.

     In 1976, she had a second stroke, after which she gradually got worse and worse. By 1978, she was at times incoherent, but she still traveled to Los Angeles that year. There was a pressing reason for her to make the trip -- to attend the funeral of my sister, Hattie.

     Even though Hattie had moved to Lorraine, Ohio, with her husband, Vernon Whitehead, Joe’s stepbrother, in the sixties we had remained as close as two sisters could be. While Joe and I were struggling in Gary, she would write me, sometimes including a dollar or two in the envelope, even though as the mother of eight herself she couldn’t afford it. When the boys were just starting out as the Jackson Five, Vernon, who worked in a Cleveland steel mill, got them one of their first club gigs. It was their way of getting us to come visit.

     After we moved to California, five of Hattie’s kids eventually followed, so Hattie had a good excuse to spend part of her year in California. Whenever we were together, she’d have me laughing. Hattie never changed; she was always the life of the party. My last memory of a healthy Hattie was of her trying to interest me in watching sports on TV. She and her boy Courtney would literally jump for joy and run around the room every time their favorite football team scored a touchdown. “Come on, Katy, come and enjoy the games with me!” she’d plead.

     Hattie was back in Lorraine when she got sick. Because she was a Christian Scientist, she didn’t tell anyone at first. When she couldn’t keep her illness a secret any longer, Vernon and I pleaded with her to go to the hospital. But she refused, even though her health continued to worsen.

     Finally, I decided to fly to Cleveland. One of Hattie’s daughters brought her in a wheelchair to the airport to meet me, and we flew back together to Los Angeles.

     Despite the objections of several of her kids who were living in L.A., I had Hattie admitted to a hospital. But before the doctors could even diagnose her condition, the children checked her out and admitted her instead to a Christian Science nursing home.

     Two weeks later she died. To this day, I don’t know what she died from, or whether she could have survived the illness if she had sought medical treatment. These are painful questions for me to live with.

     Unfortunately, in 1981 I wasn’t very well equipped to deal with the loss of my sister and my mother’s decline. I was already several years into a marital crisis with Joe.

     For two people who are so different from each other in temperament -- Joe is moody, excitable, a loner; I’m the opposite -- we had enjoyed many harmonious years. In fact, in our first two decades together, our marriage had been in danger only once. That crisis had occurred shortly after we were married, when Rebbie was still an infant.

     One day Joe had returned from working the swing shift at Inland Steel, and had gone to bed. Rebbie was already asleep in her crib. I went into the backyard to hang some clothes on the line, saw my neighbor Edna Humphrey in her backyard, and walking over to chat with her. A few minutes later, Joe stormed into the backyard in his pajamas.

     “Why don’t you come in and see about the baby?!” he yelled. “She’s screaming.”

     Joe returned inside. I was a few feet behind him.

     “I didn’t know she had awakened,” I said.

     Suddenly Joe lost it. He wheeled around and struck me on the right cheek. My cheek went numb.

     Enraged, I grabbed the first thing I could get my hands on -- a ceramic bottle warmer -- and flung it at him. It shattered on his right arm, slashing him just above the elbow.

     “Look what you did to me!” he yelled, holding his arm as blood dripped on the floor.

     “The nerve of you to hit me!” I screamed. as I tried to get him to stand still so I could examine the gash.

     I phoned Joe’s mother, who took him to the emergency room. The cut required stitches. Joe also had to wear his arm in a sling.

     “What happened to you?” his co-workers asked him the next day.

     “I got in an accident,” was all Joe would say.

     That was the first and last time that Joe Jackson struck me.

     As ugly as the incident was, I managed to put it behind me. Our marriage was young and otherwise good, and we were starting to build our family. In addition, I was committed to keeping my childhood vow to stay with my husband, so that our children would be reared by both of their natural parents.

     I recall our ensuing Gary years with fondness. While it might have been tempting for some men to walk away from the kind of responsibilities that faced Joe as a breadwinner, he never quit on me and the family. He was also committed to keeping the Jacksons together.

     After the young Jackson Five began to win local acclaim, Joe and I had more than our kids to hold us together; we had a dream. When that dream came true in California, and the Jackson family was the toast of the pop-music world, Joe and I shared something else: a very special personal success story.

     And yet I knew that California was a completely different environment from Gary. “If a woman can keep her husband in California, she’s a good one,” I’d heard. With Joe in show business, I knew that he would have ample opportunity to cheat if he were inclined. But I didn’t believe he would. I didn’t believe he’d risk all that we’d worked for as a couple. I didn’t believe it right up until I got a call from a friend in 1974, informing me that Joe was having an affair.

     I knew the girl in question. A friend of the family’s had brought her over to the house once, and after that she had started coming around by herself. Originally, she had been interested in Jackie.

     I was devastated. A part of me wanted to serve divorce papers on Joe the next day. But another part of me didn’t want to see him go because of all the years we’d had -- even though I didn’t think I could ever forgive him for what he’d done.

     I remained in this muddle state for longer than I’d care to admit: During this period I heard rumors of other affairs. But I still couldn’t bring myself to file for divorce, even though a couple of times I came close. I kept thinking back to the vow that I’d made as a child about sticking with my husband through thick and thin for the sake of my kids. Plus, I had to admit to myself that I had no stomach for fighting, or for ugliness.

     REBBIE: My brothers and sisters and I knew what was going on, but my brothers didn’t impress me as getting involved -- they were so wrapped up in their work.

     But what my father did got to me. There were times when I couldn’t stand being in his company, because I’d start thinking about his affair.

     I don’t know how my mother hung in there all those years. She didn’t need that heartache with everything she had to deal with .... being a mother and mother-in-law, supporting the children’s performances, getting involved in the business end of things. It was too much.

     I encouraged her to leave him. I knew that he was damaging her spirit, that she couldn’t possibly have peace of mind.

     In 1981, I finally did file for divorce. But, to my amazement, Joe wouldn’t move out.

     “I don’t want you anymore,” I told him. “You’ve got to leave.

     “I’m not going anywhere,” he said. “I’m your husband and you’re my wife, and that’s the way it’s always going to be.”

     My attorney told me that I could get a restraining order against Joe, and, if he still refused to leave the house, have the police forcibly remove him.

     I was stuck between a rock and a hard place. Even though I wanted Joe out, I didn’t want to “go public” by having him physically removed. I knew that the press would jump on the story, and I couldn’t bear the publicity. So I decided to continue living with Joe temporarily, albeit in different rooms, while I proceeded with my divorce suit.

     It was the strangest of times for me. Some days just the sight of Joe would fill me with anger. Other times I found myself talking to him as if nothing ever happened between us.

     Looking back, I know that, deep down, I wanted to forgive him. It’s my nature. Although I’ve gotten angry at myself at times for being so forgiving, a part of me sincerely believes that a person hurts herself more than the person she’s feuding with by holding a grudge. Also, I subscribe to Christ’s teaching on forgiveness. How many times, He said, do you forgive a person? Seventy times seven .... as many times as it takes.

     I think you know what I’m building up to: I eventually withdrew my divorce suit.