Cloth Diapers & Panties

I thought it was Millionaire A**holes Grifting Americans Hugs, Freta

Chapter 110 The Plea for Grace   Cait sighed as the people in suits went back through the doors that Kate had come from earlier.   “You know, Mia,” Kate as old as Grace with her own wet pants on from being there with Grace until she was told to into the waiting room just before the DHS people came. “There are worse things in life than peeing your pants. You realize that, don’t you?”   The Asian looking white twelve year old girl looked up at the yellow blond sixteen year old.   “I mean it, Mia. You weren’t there on Saturday when Cait warned her Sunday School friends not to move if a snake is near, and I suppose only Cait would have thought to include a rule about using the bathroom because she actively understands the choices of not doing so. But the Youth leader who is older than her by a year told the other kids to listen to Cait, not that there was a snake.”   “A whole church group agreed with the leader who said it was okay to…?” Mia asked.   “It’s how Cait put it,” Patricia backed Kate up. “She told them not to do it just to do it, but that if they think they don’t have a choice, to slowly do it in their pants because it’s better than being bitten.”   “Okay?”   “That means, Mia, that there are more important things in life than dry pants, sometimes,” Kate frowned. “Look at me. I just spent the whole morning from like four thirty until around almost lunch time with Grace who needed me. I peed myself twice. Do you think I was worried about it when I was with her?”   Mia looked down with a frown.   “I’m embarrassed now. I don’t pee my pants. But…. My friend needed me more.”   “Grace doesn’t have friends,” Mia whispered.   “She didn’t until yesterday at church,” Patricia whispered. “But she’s got a bunch of nine to twelve year olds praying for her, she’s got a waiting room full of people waiting to see her, and she’s got Kate, who purposefully didn’t go to the bathroom because she was more worried about being with her scared friend than her own comfort.”   “Yeah.”   Patricia walked over and took Mia by the hand. “When’s the last time your dad put you in his lap?”   “I’m twelve. That’s not exactly a thing… hey!”   Patricia put her in her lap and held her legs together with one hand while grabbing around her torso and arms with the other. “You have friends, too, Mia. You just have to learn that you choose who to trust, but you are loved.”   “You don’t know me.”   “I know you came to support Grace even though you said you don’t do heart stuff.”   “So?”   “To me, that’s a friend. And I like your spirit, Mia.”   Cait smiled. “You are allowed to be not perfect, Mia. You are allowed to be scared and not understand love from your friends. You don’t have friends, that you know of, do you?”   Mia looked down.   “But look at the big girl holding you, the big girl explaining to you why she peed her pants, and me trying to tell you to get help before you hurt yourself. You had Inbisible friends, but now, your inbisible friends are showing up. They holding you and telling you that you are seed to them.”   Mia’s eyes watered.   Cait felt her own eyes heat up and a burning rush of tears just barely held back by some invisible force stared blurry at Mia.   “You just need to learn how to open so people can be your friend. You have friends in the Playgroup, too. You just haven’t heard them yet.”   The two looked at each other for several minutes, and Mia lowered her eyes. “Yeah. I know. Sometimes, at school, even, people like the school counselor says stuff like that, but you never see what happened on the playground.”   “I did,” Cait whispered. “But worse, I had no one to stop it. My dad agreed with the bullies. The teachers agreed with the bullies because they believed my dad, unless it was the fourth grade teacher. I was stupid. I was the pee pants. I was always too wet and stupid to be right.”   Mia frowned and looked down. “Yeah. Me too. My mom was on my side, but she couldn’t do nothing. My dad couldn’t either. I’m in seventh grade. I have to learn to fix it, or actually, fix me.”   Cait sighed heavily. We hear you though, Mia. And I don’t care what they said about you, if they don’t listen for you. They wrong. That what Daddy here teached me. That what Grandma teached me. That what Billy and Ruth teached me.”   Kate narrowed her eyes. “You’re saying a teacher was mean to you just because you peed your pants?”   Mia looked down. “On accident.”   “I am so sorry. You said you are in seventh this next year?”   “Yeah?”   “What junior high?”   “Why?”   “Just please, let me try something. You are not going to school, Sorry, Cait, but to use your words exactly—inbisible. I’m going to see if we know anyone at church that will go to your school next year.”   “Why?”   “So you won’t be invisible.”   “But, they’ll make fun of….”   “No, Mia. That’s the point. I’ll be trying to find someone that doesn’t do that sort of thing. Yes, the people at church isn’t perfect. But I know some people decent people. And I am only offering to try. I’m not saying I know if anyone can help yet, but you need to let me try.”   “And when you try, and the teacher and other kids make them shamed until they say the same things… you’ll punish someone for not wanting to be made fun of for something they not doing because I’m big enough that I should know better?”   Cait frowned. You can know better and still have trouble. It’s not about knowing better. It’s about feeling safe and cave able enough. No one feels cave able when you are being yelled at.”   “Yeah?”   “Yeah. Last year… I stared pooping my pants more than always because new rules, because more bad the kids said my troubles, and because I am Cait and can’t stop. Only… I do poop less my pants now. I had a handiya that got it made easier, and I get Grandma that teaches me okay to leave the table when I need, and Daddy even pick me up and take me if I scared. We all need help, sometimes.”   Mia nodded. “Yeah. We do.”   A few minutes later, a tired woman with blood-lined eyes on the white like water rivers over ground or maybe more like the lines of a map of road with light brown hair and those glasses that come up on the outside corners like horns walked over while Cait was learning what a fork means with a knight.   “Are you Mr. Kinsella?”   “Yes, ma’am? I am.”   “Your child’s name is Cait?”   “Yes, well my little cousin who is staying with us until at least next Summer.”   “You came in with the group that is there for Grace, right?”   “Yes, Ma’am.”   “My name is Cheryl Brouen. I am with the Department of Human Services, and I have to ask you, are you willing to foster a child?”   “Depends on the child. But if it’s Grace, yes.”   “It is Grace. Grace has told us that she refuses to go home with her mother not that we would put her with her mother as a first choice anyway, but then she started to request your family.”   Cait looked up at her. “Grace is scared. She pooped her pants? I think she did. I think she needs me.”   “I didn’t ask her if she pooped her pants, Cait. But she did say that you would immediately think that she needed you if I came out here.”   “You got clean clothes her? I want Grandma and me and Grandma to go change her, not a hospital nurse. She doesn’t know the nurse. It scary nurse you don’t know. I had a handiya. I know how it feel changed someone scary. I want Grandma help her. She sixteen. I ten. I not big enough to change her, but I big enough to hold her hand while Grandma help her.”   “Well, your Grandma can’t touch her until forms are written.”   “Then at least I hold her and she wear messy panties until Grandma help her. No nurse, unless Grace say it okay. Please?”   The social worker rose her glasses and frowned at Sean. “That child has a future if someone doesn’t mess it up on her. I see her helping people.”   Then she turned to Cait.   “You can go back. The nurse there will take you back.”   Cait looked up at Sean. “I go back?”   “Yes, Cait, you can go back. We’ll be back as soon as we are done with DHS.”   Cait had already decided to go back though, even if she had to look for Grace, and was already moving. She was ahead of the nurse that was to bring her, and the nurse had to run to catch up to her.   “We don’t just run around a hospital,” the nurse told Cait.   “Duh!” Cait looked up at her. “I ten, not five. I knew where I wanted. It wasn’t just running around. I going to Grace.”   “Okay. But you are still a kid and need an adult to take you.”   “Sorr-ee… not. I am going to my friend. I don’t mean to break a rule. I just need my friend that need me that I don’t let her find another way to get inbisible dead.”   The nurse smiled. “I understand. Hey, you’re that Cait that came in last week for a hernia surgery, right?”   “Yeah?”   “You have a reputation for causing trouble,” the nurse smiled. “And I hear you got a nurse promoted that listened to a patient.”   “I didn’t do nothing. Nurse Elora is best nurse. She maked them not put a diaper me, then she told me real reason they put diaper on even asking big people to wear. She really nice. I have a reason not like diapers though, and she didn’t even maked me say. She just said she pretend I sixteen. She is the real one that deserved her got promoted, not I did nothing.”   The nurse smiled. “I’m Candice. Oh, there’s your friend’s room, hon.”   I ran in and climbed up on Grace’s bed.   “You came in!”   “I wanted before, but they said waiting your mom’s say it okay. I would have run to find you if I know I could out beat run ebery nurse, but there too many.”   Cait saw Grace glance to her lap though she was covered with a blanket.   Cait smiled and nodded.   “Yeah, there are. I pooped, Cait.”   “I knowed it. You almost die. I don’t know why I knowed, but I think someone told me if you die, you poop in your pants. That mean, that doesn’t even just because you brain is hurt. It normal people to poop if people almost died.”   “I don’t know if I’ve heard of that.”   “It does happen,” the nurse told them. “But it’s usually less a fear thing and just a thing the body does when it’s shutting down and stuff.”   Cait looked at the nurse with fierce eyes. “And it happen you scared, too. I heard someone say it I believe. So it happens.”   The nurse put both hands up. “Okay. I don’t know everything.”   “I didn’t leave the waiting room all since we got here. I just peed my pants because I don’t leave the room. I don’tn’t wanted to miss when they said I can see you.” Cait chirped at Grace. “I knowed you would need me, just like if Grandma and Daddy not at Kinsella farm, I knowed I need you and Shane to come. Yeah, I like Shane too. I hope that okay.”   “That’s who you are supposed to rely on. Mr. Vance will probably be mad I didn’t ask for Mia. But Mia probably won’t even come to the hospi….”   “She did,” Cait frowned at her. ‘Mia hurt, too. Mia like Grainne. She thinks she has to do it all alone, and that why she can’t understand you don’t. She thinks… wrong. She need help. But you not the right one. I don’t see how you help each another. I think Mr. Vance ask a dent tally said mistake you two together. You don’t help her—the way she need, and she don’t get you.”   Grace nodded. “I don’t think we can tell Mr. Vance he’s wrong though. He’s an adult….”   “Big people do mistakes. If they don’t, esplain your aunt’s mean and your mom’s can’t get it?”   “I can’t,” Grace frowned. “I mean, I know big people make mistakes. What I meant, is that kids can’t tell big people that.”   “Why?”   “You get in trouble if you do?” Grace frowned.   “Yeah. I know that right with some big people. My Mysery Daddy is like that. You don’t say he wrong, eber, but I know he wrong more than any kid.”   Grace smiled. “That’s the hard truth. You can know it, but saying it is bad.”   “I don’t think Grandma and Daddy think that, though. I don’t think the Pastor of church yesterday say that, too. I think some big people… Well, there this one nurse? She promote because she can talk back her boss and her boss agreed it with her.”   Cait lowered her voice. “I tell you one thing that Daddy doesn’t think like another big person. You not allowed to get him in trouble it. Because Mysery Daddy the one that said the word all of a time and then belted us in the mouth if we said it. Daddy-Sean, and you can call him Daddy, Uncle, or anything nice you want. You can Call Grandma… Mommy, Auntie, or anything nice, too. But Daddy Sean lets me say ‘Fucker’ because Fucker doesn’t hurt people because it doesn’t say something that makes you feel not asspected. It just says, I mad at you now. But instead, Stupid was always Daddy Sean’s bad word for me, and I know why. I always said it for me, and because I hear-d it all of a time, and I thinked it. But now, I know how bad that word maked me be, that I don’t call another person stupid. I call them fucker instead.”   Grace looked at Cait. “He just lets you say that, and he accepts your reasons?”   “He let me before he knowed my reason. He knowed I got said it at the Mysery, so he knowed it just the way my sisters talked and me. He never said it bad. He only said Stupid, Ms. Pee pants, troublemaker, and another mean words Daddy in Mysery said that those wered his bad cuss word for me don’t say it.”   “I know your nice people are… different. They came and got me in the morning, and even though I peed on their bed and made trouble, they didn’t yell at me about the sheets and I’m sixteen. They… they let me get a bath with you, and then they let me dress by myself even without in the room. I thought I was just lucky because of what my mom put in my bag, but now I think about it… they knew. They knew mom put a diaper in the bag, and you maybe knew too, but you didn’t check if I was wearing it and your nice people didn’t either. I just came down dressed and even peed my pants again and they knew then I didn’t wear it, but no one said—Grace! Grow the Hell up! You were given something to stop being gross, and you were still gross!”   “Your mom says that to you?”   “No. My aunt does. My mom just… doesn’t say aunt is wrong, and if I get emotional and cry that Aunt called me gross, she asks me if Aunt is wrong… and then I realize maybe Aunt isn’t wrong. I am the one that peed or pooped my pants. I am gross.”   “Well, you not gross, and that one of your new cuss words you not allowed, okay? I telling Daddy you not allowed it because it does to you what stupid does to me.”   “Makes sense with your family, I guess. But what about me pooping my pants?”   “You go to Daddy and let him know you did. He put you in his lap if you let and he hug until you feel okay enough to change and get bath, then he get grandma to give you bath because he would… but you big girl. You probably want Grandma and not Daddy that, right?”   Cait looked in her eye. “I don’t care you sixteen. Daddy says kids not should clean up poop themselves, and you… you big girl about a lot, but you hurt so bad, you like ten like me when it comes to bathroom stuff. If you pee, you can take bath by alone if you want, but if you poop your pants, you need help. I take a bath with you to be there you, and then Grandma cleans you up, you don’t touch until you em—emo—I don’t think the word. But it means you feelings. It can’t be ten no more when you clean up you own poop, oh and Grandma has to watch you in bath when you pee until you get not want to hurt again to kill Cait friend! It not my rule or even Daddy rule. It new De-ahshis rule, too. They said my Daddy you don’t left alone even when you toilet because you in trouble, and I don’t want you hurt, so I take you to the bathroom or you go in pants for a while. I hope that okay.”   “I… I would fight my mom if she said it. Mom checks to see if I’m gross. I don’t think your Grandma or Daddy would be watching for me being gross except to help though. They didn’t even make me wear the diapers my mom packed for me for while I was there. They just let me wet the bed and treated me like a person anyway. I don’t mind if they make sure I stay safe. My mom wouldn’t do that. It would be too much work for her to get up in the night to take me to the bathroom, and she hates me peeing the sheets. She says I’m too stupid to clean them.”   “That what my Daddy said about me maked messes and just stay in bed where it stay one place. But then Grandma showed me how to clean it up! And then Daddy tooked me to the farm to get papers to help him put me for hospital to help my handiya, and then he let ME and even my baby sisters help the farm, and he let Grainne changed her poop panties and I helped her because he said our Mysery Daddy not even there, and maked little girls do farm work by alone, so he adult there, so it his being adult that Grainne and Clo taked off their ask a dent clothes and even Grainne hide in hay until little sister bring back clothes to her, so she not shame see him. He helps as much as he can without being too much if he doesn’t Daddy for you. But Grace? He Daddy you for now. It becamed De-ashis said that he taked care you, but Daddy not mean. I know he let Grandma so you don’t feel scared him if you get bath or watched bath or even watched toilet. And Grandma said I can watch you because you bigger than me, but I can get help them if you too hard to me to tell not do something.”   “That’s what I saw when I was there. I knew somehow, that you’d come and your big people would take you. That’s why… I said if you are out there, I don’t want to go with someone else. This will be the fourth time DHS talked to me about mom’s ways, and the third time I got put with people. The other people I got put with…. They didn’t know I didn’t want to poop my pants, either. But your people didn’t ask if I was disgusting. They took me for a bath like it was a normal everyday thing for a sixteen year old to do… and that’s why… I wouldn’t go with anyone but your big people.”   Cait hugged her. “You got taked away three times but put back in the same mean place with Aunt who doesn’t pay you for promised money to give up your dad and the cousins ask a dent tally maked you poop your pants because you can’t watched them and not go in your pants because they too hard to know what they do?”   Grace sighed. “Yeah.”   “No more that. I telled Daddy what happens. Not for you be in trouble, but so Daddy knows what you need. Maybe you need that Daddy gives you bath at least two times so you know he not judge and he loves you. And if you asked to watch me, he never shames you to go potty your panties even I don’t maked it hard for you to go. He says something you nevered hear-d it before. I am allowed to pee. He not getting me fixed so I don’t pee. He getting it so I maked the choice to pee my pants, and it not just happen to scare or hurt me.”   “He said you’re allowed to pee after you are fixed?”   “He did. He will let you poop your pants if you feel better to do it than something is missed important you, and he won’t mind if it you choice, and not you hurting.”   “I… I mean, I knew he didn’t shame you for an accident, but he just lets you pee on purpose?”   “Yeah. He even let me poop my pants when we went to the hospital when I don’t want to ask a dent in front of someone, so I wanted to do it the car, and he even changed me in the car so the people don’tn’t even know I went my panties until I said I did.”   “And you knew you were going to go, but you asked not to go in a place to go?”   “Yeah. I know they going to know, but I don’t want them watched me, and Daddy said now, he always say now, and he pat you, and he said me, I even drive slow so you have time to finish your pants, so I don’t have to ask a dent tally be not done. That my Daddy. That I have choice and I don’t have to be watched to go potty my pants by people that scaried me.”   “He’s really different from home.”   “Does he don’t scared you?”   “No. I am not scared. I saw him come and check the rash your grandma worried about and he looked only to see the rash and say that yes, I use the medicine they had for you, and then he left immediately not looking where he didn’t have to. I saw a big difference in how he did me. He respected me as much as anyone could a dirty….”   “Stop it! You not dirty! You tooked a bath. That prove you don’t dirty. You just ask a dented your pants. That not dirty. Wearing it is dirty. That what Daddy told me. You ask for help to change. If you get help to clean up, you don’t dirty even you pooped your pants two because you don’t haved time to go potty, when you can, you get help.”   Grace smiled. “Okay… okay… okay. I get it.”   “Shane is still my peer big brother. Grainne is still my biology sister who is oldest. But you my new Kinsella oldest sister even older than Grainne. But Grainne special me. Is that okay? Do you not please be mad I called Grainne still my big sister because she… she protected eberybody on the farm from be hurt by her get hurt. She even poops on purpose her own pants to keep Daddy looked her and not Clo, or Roisin or me. She tell by doing potty her pants… Look… oldest did it. Hit me. Don’t hit my sister!”   “Cait,” Grace frowned. “Even if she didn’t do that for you, she’s still your big sister. You are supposed to think she’s special. And Shane makes you feel safe and seen. You need him. I am your friend and your sister here, but like you said… in our weakness, you see me like a little kid, and I understand, it’s not to be mean, but I need help. And I’m not strong enough to be your big sister—at least not the way I am.”   Cait hugged her. “But you are my big sister. You know stuff even more than me, and you still maked me feel good about no knowed everything.”   Chapter 111 I’ll Hold You Cait felt her eyes get tired from the heaviness of waiting to be with her big sister friend, and she crawled into the bed bedding next to Grace and hugging her, her head on Grace’s chest, she fell asleep.   Cait felt her eyes opening more from being cold than anything else, and realized that Sean was carefully removing the blanket. Daddy was smiling at Cait.   “How are you feeling, love?”   “Wet and cold.”   “I’m sorry, honey. You know we forgot your extra clothes when we rushed to the hospital. I haven’t had time to go out and get you anything because you needed us here today to support you helping your friend.”   “I know. I’m not mad. I’m just cold.”   He pulled the blankets back further and the disgusting state he saw Grace in caused him to look right at Cheryl. “Did you know she was lying here like this? Sorry, no you didn’t. You were busy with Eiboline and me. But who was watching this child?”   “Well, the hospital staff, I suppose.”   “The child is on suicide alert, and she doesn’t look like she’s been touched since she came in this morning.”   “I haven’t,” Grace whispered. “I’m sorry.”   “Hey, Gracie. That’s not your fault. You are on suicide watch for good reason, baby. You weren’t allowed to go to the toilet on your own even if you wanted to.”   Daddy pressed the nurse button.   When a nurse came in, Sean pointed at the soaked and soiled bedding. “How long as this child been like this?”   “We change patients every two hours….”   “Does this look like she was changed every two hours?”   “The other kid that is lying next to her is wet. She probably….”   “She’s ten. She didn’t make that mess that big. This is a teenager that has been left to soil herself for way more than two hours. Don’t give me that crap! Now, you get me some clothes for both of these babies, and you get me a nurse that’s in charge.” Sean’s voice, while it held urgency and anger in it, it was dangerously quiet, like he was working to hold his loudness in. “And I want clean clothes for both of them within five minutes. I’m timing you right now, so you best hurry.”   The nurse narrowed her eyes at him. “You don’t dictate….”   “Get her some goddamn clothes to change into before I tell your supervisor you argued about her dignity rather than offered help when called.”   Again, his voice was dangerously low, but you could hear the anger in it.   Cait frowned. “I sorry. I wetted the bed in sleeping.”   “This isn’t about the bed being wet, sweetheart. This is about them leaving a suicide child alone long enough that she’s pottied her pants several times and it means, she’s not been watched like we were cautioned to watch her.”   “I’m the one that pottied….”   “Grace. You had no choice, hon. You didn’t do anything wrong. The hospital was supposed to be watching you. I’m sorry they didn’t do that. I’m sorry I couldn’t change Cait before she got in bed with you, and I wasn’t here to stop her wetting the bed on you while you were healing, hon. That’s on me. I knew she needed to see you, but I should have pushed that one of us go with her.”   “I wanted Cait next to me. I didn’t fall asleep at all until Cait was with me. I… was really tired but only when Cait laid her head on me…, that’s when I knew I could sleep that you wouldn’t take her off without her, so I’d know if I was coming with you.”   “You are, little one. We’ve signed the papers. Now where are those damned nurses.”   Cait looked up at Daddy. “Grace had poop in her pants when I got in bed with her. They didn’t change her pooped pants from before I came in to talk to her and then we both went to sleep together.”   “Noted, hon. You better believe I will be telling them that even a ten year old realized that her big sister needed to be changed.”   The head nurse came in; a heavy nurse with a stone but frog like fat face. She had eyes that were barely open.   Sean frowned. “You know that this child was on suicide watch, no?”   “We have ten kids on suicide watch,” she shrugged. “And we have other kids that are in trauma care for other reasons.”   Sean frowned. “So, are you saying there wasn’t enough staff to take care of that mess in her bed in what…. Say she got her at six and it’s two now… eight hours?”   The nurse frowned. “Well, she’s sixteen years old, isn’t she? There’s a bathroom right….”   “Stop right there!” Daddy put his hands on his hips. “If you were short staffed, that’s one claim that can be forgiven. Blaming a patient that’s not supposed to go to the toilet or anywhere by herself for not being watched carefully enough to catch this… that’s not just negligence, that’s also abusive! Now. You can get this child and the little one some clean panties and a clean gown they can wear home, or I can press charges as her new foster father that sees abuse in the hospital system. The choice is yours.”   The nurse walked out of the room.   “Cait, come to Daddy, hon. Let’s get you out of those dirty clothes.”   “You, too, Gracie,” Grandma said. “I know it’s not idea, but you can’t keep those things on. These professionals… could use some training.”   The two adults cleaned up the two children, and Cheryl picked up her clipboard and started writing.   The nurses came back to fully unclothed children, Grace being cleaned with toilet paper and the toilet paper being dropped into the messy gown they had her in.   “Why are you cleaning them in the…?” the head nurse’s mouth closed immediately at Sean’s look.   “I’m not shaming kids who had accidents. The bathroom is too small to clean them up in, and these children deserve to have their skin breathe. They both have rashes from people that have neglected. Cait’s rash is almost healed, but Grace only got a little care this weekend due to no one else getting her checked for it.” Sean looked to Eiboline.   “You people know that a ten year old out performed professionals in trauma care, even though she couldn’t clean up a bigger girl, she slept with her giving her the peace she needed to sleep. Our little Cait might have been in wet pants, but she knew how to take care of someone that needed it, and you people are supposed to be professional. Now, instead of shaming, you get us some warm water to wash these kids off, especially the poor teenager with a mess on her butt. She’s been treated poorly, and you people know it.”   The nurse sighed and told Candice to get some help with bringing in two tubs of soapy water and bathing supplies.   “I have other duties to get to…,” the head nurse frowned. “If you are going to press charges, then do so. But I have more work to get done and I’m too tired to deal with what this mess is right now.”   Sean shook his head. “That’s not a nurse,” he told Cait. “Don’t you ever let someone like her tell you she’s a nurse just because she has education and papers. A nurse is nice about problems, not neglectful and abusive, baby.”   “I know. I was Grace’s nurse, and I didn’t even have assept eberybody at school called me stupid.”   “Yeah, real stupid, Cait! You are the only one to do something right in this whole place, and if that’s smart, I’d rather be a Cait.”   Cait giggled.   Once the girls were clean, Cheryl smiled at the children. “Grace, you call me if anything changes, and you keep in contact. You have my number, and if you poop your pants, that’s no reason not to call me, understand? Your supposed failures is no excuse for someone else to fail you.”   “The Kinsellas won’t.”   “That’s good, but that number is not just for the Kinsellas, child If you start back at school and a teacher shames you in class, you call me. We don’t let professions do this to you. Trust me, whether Sean presses charges or is too overwhelmed to do so right now, the state is pressing charges. Leaving a patient in a mess, regardless why you are there, and you being a child is a very tight reason for DHS to sue the hospital for neglect.”   “Really?”   “Yes, hon. But don’t you worry about that. We’ll only call you to the stand if we need you. There are a lot of patients here and your case isn’t the only one, okay?”   “Okay.”             Chapter 112 This House Hold Holds Gracie   A little red three segmented creepy crawly edged along the safe barrier to one side and watched to the other side as four giants walked towards the elevators on the floor that Gracie had a bed.   Outside, a black flying feathered avian critter flew above the car from the parking lot around to the first light and the car turned right and the bird banked left.   A white puffy fluffy cloud hung out over McDonalds where Daddy leaned Grace against him and Grandma leaned Cait against her as they walked from the car into the fast food restaurant.   A friendly woman smiled down at Cait and then to Daddy.   “What can we get you all?”   “Well, the children have their own lips. They can tell you what they like. Whatever they want, and of course my wife has her own mind, but I’ll have a Big Mac, a coffee, and an apple pie.”   Cait tugged at Daddy. “Anything?”   “Anything, but at least one thing has to be something you normally eat for dinner.”   “I want two cheese burgers and a shake,” Cait looked up at Daddy.   “Is that all, pet? That’s barely enough to get a child your age full.”   “I can have an apple pie, too?”   “You got it, hon.”   Daddy pulled Grace in and whispered. “If you order less than I am sure a sixteen year old can eat, I’ll order for you, and what I order might not be as fun as what you want. So you order enough to get full. If you go a little over, we can always take fast food home, can’t we.”   Cait smiled up at her. “He does what he says, too. Honest, if you want fun stuff to eat, you order because he’ll get you like six cheese burgers if you don’t.”   “Okay.”   Cait watched Grace who looked up at Sean. “Can you say it? Please? I’m… it’s strange to tell people at the restaurant what I want.”   “As long as you tell me a reasonable amount, I won’t fill it in with boring stuff. But same rule as Cait. At least one dinner thing, okay?”   “Yeah. I understand. Can I get… I pee my pants… I’m not allowed pop.”   “That’s old house rules, sweetheart. In the Kinsella house, you order pop and pee your pants at the same time. No one withholds treats for something that needs love and time to help. Wetting and pooping your pants is trauma and could be physical, too. We’ll ask DHS about getting you checked by a real doctor to make sure your trauma isn’t being doubled up on you by a failing ignorance of physical problems.”   “Okay.”   “You get yourself pop, or I’ll order you three, and you’ll have to drink all three, not all at once, but within a reasonable time. After all, I don’t know what kind you like.”   “Oh, um… rootbeer okay?”   “It’s perfect, hon. Now about getting your tummy full?”   “Two cheese burgers, fries, and an apple pie?”   “That sounds reasonable, sweetheart.”   “Cait, take Grandma to sit down. She’s tired. I have Grace to help me bring back the food.”   