Critiques and Writer's Discussion

Jace climbed up onto the table, not without Anya's assistance, and lay down as instructed, still running almost on autopilot. Undressing him revealed truly how underweight he was, even for someone of his small size. Well, it was nothing a careful diet and plenty of nurturing wouldn't fix. Every so often his eyes would snap back to reality, just for a second and Jace woukd look st her with those beautiful vulnerable grey eyes of his. He didn’t really know what to do now... but Momma.. Anya.. seemed to know what she was doing...

Anys smiled brightly and took the card, slipping it in her pocket. "Thank you, ma'am! Oh, thank you! You have no idea how much it means!" She shook her hand, then she practically skipped out to the car, thrilled she could actually keep her promise to the boy who trusted her so much!

I love your story

Andrew giggled and cuddled hugging her as she filled out the certificate with her last name. After that was a formal adoption form. After a few minutes of signatures and initials the woman handed Anya a card with “LPS” on it telling her to make an appointment for a home visit.

So it's either a late night or really early morning chapter drop. Enjoy it either way.  Chapter Sixty-Eight: Paul woke to the soft suck-pop of his own breath around silicone. The room was dark but not black; the sliver of streetlight sneaking past the blinds made a pale ladder across his ceiling. For a moment he didn’t know if he was still in the rocking chair or back at the beach or laid down on the backseat of a car trying not to cry. Then the weight around his hips registered. Thick, padded, snug. Not the light compression of a Step In—this was heavier, higher on his waist, the shell faintly smooth under his fingertips when he slid a hand under the comforter. Tapes. Plastic pants over it. He hadn’t put this on. Hid Dad had. He just lay there for a beat, staring at nothing, pacifier bobbing slightly at the corner of his mouth. I’m still here, he thought, and he couldn’t tell if it was relief or despair. A soft knock came at the door. He tensed automatically, then forced his palm flat against the mattress. “Yeah?” The door opened just enough for Bryan’s face to appear in the gap, hair pushed back, shadows carved under his eyes. He flicked on the lamp by the door, then crossed to the bed and turned on the one at Paul’s nightstand instead, dimming it low so the room warmed to a gentle amber. “Hey, bud,” Bryan said quietly, easing himself down on the edge of the mattress. He didn’t reach for the blanket, didn’t glance down at the obvious bulk under it. “How you doing?” Paul opened his mouth to say fine and his stomach answered for him—loud, hollow, almost comically dramatic in the quiet. Heat crawled up his neck. He looked away, jaw tightening. Bryan’s smile flashed and then softened into something quieter, careful not to turn it into a joke. “Yeah,” he murmured. “That tracks.” He turned a little, and that’s when Paul saw what he was holding: the sippy cup. The same soft Safari print, the same rounded shape—but tonight the plastic was a pale, almost grown-up green instead of neon orange. Like someone had hit “mute” on the baby aesthetic. Paul’s chest pinched. Bryan saw his look and didn’t rush. He turned the cup in his hand, condensation beading along the side. “This is just dinner,” he said. Paul let the pacifier fall out of his mouth and catch on its his chest. His voice came out rough. “What’s in it?” “Kale and spinach because I’m mean,” Bryan said, mouth twitching, “watermelon and pineapple because I’m not totally heartless, couple strawberries, bit of protein powder.” “Wow,” Paul muttered. “So it’s… swamp juice.” “Five-star swamp juice,” Bryan said. “Doctor Rowe approved, Dad prepared.” He held the cup out. No coaxing, no “open up for Daddy” nonsense. Just an offer. Paul stared at it for a long beat, then at his father, then back. His body felt wrung out. The memory of the beach—the warmth spreading, the horrified realization, Lilly’s hands working fast and gentle, Bryan’s arms closing around him as if he weighed nothing—simmered just under the surface. You need your strength, some rational little voice said. And you need sleep. He swallowed, took the cup, and brought it to his mouth. The rubber spout felt stupid between his teeth, but the first swallow was cold and sweet, the bitterness of greens drowned under watermelon and sugar. His shoulders dropped a fraction. Bryan didn’t fuss over him. Just sat