Every Little Step: My Story (21 page)

So with all of that still bouncing around in my head, I wasn’t that concerned about whether my ex was going to sing at my mom’s funeral. I just hoped she was going to bring my daughter with her. It all was a lot to deal with in the middle of my grieving.

After the viewing in Los Angeles, which was rough for me, we left our son with Alicia’s sister, Kim, and traveled back to Boston. The funeral took place at Twelfth Baptist Church, the Roxbury church that had been our home for years when we were growing up. My family and I were honored and humbled by how many of our friends from home and from the entertainment world came to my mother’s funeral. The church was overflowing, teeming with people, probably way more than any fire department would have authorized.

I entered the church along with Alicia, LaPrincia, Bobby Jr. and Landon. We went to the second row on the right side of
the church. The first row, right in front of the open casket, would have been too much for me. I felt more comfortable in the second row. A steady stream of friends and acquaintances came over to pay their respects as music filled the church. I could feel the eyes of the church fixed on me. Of course I’m used to being watched by the public everywhere I go, but this was different. I was trying hard to keep it together, and I felt that at any moment my emotions might start spilling out in front of the world, captured by camera phones and shared over the Internet. I felt like I was on display. I just wanted the ceremony to end as quickly as possible so I could get out of that church, almost like I was holding my breath the whole time. I would have preferred to be back home with my dad, who had decided he wasn’t making the trip back east for the funeral. But I knew I was expected to be present and be strong, so that’s what I promised myself I would do—even though I felt so sick to my stomach that I was afraid I might vomit or worse. I remember rocking back and forth, slowly, while standing in the pew and clutching Alicia’s left hand with my right. I’m sure she probably felt like I was going to squeeze the blood out of her fingers.

Suddenly there was a burst of murmuring in the church, as if everyone had started whispering at the same time. I turned around and saw what the commotion was: Whitney. She walked toward me wearing a long fur coat. Bobbi Kristina was trailing behind her. She walked right up and gave me a big hug. As we were hugging, she was looking at Alicia over
my shoulder and quietly mouthed the word “hi” to Alicia. I wrapped my daughter in a big embrace, so happy to see her. Whitney then went and sat in the front pew with Krissi at her side. That was fine—she had been Carole Brown’s daughter-in-law for fifteen years so she definitely could sit with family if she wanted. But then she started behaving strangely: she kept turning around to look at Alicia and me. And not just a couple of times. Over the course of the service, she must have done this more than a dozen times. Because she was sitting directly in front of us, it was incredibly conspicuous, embarrassingly so.

At one point I leaned over to Alicia and whispered, “Oh my God, if she doesn’t stop staring at you . . .”

“I think she’s staring at
you,
” Alicia said back to me.

Every time she turned around, Alicia’s aunt, who was sitting behind her and had accompanied us from the West Coast, pinched Alicia on the arm, while Alicia lowered her head just a bit so that her large church-lady hat could shield her face. I didn’t have anything to shield me, so the frown on my face was clear. Krissi turned around a couple of times too, but it was probably because she kept seeing her mother do it. She was almost eighteen—old and savvy enough to wonder about her mother’s curious behavior.

Alicia told me later that it was a clear indication that Whitney still wasn’t over me. After all, she had told Oprah that she was waiting for me to come back. But I had not one ounce of desire to return to that crazy life. I was more con
tent with Alicia and my son Cashy than I had ever been in my adult life. No way was I giving all of that up. For the first time in my life, I actually understood what domestic bliss was. (That is not to say that I wasn’t still a knucklehead at times, endangering all I had.)

In the midst of the service, the guys from New Edition went up to the microphone to talk about my mother and about me. Johnny Gill showed his church roots, launching into what sounded like a short impassioned sermon about how we all needed to overcome the work of the devil. I rose up from my seat and decided to join them. So did Whitney. Johnny started singing “Never Would Have Made It,” thrilling the church with his deep, unmistakable voice.

