From Here to the Great Unknown

Riley begins the chapter by noting that her mother “wasn’t in a place where she could recount all the great, fun times in her life” when she recorded the interviews that would become this book (157). In the interviews, Lisa “focused mostly on the trauma,” leaving out much of the 10 years following her divorce from Michael Jackson—happy years for Lisa in which “she created a magical life for [Riley] and [her] brother and was surrounded by a large group of devoted friends” (157). Riley recounts her own memories and what she remembers her mother telling her about this period.

While the family lived in Florida, Riley remembers watching her mother soothing her baby brother. At that moment, she began to understand “the depth of [Lisa’s] maternal instincts” and also to suspect “that Ben was the love of [her] mom’s life” (159). Both of their parents worked hard to create “joyful childhoods” for Riley and Ben, but Ben and Lisa “shared a very deep soul bond,” just as Lisa had with Elvis and Elvis had with his mother (159). Lisa found Ben to be so much like Elvis that “it scared [her],” and she recognized “a generational fucking cycle” repeating in their relationship.