there, elbows on his knees, watching like he’d sit through every sip if that’s what it took. “We’re gonna work this,” Bryan said after a while, voice low. “You, me, Lilly, Mindy. We’re gonna figure out how you live your best life with this thing riding shotgun instead of pretending it’s not there.” Paul didn’t have anything profound to say back. He just nodded around the spout and kept drinking. The cup grew lighter in his hands. Somewhere between the last two swallows, a yawn crept up and cracked him open, jaw stretching wide. Bryan’s mouth tipped up. “There he is.” Paul pulled the empty cup away, lips shiny, and passed it back. He almost didn’t realize what he was doing when his free hand slid under the comforter, fingers pressing into the front of the diaper. It felt… thicker than dry, maybe, but not swollen. No heavy sag, no awful warmth spreading. “I’m, uh…” He cleared his throat, looked down. “I’m good. I think.” “Dry?” Bryan asked. It came out carefully, like the words themselves were sharp and he might cut his tongue. Paul nodded, a small, ridiculous bloom of pride unfurling in his chest. “Yeah. All good.” “Good,” Bryan said, exhale thinning out. “You earned more sleep then.” Paul sank back onto the pillow, suddenly too tired to even pretend otherwise. His pacifier found its way back to the corner of his mouth almost on its own; his jaw worked around it lazily, rhythm matching the slow weight of his eyelids. Bryan stood, crossed to the lamp, and paused with his hand on the switch. “Love you, kiddo,” he said into the soft light. Paul’s answer was barely more than a mumble around silicone. “Love you too.” The room went dark. The door clicked shut. Bryan didn’t go far. He crossed the hall, muscles registering the day’s weight now that adrenaline had drained out, and dropped into Rachel’s rocker. The cedar creaked under him in a familiar arc, back and forth, back and forth. He dragged both hands down his face and let out a breath that felt like it came from his bones. For a second, his mind tried to stay blank. Then afternoon rushed back in. The Range Rover had been warm and dim on the drive home, the low hum of the engine and the salt-sweet smell of the ocean still clinging to their clothes. Paul had been out almost as soon as Bryan settled him in the back—fresh diaper and all. The kind of sleep that came not from rest but collapse. Lilly had stared at him in the rearview every chance she got, checking his breathing, his color, the slackness of his mouth. Halfway down A1A, she’d picked up her phone. Mindy answered on the third ring, her voice a little breathless. “Hey, Lilly—give me one sec.” The sound of running water and Andre laughing filtered through. “Andre, can you grab the towel? She’s slippery—okay. I’m here. What’s going on?” Lilly could picture it without trying: Mindy in an oversized t-shirt, curls frizzing from steam, Amy sitting in the tub with curls plastered to her forehead and foam crown on her head, Andre with his sleeves rolled, hands dripping. “I’m so sorry to call on a Sunday,” Lilly said anyway. “I just—this can’t wait.” Mindy’s tone shifted instantly. “Is Paul okay?” “He’s… sleeping,” Lilly said, glancing back again. Paul’s face was turned toward the window, cheek squished against the pillow, pacifier rising and falling almost imperceptibly. “But this week has been…” She swallowed. “Bad.” “Tell me,” Mindy said. In the background the water shut off. A door clicked; her footsteps sounded quieter, more contained. “Start from Wednesday.” So Lilly did. She told her about the test results and the way Paul had gone quiet and brittle afterward. About the little rebellion—skipping water, dodging snacks, mood swinging between sarcasm and silence. The extra wet Step Ins, the emergency changes. The sunken eyes, the flat affect. “And today?” Mindy asked. “Today he… pushed it until he couldn’t,” Lilly said, voice cracking. “We took him to the beach. Bryan thought—fresh air, football, just the three of us, no pressure. He tried so hard to be normal and then it just… hit him. It wasn’t… small, Mindy. It was…” She groped for a word that wasn’t humiliating or dehumanizing. “It was a blowout.” On the other end of the line, Mindy exhaled softly. Not surprise. Not disgust. Something closer to confirmed suspicion. “Did he tell you he felt it coming?” she asked. “No,” Lilly said. “He was playing. Laughing. Then he froze and I knew. Bryan got him to the car, and I— we handled it.” Her throat thickened; she pushed through. “He was sobbing. Not