After Johnny was done, Whitney
did
decide to sing, a tender version of “Precious Lord, Take My Hand.” But before her song, she had some words she wanted to share with the congregation.

“First of all, I want to say, this is
my
mother-in-law. That is
my
mother-in-law there!”

Then she went on to talk a bit about my mom and about growing up in the church. Clearly she was directing her comments at Alicia, alluding to her own feelings about who was
really
my wife and partner. I found it strange and off-putting, but I didn’t want to dwell on it. Her voice was a little hoarse, which she apologized for, but when she launched into the song it was touching and heartfelt, pure Whitney.

At the burial site, when they lowered my mother into the ground next to my sister Bethy, I finally lost it. I cried loud
and long for my mom and for myself, knowing how much I was going to miss her. That was the final act of a brutal week, bidding my last farewell. It wasn’t easy.

When the burial was done, we had to make our way over to Orchard Park—now called Orchard Gardens to reflect the significant money that had been spent to upgrade the place—to attend the repast that was being served for my mother at the Boys and Girls Club gym. It was the same club where I played basketball as a little boy with several of the guys from New Edition and where my mother used to work. I was happy to see so many of my old friends there and to be back home in a place that had been so important to my development. They showed a video montage of my mother, which was amazing and unexpected. The gym was filled with tables and chairs and the place was laid out with tons of good food. I was pleased that I got a chance to introduce Alicia to a lot of my old friends. But for the most part, my overriding thought was that I wanted to get out of there, to slip away from all the prying eyes requiring me to hold in my emotions.

Alicia and I were making our way toward the exit, wading through the crowd, when the doors of the gym swung open. Once again, we all looked over and saw what the commotion was: Whitney. Apparently she had gone back to the hotel to change into jeans and a sweater. She was accompanied by my older sister Tina. There was some type of R & B playing throughout the gym, which up until that point I hadn’t even really noticed. Whitney and Tina entered the gym dancing to the music, extra hard, like they were up in the club or
something. Right away I could tell that they were high. I was embarrassed for my sister and especially for my ex-wife, that she still didn’t have the self-control to keep it together on a solemn day like this one. Whitney was automatically going to be the center of attention in any room, in any situation, so the dancing only added fuel to the gossip fire.

Whitney’s brother Gary and his wife, Pat, came over to say hello and introduce themselves to Alicia. I saw Whitney eyeing us across the gym. I didn’t want any part of that. I grabbed Alicia’s hand and we escaped as quickly as we could before we found ourselves in the middle of an unfortunate scene.

We went back to the W Hotel, where we were staying, and spent some time with my kids. We all got a little jolt when Krissi called and said she wanted to come over. She told me she and her mom had been fighting and she needed to get away. So she came to hang out with all of us. We really enjoyed seeing her; it had been so long, particularly for my kids. In fact Krissi went out with her siblings that night—it was the first time in years that they all had the chance to spend quality time together. I can vividly remember the big smile on her face as she interacted with her sister and brothers. At the time I thought,
This is the way it was supposed to be
. Little did I know it was the last time that I would have the chance to see this happy scene. Later that night when Alicia and I were trying to sleep, my cell phone kept ringing. It was a call from a California area code, a number I didn’t recognize, coming through over and over. When I refused to an
swer it, Alicia finally picked it up and said, “Hello?” Turned out it was from DeeDee, Alicia and Whitney’s mutual friend who had called Alicia several years earlier with Whitney on the sneaky three-way.

“Alicia? Hi, it’s DeeDee,” she said. Alicia put it on speaker so I could hear. “How are you, honey?” she continued. “I’m just calling to check on you and Bob and to let him know I’m sending my regards, see how he’s holding up.”

Alicia said, “He’s hanging in there, handling it the best way we can.” I shook my head. I didn’t want to become a part of the drama.

There was a bit more small talk, then DeeDee lowered the boom.

“So, where are you guys staying?”

Immediately we suspected what was going on—DeeDee was again an emissary for Whitney, checking in on me, hoping to feed her information. If she were just sending her regards, she could have left a message rather than blowing up my phone. We hung up, infuriated.