Like all the other families there at the time, a family of four were eating with some stolen french fries and a laugh. Some talking about the next plans… the trip that is about to happen in a couple of weeks, and other small talk eventually left wrappers on two trays and children standing up with Grandma taking them out of the McDonald’s While Daddy threw the trash away. A normal McDonald’s stop for Cait… at least since she started staying with the Kinsellas.   “We missed park time with Billy and Ruth,” Cait tells Daddy. “Can I call to say I’m sorry when we get home?”   “Of course, hon. That’s your phone, too. I will only ever say no or take it away if you need a boundary, if I need an important call to get through, or if I’m forced to correct you by taking something away that I can personally control. I do not control Kooks. That’s yours. But I do control the phone as family property.”   “Okay.”   “Can I call my mom?” Grace asked.   “I have to ask DHS first. That’s their call, but if they say you can, then you can.”   They got to the house and Cait ran to the front door waiting for Grandma impatiently to open the door.   “Ruth? I’m so sorry! Grace and everything, and I didn’t even see the time going so fast. Please not mad?”   “Hey. Grace was in trouble. You did right. Daddy explained it for me. He said you were taking care of a friend more hurt than me right then, and you would probably talk to me when you had time. He thought maybe a few days later, though. I surprised you called me as soon as you got home.”   “You’re important. Oh, and Grandma says if your Dad and Mom say it’s okay, you and Billy both can come to Mysery with me. Grandma says he only limit because at first, it’s just a birthday visit, but something changed and she knew it was more than a birthday visit. So you needed and Billy, too.”   “Oh, really?” Ruth got excited.   “I want you to know something, Ruth,” Cait could hear her calling out that Cait wants her to come to Mysery now. “I always wanted you to come. But picking your brother over you, wasn’t about your brother being for me. I had one pick, one friend, and my sister… she needs someone more her age. Now, Grandma says I get to take more people if the parents agree, so Grainne has someone, so Clo has someone, so I have you, and Grace, so she has me and also my sisters can see that Grainne is not fail because even a bigger kid can have a accident and the Kinsellas say it’s just a body that needs to be better from hurts.”   “I kind of knew you didn’t pick my brother for playtime,” Ruth’s breath was puffy, not from effort but from trying to hold in her excitement. “Billy holds you if you pee, but he lets you play with me when you playing. So I knew he not going to play with Cait, that it was something different.”   “So you don’t mad?”   “No. It’s like if I chose my mom instead of you because bedtime. I love you, but mom is bedtime safe… except not in Mysery, I guess.”   “Yeah, if you come to Mysery with me, you don’t listen to the man that says he my father, not talking about Sean, but the other man you don’t know. Don’t listen him. He makes body trouble by something you can’t do. You listen my Daddy-Sean and Grandma, okay?”   “I know. Dad told Billy the same thing. He said don’t obey any adults that Mr. Kinsella doesn’t tell him to because some adults there are not good.”   “Good.”   “You are really worried about your sister, Grainne,” Grace told Cait after she was off the phone, her hands squeezing each other while Daddy was talking to DHS about Grace talking to her mom. “How important is it that Grainne gets this? I mean… is she going to do what I almost did?”   Cait looked down. “I don’t know. She already poops her pants to protect other kids and the last letter I got, Clo got in trouble and Grainne had to tell Clo to wear Grainne’s clothes to work a next day, so she has to on purpose poop her panties, but they Grainne’s so Daddy blames Grainne because Clo not supposed to pee her pants, but there no toilet.”   “That’s like me, at Aunt’s house.”   Cait nodded. “Add Zactly!”   “And Grainne told Clo how not to get in trouble like me. But it means Clo poops in her big sister’s clothes so the Dad thinks Grainne did it and not Clo?”   “Yeah.”   “That’s disgusting! Not that Grainne let her sister use her clothes, but she has to let her sister do it because she doesn’t want Clo to get in trouble.”   “I don’t know how Grainne did, but I have to ask her if I be membered a really gross thing she did for me, maybe, when I was first starting to poot my pants that made the poot somehow her panties not in my panties. So I not hit when Grainne and Clo said I sicked.”   “That’s crazy, Cait!”   “I know.”   “You know she did though,” Ghost interrupted and Cait froze. “You can’t lie knowing she did that when you ask her unless you decide not to ask to protect your own thinking how Gross you are.”   “I not gross,” Cait whimpered.   “No,” Grace frowned. “You’re not. I promise, you’re not.”   Cait looked up at her. “You heard me tell Ghost I don’t gross?”   “Oh, I thought you were telling me because of what Grainne did for you… maybe.”   “I telling Ghost I not gross. Ghost said Grainne thinked how gross I do to make her wear my poop in her panties or something.”   “Cait you said your sister is like the oldest. How old is she?” Grace asked. “Exactly?”   “She fourteen and turn fifteen in two weeks.”   “And you will be eleven this year?”   “Yeah?”   “There is no way you could have made Grainne wear something like that, Cait. You’re too little to do it, even if you were a bully, and we both know you’re not.”   “But ghost says she weared it.”   “I think the ghost is wrong. I think maybe the poop somehow did get in her underwear, but not with her wearing them.”   Cait frowned and looked down.   “But how come be member she poop in her panties after I did it, but she wearing pooped her panties. She never pooped her panties before that. Ghost said so. Kooks not chomping.”   “You’re tired, Cait,” Grace frowned. “That’s why you are easy prey for the guilt that you feel around things that you had no control. I used to get tired and the guilt made things worse for me. I mean, today, the truth is… I was more tired today than ever, and I don’t even know why. I just…. I went home and I pooped my pants last night, so I… I just guilted myself too much… and I ended up leaving try to stop my mom having to worry about me all the time. I guess.”   “Of course, you tired. Did you planned that you have to watch your cousins today?”   “Yeah. Aunt called last night and mom and she argued, but yeah, mom promised I’d watch them from two in the afternoon until seven.”   “Five hours? Grace, even if you didn’t pee your pants for being sick, if you can’t go bathroom for five hours, you gonna do it. That’s not fair. That why your body got tired. You learned, like I did. You smarter than me. You learned faster that this weekend normaler than your home for kids, and then you heard in your ghost… you gonna pee twice your pants and get in trouble for it.”   Grace frowned. “How can you say I’m smarter if you are working this out, and I just ran off to get an end to this and no, I didn’t realize I’d pee twice, and how do you know I’d pee twice?”   “Five hours! If you pee normal three to six hours, Maybe you don’t pee a second time, but usually, you do, you pee two times your pants, your cousins probably say so, and then you get in trouble and losed your pay again it enjun eared it that way. And how many times you losed your pay because you pee in your pants? Last time is first?”   “No. It happens maybe one of like three out of four times?”   “That’s why you didn’t even think that is abused! You don’t deserve not get paid when you made to pee your pants even you don’t have emotions troubles.”   Cait took her hand. “Come on. We going to to talk my Daddy. He loves you. You sit you his lap.”   “I’m sixteen, Cait.”   “So?”   “Daddy? They tried to make Grace get in trap to pee her pants two times today and then blame her not go bathroom. That the real reason she get knife her stomach.”   Sean frowned. “Are you sure?”   “I talking her about my own Ghost, and it said Grainne put my poot in her panties and weared it, and we got to her… and I found out that her plan today. Babysit the cousins two of the afternoon until seven of the night. I can’t do minutes, but I know hours. You go pee two times before five hours unless lucky and only one that time. But after a whole day you not maked her go potty in the toilet and mean her about it not do right… and her body, Daddy. It was enough too much. She in her body said… No. That why. She had no way out but knife, but her head said she trouble her mom. She said her head to not maked trouble her mom, but her body suffer. It said anything you need to say, but I don’t poot my pants on purpose just to not get money. I going to stop it now and then her head said yes, body. You right. Then she at hospital.”   Eiboline and Sean frowned at each other.   “I’m no mental health specialist,” Eiboline frowned. “But that does sound about right. Sean, you hold the big baby. I’m getting them both some hot chocolate and some cookies.”   Grace looked at the clock. Cait followed her eyes. Little hand eight and big hand five.   “I can’t have drinks right now,” Grace said. “It makes me pee the bed.”   “And what did I tell you about the soda?” Sean gently guided Grace into his lap. “Getting you help isn’t about whether you pee your pants, little lady. It’s about making it your choice. Right now, it’s not your choice, and we don’t withhold fun or treats just because you might wet the bed, sweetheart. Cait’s going to wet the bed, too. It’s not her fault. She has a bad infection. It’s not your fault. You have a different infection, and that infection is worse in a lot of ways.”   “Infection?” Even Grace was confused so Cait knew it wasn’t just her being like her daddy in Mysery says… stupid.   “Hon, someone has infected your mind to think you should do impossible things, and that has slowly eaten away at you for years, so even going to the toilet at normal manageable times is confusing. You’re wetting your pants all the time because you don’t know what normal timing for the toilet is, and you always feel like you are failing.”   Grace looked down. “Yeah.”   “That’s not your fault, Grace. It’s not going to be an easy thing to fix. But what we can do, is stand by you and not make you feel bad that you have a little problem, and hon? If you are with us past the age of nineteen, no matter what the system says, you stay if you want and be our little girl until you are healthy enough to go to college without too much trouble. You are sixteen. Even if you get the wetting under control… if you do… you are going to need support for a while, and we are happy to give it to you as long as you need, right Eiboh?”   Grandma brought in some hot cocoa and cookies for the girls. “Sean’s right, Grace. And even if DHS takes you to another family, when you are eighteen and have your own say, you come and find us if you want. We’ll keep you safe until you are ready to face the world, sweetie, and we will let you babysit Cait or someone at church once you start to feel safe enough to leave alone again to do things like go in the bathroom by yourself and you’ll see what it looks like when a normal teen that wets her pants sometimes still gets paid for doing what she said she would do, but only when you are ready, hon. Definitely not right now.”   “Yeah,” Cait said. “Even if I better and you not, I going to hug you every time you pee your pants because you are my big sister, and you can’t help it if you have feelings trouble after people robbing you and saying it your fault!”   Daddy Sean is a lot older than Daddy in Mysery is. Anyone can see it. Cait noticed the white hair Sean had and the lines on Grandma’s face and Sean’s the first time she saw them, but she still calls Sean Daddy and she even calls Eiboline Grandma. But even though Sean is more Grandpa-y age than Daddy age, Cait noted that he held both kids in his lap like they were seven and four years old rather than showing that they were too heavy or a burden on him. Cait being almost eleven, knew that she must be heavy.   “I can get up for a bit, Daddy.”   “Don’t you dare,” Daddy frowned. “Grace needs you here, and what would I do without my little Caitakins telling me things you notice that we adults keep missing?”   “Not we adults,” Cait said to Daddy. “Right, Grace. Daddy and Grandma not part of the adults that too fucking normal to see what hurt us, right? They smarter!”   Grace nodded. “You’re holding me even though I was thinking I’m too big. My mom would have told me to get out of your lap. My Aunt would have said I’m disgraceful letting you treat me like a little kid.”   “Now,” Daddy patted their laps. “Don’t worry about the big people that aren’t in this house. If you are sixteen, eighteen, hell, even twenty… if you need a hug, you get a hug and that means a sit down in my lap one if you need it hon. People don’t outgrow needing connections.”   “I’m peeing, Daddy.”   “Well, if it’s going, then it’s too late to go potty anyway. Just stay where you are, Cait, not because it’s bad to spread the pee, but because it’s not bad to get babied if you went your pants even accidentally on Daddy. Just try not to wet on people that aren’t used to it, okay?”   Cait hugged him. “I know that, Daddy.”   Chapter 113 And Then Ghost Was Interrupted   Grandma dug through Grace’s things, in a bag she had, and she pulled out Ring Eye, this Panda that Grace brings to Play Group. She put it in her arms and she pinned Kooks to Cait’s pajamas after having bathed them both and helped them dress… even helping Grace get dressed. Not because Grace can’t do it, but because Graced needed the assurance that love was there with help even if she doesn’t need it.   Cait and Grace lay in bed and Cait smiled.   “You can sleep with Ring Eye. I promise no one at group or no one at all you don’t comfortable to know it will know. I sleep with Kooks. You promise you don’t tell my kids my age that I sleep Kooks pinned to me like a baby. Deal?”   Grace smiled. “Deal, Cait. I would never tell anyone though, even if you didn’t let me sleep with Ring Eye. You are a better friend than even my own mother. I would never shame you for something that you need.”   Cait scooted closer to her. “Can I ask you something weird, not about you, but I want ask if you okay?”   “What is it, little sister?”   “Can I ask a dent tally pee you because I sleep too close because I want you hug me, but I know I pee the bed more and more and maybe Daddy need to taked me doctor again to find out why the medicine not stopping my pee the bed and in my pants?”   “Cait? If you want to sleep next to me, I only have to warn you… I’m bigger than you and might really pee all over you.”   “I don’t care you pee on me. This is me want to sleep by you, so even you dry, I know I going to pee but I want to hug you sleep.”   “If you don’t mind me wetting you, yes, you can sleep as close as you want.”   Cait curled next to her and she closed her eyes.   There was a long long hall. Cait could tell that this girl wasn’t herself. She was following behind her. Her butt was soaked in pee. She was walking through the halls. Slowly, Cait noticed other kids around her. The girl’s head was lowered.   “Such a weirdo,” echoed in whispers around Cait’s ears.   The girl turned to go into a class, and Cait saw. It was the side view of Grainne, and she was walking into a classroom. The pee wasn’t just in her pants. It was going on the floor, too, as she walked in.   Cait tried to call out.   Suddenly, Cait felt pee going all over herself, and she woke. Grace was peeing the bed on her. She sighed and hugged her. Grace somehow saved her from a nightmare she didn’t want to see.   “Thank you for peeing on me,” Cait whispered and she cuddled into the wet lake that she knew she’d add to, and went back to sleep, her thumb in her mouth.   The next morning, both girls sat up nearly at the same time.   “I peed,” Grace whispered first.   “Yeah. Right when I needed you to, though,” Cait frowned.   “What do you mean?”   “I had a nightmare. You woked me up it when you peed the bed. I said thank you but you still sleeping. You didn’t know you peed. I peed, too though.”   Grace nodded. “I know. I felt you pee on me but the bed around me was already wet, so I knew I must have caused you to pee.”   “That can’t not be it. I woke up because you peed. I didn’t pee going back sleep, so you didn’t maked me pee. I just always pee the bed. And I glad you peeded me. I woked up and not scared.”   