because it was gross, but because he’d been fighting so hard and his body just… didn’t care.” “He’s exhausted,” Mindy said gently. Lilly nodded, even though Mindy couldn’t see it. “He hasn’t been eating enough either. Or drinking. Bryan, um—” Her gaze flicked to her husband, hands tight on the wheel. The set of his jaw had shifted when she’d said his name. “Bryan juiced kale and fruit and put it in that Safari sippy cup Kim left. Got him to drink yesterday but it obviously wasn’t enough.” There was a tiny smile in Mindy’s voice. “That’s a smart dad move. And yes, I—that’s exactly the kind of tool I was going to talk to you about.” “You were going to call us?” Lilly asked, eyebrows knitting. “Tomorrow,” Mindy said. “I’ve been going through his file, your notes, the tracking data from the wristband. I was going to invite you both in mid-week to talk next steps. But it sounds like next steps showed up on their own timetable.” “That’s one way to put it,” Lilly whispered.  “Here’s what we’ll do. Off the books, before the day starts. Can you and Bryan be here at seven tomorrow morning?” “Seven?” Lilly squeaked. “That early?” “Well there’s another reason, see the nurses have been begging for your”—Mindy snapped her fingers, searching. “What do you call those things? The praline—” “Praline brioche rolls, last Christmas season for the office party” Lilly said automatically. “Yes. Those,” Mindy said. “They’ve asked me three times when ‘Miss Lilly’ is bringing more. I told them if I wanted to keep my staff happy, I better bribe you into a drop-off.” Despite everything, a breath of a laugh escaped Lilly. “How many?” “Last time they fought over the last two like siblings,” Mindy said dryly. “So…thirty-five.” A deeper voice chimed in faintly from the background. Andre. Mindy covered the receiver, then came back. “Correction: thirty-eight. Andre says he and I count as three people when it comes to pastry.” “Thirty-eight rolls,” Lilly repeated. “That’s a lot of dough, doc.” “You can handle it,” Mindy said. Then, more gently, “Bring them—and yourselves—by seven, before patients start. We’ll talk through a plan. Short term, long term, what we can do to make days like today less likely, and what to do when they happen anyway.” Lilly’s shoulders sagged with relief she hadn’t realized she was holding. “Okay. Seven a.m. And thank you. For picking up. I know it’s—” “You’re not just any family,” Mindy cut in. “You’re my patient’s people. Call me anytime you need to.” A beat. “How’s Bryan holding up?” Lilly looked over. He had one hand on the wheel, the other resting on his thigh, tendons taut. His eyes never left the road, but his jaw had clenched somewhere around “blowout” and not relaxed since. “He’s… trying to be solid,” she said. “We’ll both be there.” “Good,” Mindy said. “And in the meantime, let today’s win count. He drank. He let himself be cared for. That matters.” After they hung up, Lilly’s next call was to Martina. She explained the early-morning consult, the new level of watchfulness they needed tomorrow. “Sí, mi amor,” Martina said without missing a beat. “I’ll come early. We’ll keep everything tranquilo for him.”   In the present, the kitchen smelled like sugar and butter and toasted pecans. Bryan pushed up from the rocking chair when he heard the oven timer ding and followed the scent downstairs. Lilly stood at the stove in an old concert tee and leggings, hair piled on her head, pulling the last tray of praline brioche rolls out of the oven. They were obscene: golden spirals glazed to a lacquered shine, nuts and brown sugar caramelized into sticky seams. Steam curled up in fragrant waves. Lilly turned at the sound of his footsteps, eyes flicking automatically to the empty green sippy cup dangling from his fingers. “How’d he take it?” she asked, voice low. Bryan crossed to her, set the cup on the counter, and let his hand find a stray wisp of hair by her temple, tucking it behind her ear. “Like a champ,” he said. “Drank every drop.” “Good,” she breathed, shoulders easing. “That half a sleep tablet Mindy suggested blended in nice and easy?” Bryan nodded. “He was out before the credits rolled. Didn’t fight it.” “Dry?” she asked, bracing herself. A small, quiet pride straightened his spine. “Yeah. Checked before I came down. He was proud of himself.” Some of the tension left her face. “That’s something,” she murmured. She set the tray down, slipped off an oven mitt, and stepped into him, arms looping around his waist. He wrapped his own around her