As if my year couldn’t get any worse, soon after we got back to LA, Alicia threw me out of the apartment. She said my drinking was getting to be too much for her to handle. This couldn’t have come at a more untimely moment for me; I knew I needed Alicia to help me get through the pain. But I also leaned far too much on alcohol to dull the hurt. With the logic of an addict, I rationalized that alcohol was a much better option than narcotics. I thought at least I could control the alcohol, could function out in the world with it in my sys
tem, that a slightly drunk Bobby Brown was much preferable to a strung-out Bobby Brown. Of course this is exactly the opposite of the thinking that counselors and therapists tried to instill in addiction treatment. Alicia had sat with me when I went through one stint in alcohol rehab, so she knew all the protocols. Clearly I wasn’t supposed to be drinking. Not even a drop. But after Ma left us, I didn’t know how else to cope.

Alicia moved out of our apartment and into a friend’s house with my son. The friend had a five-bedroom house; Alicia rented two rooms on the top floor. I promised her that I would get it together, that I was capable of doing whatever she needed me to do. But she said she needed to see some evidence. In other words, talk is cheap and easy. With my head spinning, I moved my stuff into my sickly father’s house, which was now empty without my mother. I was spending a lot of time on the road performing, so my precarious living conditions weren’t a constant worry, but the sorry state of my life was always there, sitting in the back of my head. I knew I couldn’t fuck this up again, not when I was just learning what domestic bliss was supposed to feel like.

Meanwhile, my father’s condition was growing progressively worse. I had an up-close view, now that we were living in the same place. I was depressed watching him slowly wither away, while also fighting the depression of being away from the woman I loved and my baby boy, in addition to feeling completely helpless about not being able to see my daughter Krissi. The year 2011 was turning out to be a major nightmare.

It’s not uncommon for a spouse to pass away soon after their longtime partner dies, so we were worried that Pop would stop fighting now that Ma was gone. We even joked about it, wondering how long Ma would let him stay down here without her, saying that she would soon be coming to get him. We got him a hospital bed to try to make him more comfortable, but we knew it was just a matter of time—particularly when he stopped talking. This big, funny, outgoing man who had always been the life of the party, an essential part of the family, didn’t want to talk anymore? It was painful to watch.

In his last days we were all gathered at the hospital, waiting for the inevitable. He was clearly tired, weak, ready to go. When he stopped eating, it was just a matter of days. I was dumbfounded, in a state of shock that I could actually lose both of my parents in the same year. I was glad that my father and I had the chance to really bond in his later years, to the point where we could laugh and talk for hours. Our connection had become so tight that we would finish each other’s sentences. He was my best friend. While my mother was the strong, commanding brains of the family, my father was the family’s heart and soul.

Herbert Brown died on December 10, 2011, at the age of eighty-two. It was less than eleven months after we lost my mom.

We brought him back to Boston for another memorial service. Pop had requested that we cremate him, so that’s what we did. There was another big turnout for him, an
other powerful, emotional day in Roxbury. My ex-wife didn’t come to his service; nor did my daughter Krissi. But the rest of my family and children were there except for Cashy, the littlest one. Alicia also stayed home in California—but I was convinced that when I returned home I could win her back. With my parents gone, I desperately needed to fix that part of my life, to make things right with her. I needed her now more than ever, and I knew how much I loved her.

I visited Alicia and Cashy as often as I could—every day if she let me. I needed to show her exactly how remorseful I was, how committed I was to finding some way to act like a man who deserved to be with her. Finally, my persistence paid off. New Edition was just about to embark on a major tour, celebrating the thirtieth anniversary of the release of “Candy Girl.” By the time I left for our first date in Louisville, Kentucky, on February 10, 2012, we were back together.

But my peace of mind didn’t last long at all. On February 11, when we were in Southaven, Mississippi, preparing for our next performance, I got a call on my cell from Ralph Tresvant. What he told me was so unbelievable, so unconscionable, that I couldn’t even process the words. Whitney was dead.