They hugged.   “Can I take a bath?” Grace asked.   “It your house assept you not allowed by alone right now. You get too much watched because scareded I don’t get big sister if you get lonelied. So I go with you. You help me clean up?”   “Yeah. We can help each other.”   As the girls were dressing in the bedroom, there was a knock at their door that was left open, but still, even Grandma let Cait know that her room was her space and coming in was not done without some way to ask… usually a knock at the door.   “Your door was open,” Grace told Cait.   “Yeah. Because I don’t scared that Daddy or Grandma takes my space, and here, my sisters don’t even here to come my room without me to say so.”   “My mom just opens my door and walks in even if I close the door,” Grace frowned.   “Even you are sixteen? That’s like me Dad.”   “Yeah,” Grace nodded. “I hate it when mom won’t even give me a minute.”   “My Dad doesn’t give my sister a minute, too. Even the bathroom. My sister is fifteen in two weeks, but Dad still go in the bathroom her, she goes pee in toilet or takes a bath, it is same to Dad.”   “I don’t think mom ever followed me into the bathroom,” Grace frowned her finger tapping her chin. “That’s kind of wild he does that to her.”   Cait shrugged. “What about your Aunt, you can’t go bathroom without your cousin see you because how you not pee your pants if you need to go, but you must watch your boy cousin. It feels like she doesn’t care your private, too.”   “I never thought of that.”   “No. Instead you think you wrong, because that what they do us, right? My Dad in Mysery call me stupid and maked me to pee my pants where I started to show it peed going in the floor, and don’t move and moved is stupid girl, and because pee pants Cait is wet her pants no how, so she stayed in bed to not be stupid to pee floor and hide it and make troubled on purpose eberybody and she peed her pants school no how, so just she sit her seat at school and stop be not can read because if you don’t Enter rupt and leave the class, you can read, but you stop yourself read because you just leave even you know you peed your pants and don’t go in the toilet no how.”   Grace hugged Cait.   “Yeah. That’s horrible. I don’t feel like mom or Aunt does that, exactly.”   “But no your aunt saids watch kids eben they get in a little trouble so you don’t can use toilet and the only one way you can pee but it meanedz you must maked older boy watch you pee or you do it your pants, and boy not wanted watch you, so he fight it and you peed pants even if you can taked him, but I think your aunt said you can’t taked him with you to watched you pee, too.”   Grace sighed. “Yeah.”   “Cait? Are you okay?” Grandma asked from the door.   “Yeah. We gotted bath before. We get dress. We just talked why her aunt and me Dad in Mysery is the same.”   “Well, how about you stop talking about that for now, both of you grab your comfort buddies and come down to breakfast. You want to feed Summerstone, don’t you?   “Yeah.”   Cait walked down the stairs with Grace, and they were both holding stuffed animals, but Grandma had an arm around each of them, and there was no judgment in her face. She just had a smile. Her arms were warm, her smell was flowery, and she whispered good girls, when the little ladies went into the kitchen to sit at the table.   Grandma looked over at the table. “Grace, can you come here, hon. Let’s show Cait how big you really are, sweetheart. Come and help me put the oatmeal in the bowls, okay?”   “Really? I just peed the bed, Mrs. Kinsella.”   “And you and Cait took a bath. You’re not dirty. You both had a good sleep, and then you cleaned up after being wet. That’s a good thing, children. Now come on over here. Having one struggle doesn’t mean everything is a struggle, hon, and if it is a struggle, then I’ll help you.”   Cait smiled and whispered. “Go on. I can feed and clean up Summerstone. You saw me on Sunday Morning, Be member? You big, too. Pee or pooping pants doesn’t mean you don’t can do something else.”   Can Grace started to help Grandma prepare the stuff thin bowls, get orange juice and everything else. Cait knew Grandma could do it all herself, but she realized, Daddy Sean could have fed Summerstone himself like he does the other animals, but he gave Summerstone to Cait. He trusted Cait. This is grandma teaching Grace how to get Grandma’s trust, not that Grandma needed her to earn the trust, but so Grace knew Grandma wasn’t just being nice to trust her.   She smiled at Grandma as she watched Grandma put a warm strong hand on Grace’s back when Grace shook, and even when she dropped a spoon.   “It’s okay,” Grandma told Grace. “Everyone drops things when they are a little nervous, little lady. You’ll get less scared the more you are allowed to be a big girl and do what you should have been taught to do for a long time. You are a big girl. You just need a little extra help when no one helps and they always shame you, sweetheart.”   I walked over and patted Grace, my hand just above her butt because she’s bigger than me. “See why I said She’s like Grandma? She teaches so you don’t feel bad, and she doesn’t mad because a dirty spoon ask a dent tally gets on the floor.”   Grace looked at me and then at Grandma. “Would it be okay… if I called you Grandma like Cait does?”   “It would be an honor,” Grandma smiled.   “Even if I Call Mr. Kinsella Uncle Sean.”   “It’s perfect, hon. You call us safe names for you to process. It makes no never mind as long as you are feeling better, Grace.”   I touched Grace’s back until she brought the food to sit at my place, and I sat down in front it so Grace could not feel watched like she needs someone to hold her hand. She doesn’t kindergarten. She just needed a little courage, and being a little girl, I hoped maybe I gave her a little by showing her she taked care me to feed me.   Sean came in a little later, and he smiled. “I left Summerstone for you and Grace to care for, hon. I figured you’d want to do that, even if you overslept a little this morning. You and Grace had a hard time yesterday, and Summerstone won’t die of hunger if you are a tiny bit late this morning.”   I ran over and hugged him. “Grace helped me take a bath, and I watched her so she didn’t get too sad taking a bath.”   “That’s very nice,” Sean smiled. “I’m glad Little Miss Grace is settling in.”   “Can I call you Uncle Sean?” Grace asked looking up at him. “Even if I call Mrs. Kinsella Grandma?”   “Of course you can, little little lady. Whatever safe name helps you fit in here is fine with me. Cait calls me Daddy. She knows I’m her mom’s Cousin’s husband, but she doesn’t think about that. She just sees someone who makes her feel safe. If calling me Uncle makes me feel safe to you, then that’s as it should be.”   “I know it’s weird and probably you don’t believe me…?”   “Hon. You’re a teenager. I believe you, at least I will always believe you unless you give me reason not to.”   “Well, I only just met you Friday. So if I said I loved you and Grandma, already. Would that be… reason not to?”   Daddy hugged Grace. “Grace, I have no reason to question that. Kids love to feel safe. Even if you are sixteen, you have also been carrying hurt since you were nine. I think your love comes from a very real place, a place where the hurt little lady inside who still feels nine and wants to suck her thumb even if you won’t do it at your age, has found someone she can start to believe in. That’s all that matters, hon. You are sixteen, but you are also hurt and need a little extra time and you need love to give you that time. Your need found someone, that I hope you learn—it is justified, to trust with love and help you become an adjusted little lady.”   Grace hugged Daddy back. “Can I show you something we learn at group? Just because it helps me give you permission if I don’t want a hug, but you think I might need it, but I don’t know how to say no at the time, but really don’t want it then?”   “Okay, hon. Of course….”   