automatically, the two of them fitting together like a habit. “You were…” She tipped her face up, searching his eyes. “You were incredible today.” He looked away, ears coloring. “It’s not exactly how I pictured father–son beach days.” “No,” she agreed. “It’s not.” She eased back enough to knead her thumbs into the tight muscles where his neck met his shoulders. “But you were there. You didn’t freeze. You didn’t bail. You carried him. You changed him. You juiced kale like a man on a mission.” Her mouth quirked. “Father of the Year in a crisis, Goldhawk.” He huffed out a laugh, shaking his head. “Feels… weird to admit it felt… good. Not the mess,” he added quickly. “God, not that. Just—having something I could do. Being the one who held him together instead of the guy off on location while he fell apart.” Her hands smoothed down his arms, anchoring him. “You’re not that guy anymore,” she said firmly. “You’re right here. And he knows it. Even if he’s too stubborn to say it out loud yet.” She spun him gently, fingers digging deeper into his shoulders until he let out a low groan. “You keep hauling that boy up staircases, you’re gonna need a full-time masseuse,” she teased. “Not likely,” he said, catching her wrists and turning her back to face him. Some of the old spark lit in his eyes. “But I’m thinking a jacuzzi for two is in order once we get sixty pounds of praline crack cooled and packed.” She wrinkled her nose. “You mean after we don’t talk about… all that mess?” He winced in sympathy. “Yeah. That. Sorry.” Then, softer, more serious: “You handled it like you’d been doing it forever. I know it shook you. But you were rock solid out there.” She shrugged, cheeks pink. “I was just following your lead. And Kim’s. And Mindy’s voice in my head.” “No,” he said quietly, brushing his thumb along her jaw. “You were forging your own path. Super stepmom. With a cape that smells like baby powder and garlic butter.” She laughed then, the sound bright and a little wet. He took that laugh and her hand and flicked off the kitchen light with his elbow. “Come on,” he murmured against her hair. “You and me. Jacuzzi now, crisis debrief later.” She went willingly, the smell of sugar and yeast trailing them down the hall. Martina arrived at six-thirty sharp, as the sky was just starting to pale and the humidity hadn’t had a chance to strangle the day yet. Lilly and Bryan were already in the driveway, loading the last two bakery boxes into the back of the Range Rover—three dozen praline rolls snug under wax paper, one extra tin set aside on the counter inside for Martina and, if he wanted them, Paul. Martina took one look at their faces and bypassed hello in favor of pulling them both into a hug that smelled like clean cotton and coffee. “Mis hijos,” she murmured, squeezing. “You look like you’ve been run through the washer.” “That’s not far off,” Lilly said into her shoulder, laughing weakly. Bryan stepped back, ran a hand through his hair. “He’s still asleep,” he said. “We’d like to keep it that way as long as his body wants it. Today…” He glanced at Lilly, then back at Martina. “Today we want as little stress as humanly possible for him.” Martina nodded, serious now. “Claro. What do you need from me?” Lilly looked toward the house, then back. “Keep him comfortable. Let him wake up on his own. Tell him he can do schoolwork if he feels up to it, but there’s no pressure. We, um…” Her eyes flicked to Bryan. He cleared his throat. “We’d like him to stay in diapers this morning,” he said. The word still caught a little in his mouth, but it didn’t choke him the way it had a week ago. “Ask him to use the bathroom when he wants it, but… if he makes it to noon without any accidents and he feels steady, he can switch to Step Ins for the afternoon. His choice.” Martina’s dark eyes were gentle, but she didn’t sugarcoat the next question. “Can he change himself?” Bryan’s jaw tightened. He didn’t look away. “Not today,” he said. “Yesterday took a lot out of him. Physically and… pride-wise.” A flicker of guilt crossed his face. “We’re asking a lot.” Martina reached out and took his hand in both of hers, patting it like she’d done when he was twenty-five and shell-shocked in a hospital corridor. “It wasn’t a big deal when he was four,” she said calmly. “It won’t be now. I wipe the same bottom I used to, just a little higher up the bed.” Her smile tipped wry. “Thank you,” Bryan said, bringing Martina’s knuckles to his lips in an old-world gesture that made her flush and swat at him fondly. “Go,” she said, shooing them toward the driver’s side. “Bring the nice doctor her sugar bombs. I’ll keep the house peaceful. If he wakes up scared, he will wake up to someone who loves him. That is what matters.” As they pulled away, Martina watched the taillights disappear around the curve, then turned back toward the front door. The house was quiet when she stepped inside, she smiled to herself, set her bag down, and started a pot of coffee. There was a boy upstairs who would wake in a thick, soft diaper he hadn’t chosen, in a world that had rearranged itself around him overnight. Her job, today, was simple and impossible at once: Make that world feel, if not normal, then at least safe. Mindy’s top floor office smelled like coffee, printer ink, and sugar. The sugar was Lilly’s fault. The platter of praline brioche rolls sat in the middle of the small conference table like a bribe to the universe—golden spirals, glossy glaze, pecans glued in sticky constellations. A paper tent card someone on staff had doodled in Sharpie read: THANK YOU MISS LILLY 💖 – Your Caffeine-Dependent Fan Club All three floors Pediatrics on the 1st, Lab, Diagnostic & Testing on the second with the General Practise and offices on third the entire clinic was just beginning to wake—murmurs at the front desk, a printer spitting out labels, the distant beep of a thermometer. Inside, it was just the three of them. Bryan sat in one of the chairs opposite Mindy’s desk, elbows on his knees, big hands knotted. He looked like he’d dressed by memory: navy polo, dark jeans, hair still damp from a too-quick shower. The circles under his eyes were darker than the denim. Lilly sat beside him, blouse tucked into soft joggers, a messy bun skewed slightly to one side. She had a legal pad in front of her, pen uncapped, as if “taking notes” could tame the chaos. A smear of cinnamon glaze streaked the margin where she’d braced her hand. Mindy closed Paul’s chart and folded her hands on top of the manila folder. The soft click of her fountain pen beside it punctuated the quiet. “Okay,” she said gently. “We stop pretending.” Bryan’s throat worked. Lilly’s pen tip trembled against paper. “For the past few weeks,” Mindy went on, “we’ve kept some of this in the ‘maybe’ column. ‘Maybe it’s a phase. Maybe the Step Ins will be enough. Maybe if he’s careful, we can treat this like background noise.’” She nodded once, not unkindly, toward them both. “Sunday,” she said, “moved us out of ‘maybe.’” Lilly exhaled sharply through her nose, eyes shining. “That’s one way to describe it.” Mindy’s mouth quirked in acknowledgement, then sobered. She leaned forward, forearms on the desk, dark eyes steady. “I know this is hard to hear,” she said. “But clarity is a form of kindness. To him, and to you.” Bryan swallowed. “So, what does clarity actually look like?” She tapped the chart once, fingers gentle. “It looks like accepting that Paul is not a ‘rare accident’ kid anymore. His nervous system is telling us it cannot guarantee continence under stress.” Silence thickened, but it wasn’t empty. It was heavy, like a storm. Lilly’s pen made a faint scratching sound as she wrote cannot guarantee in a cramped hand. “So,” Mindy said, “as of today, I’m going to recommend we stop using Step Ins as our primary plan.” Lilly’s head lifted. “You mean… only diapers.” “Thin, discreet briefs during the day,” Mindy clarified. “ Now this isn’t us saying he should give up the toilet, he is still a capable young adult here. Diapers shouldn’t bee looked as the ultimate surrender of his independence. You’ll want to look for refashionable tapes, hook and loop as it’s described. Basically, he or you can refashion the tapes meaning re-usable diapers within reason. With plastic pants over them for added security when he’s out. But yes—the level of protection needs to match the level of unpredictability.” Bryan’s brow pinched. “He’s going to hate that.” “I know,” Mindy said simply. “We’re not doing this because it’s easy or fun. We’re doing it because yesterday showed us what happens when we keep pretending Step Ins are enough.” The image flared up for all three of them at once—the sudden way Paul had gone rigid on the sand, the horrified whisper of no, no, please no, the warmth, the smell, the way his voice had finally broken: I tried… I really tried… Lilly blinked hard. Her eyes went glassy. “What about nights?” she asked quietly. “Nighttime we’ve already treated as higher risk,” Mindy said. “What I’d like to do is formalize that. Thicker overnight diapers. Plastic pants. Sleep sack when he wants it. Pacifier if he wants it.” She held Lilly’s gaze deliberately. “Not as punishment. Not as ‘you failed so we’re babying you.’ As baseline. As safety.” “He didn’t even argue last night,” Lilly whispered, half to herself. “He just… took the sippy cup, let Bryan check. Took his paci, went back to sleep.” “Because he’s exhausted,” Mindy said. “Fighting your own body all day is exhausting. Which brings us to the next piece.” She turned slightly in her chair, clicked her mouse, and brought up a dashboard on her monitor. A little stylized heart icon glowed near the top; below it, graphs and bars glimmered in muted colors. “The tracker,” she said. “We’ve been using it like a glorified timer. ‘Green is good, yellow is hold it, red is go now.’ That was appropriate when we still believed behavior was the primary driver. So instead of chasing ‘dry days’ like they’re gold stars, I want us to shift what we’re tracking.” She spun the monitor slightly so they could see. The chart showed a timeline of the last week—colored bands marked resting, mild stress, elevated, spike. The afternoon at the beach was a jagged red mountain. “We’re going to start watching patterns,” Mindy said. “Heart rate. Stress spikes. Times of day. Activities. We’ll still log episodes, but dryness is no longer the only metric of success. Stability is.” Lilly leaned closer, eyes narrowing. “We can see this?” “You will,” Mindy said. “I’ve already requested caregiver access for both of you. We’re going to ditch the WET/DRY function for now. You’ll both have an app view that shows, in simple terms, when he’s white-knuckling it—even if he says he’s fine.” Bryan’s stomach dropped a notch. “Won’t that feel… invasive?” “It’s a tool,” Mindy said. “Not a surveillance camera. You won’t get minute-by-minute heartbeats. You’ll see trends. ‘His stress has been elevated for four hours.’ ‘He spiked twice during rehearsal.’ That sort of thing.” Lilly’s throat bobbed. “So when he says, ‘I’m fine, it was just a bad day,’ we’ll be able to see… if it’s actually been a whole bad week.” “Exactly,” Mindy said. “And you can respond with, ‘We’re not mad. We’re worried. Let’s give your body a break.’ Which brings me to the third piece.” She closed the chart, set the pen back to spinning absently between her fingers, and shifted her tone slightly—gentle, but edged with clinical authority. “I’d like to formally prescribe structured regression intervals,” she said. For a heartbeat, no one breathed. “You already know regression helps him,” she went on. “You’ve seen the difference between pre-Kim weekend and post-Kim weekend. Between nights he self-soothes on his phone until 2 a.m. and nights he lets himself rock in a chair with a pacifier.” She met Bryan’s eyes. “Between days he starves and white-knuckles, and days he actually drinks the juice out of a sippy cup and passes out on your shoulder.” A flicker of ache and pride crossed his face. “This is not infantilization for its own sake,” Mindy said, voice threading steel and softness. “This is a nervous system intervention. Right now, Paul’s default state is fight-or-flight. His body is constantly scanning for danger, including the danger of embarrassment. That level of vigilance is what’s driving his episodes.” She clasped her hands, leaning in. “If we don’t give his nervous system safe, predictable channels to ‘switch off,’ it will keep trying to force that off-switch through symptoms. Leaks. Accidents. Shutdowns. We’re seeing that already.” “So what does… ‘structured’ look like?” Lilly asked, pen already moving across the pad. “Short-term,” Mindy said, “I’d like you to build in daily windows where he is explicitly allowed to stop being seventeen and start being… just held. Just cared for.” She lifted a finger, ticking off. “Based on what you all told me, Paul has more than the required creidts to graduate now if he wants to. So basically he really doesn’t have to show up to school at all. What I would recommend on days when he has to be there for rehearsal is that you let him stay home until 10:30, implement a daytime regression that should help get him ready for the day. And then on days where he’s just hanging out with his friends and sitting in on classes, so after school: sixty to ninety minutes. He comes home, he knows—no homework, no texts to answer, no expectation to ‘man up.’ He can change into a thicker diaper. He can have his pacifier if he wants. Blanket. Rocking chair. Cartoons. Audiobook. Whatever combination of stimuli tells his body, ‘you’re safe, you’re small, nobody needs anything from you right now.’” Lilly’s eyes went wet again, but this time the tears came with a guilty flicker of relief. “We’ve been… doing that on accident,” she said. “Like… triage.” “Then we turn triage into treatment,” Mindy said. “On weekends, same principle. One block each day where he doesn’t have to be ‘on.’ You can dress it however you like—movie mornings, ‘pajama afternoons,’ whatever language feels least threatening to him. The point is, his system gets to downshift in a controlled, predictable way.” Bryan rubbed his thumb along his bottom lip, thinking. “He’s going to fight that,” he said. “He already thinks the diapers mean he’s… broken. Asking him to lean into it, even part-time…” “Will feel like surrender at first,” Mindy finished. “Yes.” She let that hang for a second, then added, “But what if we reframed surrender as rest?” Lilly scribbled those words down almost violently. “He doesn’t have to do all of this at once,” Mindy said. “You start by offering. By normalizing. ‘Hey, you’ve had a brutal day, do you want some “little” or “small” time before homework?’ If he says no, that’s data. If he says yes, that’s also data. Over time, we help him associate those rituals not with humiliation, but with relief.” Bryan let out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding. “Okay,” he said. “So… diapers as norm. Regression as prescription, not emergency. Tracker as stress monitor, not bladder nag.” “Correct,” Mindy said. “Which brings us to the giant elephant in the black box theater.” The play. “What about To Kill a Mockingbird?” Lilly asked quietly. “Is it… safe for him to stay in it?” “And what does the school need to know?” Bryan added, shoulders tensing. “Because I’m not about to send my son into a gossip mill without guardrails.” Mindy nodded, as if she’d expected those questions to arrive in exactly that order. “Medically?” she said. “The play is fine. Emotionally… it’s complicated. He clearly loves it. That matters.” Her gaze shifted between them. “If we remove him from everything that matters to him—drama, friends, this production—because it’s hard, his depression risk goes up. Way up. Acting gives him agency, identity, joy. Those things are protective.” “So we keep the play,” Lilly said slowly. “But we don’t pretend he’s the same kid he was when he auditioned.” “Exactly,” Mindy said. “We wrap the play in scaffolding.” She picked up her pen, clicked it once, and started listing. “First: accommodations. We’ll file for a 504 plan or whatever Bishop’s Gate uses for chronic medical conditions. That gives him legal cover for unlimited bathroom breaks, nurse’s office access, extra time between classes if he needs it, that sort of thing.” Bryan’s nose wrinkled. “That’s the same paperwork as… kids with ADHD and… diabetes and…” He trailed off. “Yes,” Mindy said. “Because this is a chronic medical condition. It deserves the same infrastructure. Paul’s been operating on a doctors recommendation, now it’s a prescription” Lilly drew a tiny box on her pad, wrote 504 inside it, circled it twice. “Second,” Mindy went on, “we identify who at the school actually needs to know what. His teachers will know he has a documented condition and accommodations. They do not need diaper-level detail. The school nurse and counselor will. So will his director and stage manager.” “So Julia and Declan,” Lilly murmured. “Whitney is the primary student liaison for matters like this. But now maybe the ASM.” “We tell them,” Mindy said, “something like this: ‘Paul has a chronic condition that sometimes affects his bladder control. He is under a doctor’s care. He may occasionally need extra breaks or a quick costume check. He may be wearing padding under his costume, which wardrobe will account for. Your job is to give him space to do his work, not to pry.’” Bryan blew out a breath. “Wardrobe,” he said faintly. “Jesus. I didn’t even think about that.” “Costuming can hide far more than you think,” Mindy said. “Jem’s wardrobe in this production is loose shirts, suspenders, knee-length shorts. A thin brief and plastic pants under that? No one in the audience will know. If anyone backstage notices… they’ll assume athletic gear unless invited to think differently.” “You make it sound very… manageable,” Bryan said. There was no accusation in it. Just bone-deep fatigue. “Because it is,” Mindy replied. “If we’re honest and proactive instead of waiting for a crisis and then scrambling.” He was quiet for a moment, thumb tracing the seam of his jeans. “What if I… pull him from the show anyway?” he asked. “Too much pressure, too many eyes, too many variables. What if I just say, ‘You’re out, you need to focus on your health’?” The idea clearly hurt him, even as he voiced it. Lilly’s head snapped toward him. “Bryan.” He lifted a hand, not to stop her, but to beg patience. “I’m not saying I want to. I’m saying… if something like Sunday happens on stage… he’ll never set foot in a theater again. Maybe not in a classroom. I just… I don’t want his memories of this year to be soaked in that.” Lilly’s jaw clenched. “I get that. I do. But theater is the one place he still feels… powerful. Seen. If we take that away on top of everything else, what’s left?” The two of them stared at each other, raw and exhausted and both right. Mindy let the silence sit long enough that they had to feel it, then stepped in between with her voice. “If you pull him from every point of pride and joy in his life to keep him ‘safe,’” she said quietly, “you will keep him physically drier. Maybe. But you will almost certainly make him emotionally sicker.” Bryan looked away. “On the other hand,” Mindy continued, “if you throw him back into everything with no adjustments, you’re setting him up to fail. Both those options are extremes. There’s a middle.” She looked at Bryan first. “Let him keep the play,” she said. “Let him keep something that still feels like his. But do it with accommodations, with protective routines, with regression time built into rehearsal days. And with an explicit agreement that if he says, ‘I can’t do it,’ you will listen.” His shoulders sagged, some of the tension bleeding out. “So we’re not… trying to get our old son back,” he said slowly. “We’re… helping the one we have now.” The words landed in the room like a confession. Lilly made a small sound, almost a whimper. Her hand flew up to her mouth. Mindy’s gaze softened. “You never lost him,” she said. “You lost the illusion that his life was going to follow the exact script you had in mind. That’s different.” Lilly’s laugh came out cracked. “Feels the same sitting in the audience sometimes.” Mindy slid the box of tissues across the desk. Lilly took two, pressed them under her eyes, breathed in and out. “His life,” Mindy said, “is still his. It just uses different tools now. Different timelines. Different rhythms. Our job is to make sure those tools are supportive, not shameful.” Bryan stared at the tissue box like it held answers. “So… diapers, not shameful,” he said, tasting the words. “A pacifier not shameful. A sleep sack not shameful. A sippy cup not shameful.” “If those things help his body and brain regulate?” Mindy said. “Then they are no more shameful than insulin or noise-canceling headphones.” Lilly wrote that down, underlining it until the paper nearly tore: no more shameful than insulin. “And if you two start believing that,” Mindy added gently, “he has a fighting chance of believing it too.” Outside the office, someone laughed at the nurses’ station. The scent of coffee shifted as a fresh pot was poured. A nurse’s voice floated down the hall, light and grateful: “Y’all, did you try these rolls? Miss Lilly brought PRALINE HEAVEN.” For a heartbeat, all three of them smiled. Then Bryan reached for the pen on Mindy’s desk and turned the chart so it faced him. “All right,” he said, voice low but steadier than it had been when he walked in. “Show me where we sign for the 504.” “And,” Lilly added, tightening her ponytail like a soldier adjusting armor, “help me figure out how to tell my son that his regression time is now doctor’s orders.” Mindy uncapped the black-and-gold fountain pen, its nib catching the light. “Good,” she said. “Because this is where we all get on the same team for Paul and start building him a treatment playbook that he can run and succeed in. With all of us moving towards the same goal together.” For a moment, the house felt like it was holding its breath. Then came the soft, certain rustle of a plastic package being opened downstairs—gentle, familiar, unavoidable. Martina’s voice floated up the staircase, warm as sunlight and heavy as truth. “Okay, mi cielo… let’s start our day.” Paul’s heart thudded once, hard. Because in that one sentence, he heard everything at once— the care he needed, the childhood he feared, and the day he could no longer outrun. And still… some small part of him hoped she would come in anyway.