Daddy let her show him instead of telling her that I already showed him before. I showed him, but I told Daddy he doesn’t need to do that because when I am upset, I want him to take over and hug me like he does. I wanted him to show me that the way he loves me.   After breakfast, Grace started to stand up and grab empty bowls, but Grandma put a hand on Grace’s hand. “Grace, I have a more important thing for you to do for me this morning.”   “Yeah?”   “Cait is a little kid. She knows how to feed her horse and she knows what to do if she sees a snake, but still, she’s a little girl. Go with her in case she gets herself in trouble. Not to watch her like you did your cousins, but just to keep an eye on her in case she needs help so you can come and get me?”   “Okay.”   “And she can use a friend to talk to, when she’s alone. She loves her family here, but she is still a growing child that needs kids and big people that aren’t adults yet to process what is normal. She didn’t get much time to process that when she was younger, and I dare say you didn’t get much of that after things happened to you. You both need each other.”   “Yeah. I could use a friend who can talk to me… as if I’m ten sometimes. Cait’s perfect like that.”   “Perfect.”   A while later, they were outside in Cait’s pen, and playing around with Summerstone. Cait had told Grace that no matter what, if she sees a snake, she freezes. If Cait can move, she will get help, but moving is dangerous. The snake strikes at what it sees move first. That’s how it behaves. That’s how Daddy taught her.   “How did you come up with a name like Summerstone?” Grace asked Cait once they had started to attend the pony in a playful manner.   “I didn’t. Summerstone told me his name, in the same way the Ghost sometimes tells me stuff that are sometimes lies but sometimes, I don’t know if they are lies. Summerstone can talk, if you listen really carefully.”   “You really believe that?” Grace asked.   Cait shrugged. “Why not? Horses communicate to one and another every times. They know when to get close to each another and not to when getting close is okay.”   “I guess they do,” Grace nodded.   “Other animals, too. Even dogs know when cats don’t want them near, and cats know when dogs are safe to get close to. Only humans forgetted how to talk another animals, but even look humans. Humans don’t even can talk another around a world, but dog always behave the same so a France dog knows what a America dog wants.”   “Are you sure about that.”   “Yep. It’s because all dogs say stuff the same way, with body and barks. Humans have all these words you have to learn and then the words look and sound different another place, and there are a gazillion languages for humans but only one for a dog.”   “That’s an interesting way to look at it.”   “Other kids my old school said it was stupid Cait way. But I don’t care they said because I knowed I was right even they said I don’t talk right sometimes.”   “Can you teach me to speak with Summerstone?”   “It can be done. You have to really listen, but you can do it. You can even understand another animal like Shadow and Bucklers just over there,” Cait pointed at a bull. “Bucklers will tell us if it thinks a snake is near. It will get scared and when he does, he will tell all the cows it, and then they tell all another animals until Shadow knows if he didn’t see it yet.”   “Farm works like that?”   “Even Daddy says so. You can ask him. He’s just over there, he won’t mind if we call to him while we come his way so he knows we coming and we can see him means he can see us.”   “I don’t need an adult to tell me Cait knowledge,” Grace frowned. “If he told you already, then that’s good enough for me.”   Cait shrugged. “Okay.”   “I need to go to the bathroom.” Grace looked down her face red.   “Don’t be scared. We don’t daddy’s farm in Mysery. There… you should just pee your pants outside so you don’t get in trouble inside. But here, you can go. Come on, I’ll show you how to go. I don’t mean potty training you,” Cait giggled at her sideways look. “I mean, I’ll show you how to get from the yard to the house safe, but you have to be watched. Be member doctor says?”   “Yeah, I remember. That’s why I told you. I figured you could come with me.”   “Yeah? You want me to watch you?”   “My mom watches sometimes. It’ less scary for you to watch in case I peed a little bit.”   “Oh, so your mom checks you?”   “Sometimes. Not in the bathroom. She just sees if I peed my pants especially before going to see Auntie, so I don’t embarrass mom proving my aunt right that I am just peed all over all.”   “Yeah. Parking lot checks? Like Daddy did Grainne and me. More me than Grainne, but Grainne got checked if he thought she did it.”   “What do you mean he checked?”   “We girls. Daddy says girls always wear dress or skirt even school and even the field working. Well, he pulled up skirts and checked if panties were wet if he thought we had to go potty but suddenly didn’t squirm no more or didn’t go in the bathroom when told we could.”   Grace frowned. “My mom did that with me if she thought I peed my pants.”   They came to the cross roads signed. “See this sign? The girl means that’s the way to my pen. You can always go there and the stable where Summerstone is. The Stable is on the same path my pen, so you allowed there.”   “Okay.”   “It Daddy rules, not Cait rules. It for safe of snakes.”   “Yeah. I guess that makes sense.”   “So your mom checked your panties, not your aunt?”   “Well, she’d check me if I was dropped off. Mom said she’s not dropping me off peed in panties so Aunt can blame her.”   “Yeah. That is what Daddy did. He checked me so I didn’t made trouble going in somewhere, peeing my pants.”   “Aunt pulled my pants down at the store, the park, or wherever we were if she thought I didn’t say something in a while or if I said I had to go, but got quiet. Only. She was usually right, so I couldn’t tell her not to look, because then she’d just ask and I’d be too ashamed.”   “I sorry your Aunt and Mama, and my Dad did me and Grainne, to check our panties in public with people looking. It so ashamed to be seed our pee pee in our panties when it happened.”   Some darkness ran down Grace’s pant leg and Cait frowned but didn’t say it. “Come on, before I pee my pants,” she told Grace as though it was Cait that was going to wet her pants.   Grace now walked faster, but Cait could see her pulling back and getting slower until they were in front of the house, and Grace was shaking badly. Cait put a hand on her back.   “Are you okay?”   Suddenly, a flash flood poured into Grace’s pants and slid down her legs and made a puddle on the ground at her feet. She was still shaking badly, and her legs were pushed together. Her lips moved, but Cait couldn’t hear what she was saying. Cait was frozen. What does she do? Grace peed more on the ground. Grace was wetting her pants. Was it Cait’s doing? Was she too slow getting Grace to the bathroom?”   “Grace?” Cait whispered after she saw the legs weaken and get less stiff. “It’s okay. You be member you with me? Cait who is bad her father Mysery?”   Grace looked up. “I… I didn’t make it,” her eyes had water in them.   “I’m pre-peeing my panties,” Cait told her.   “What’s that mean?”   Cait started to wet through her jeans that she wore at the Kinsella farm. “That it’s coming out and gonna…,” Cait looked down and saw the stain spread down the insides of her legs. “...wet my pants.”   The two looked at each other.   “Grandma won’t be mad,” Cait whispered. “But you sixteen. I get it. You can take me upstairs like I did it. Grandma might not even notice you did.”   “Think it will work?”   “Even it don’t, you taking care your little sister. Grandma not mad you pee your pants. I promise.”   Cait looked up at Grandma when they went into the kitchen. “I peed. Grace said she change me.”   “Hon, you know Grandma or Daddy needs to do that right now, not because Grace can’t help, but because you need medicine re-applied when you pee, hon. Your skin isn’t fully healed yet.”   “Oh.”   Grandma walked over and put an arm around both the girls. “I’ll tell you what, ladies. I’ll just come up and put the medicine on Cait and leave it out in case an owie got missed. Then Grace can finish changing you. If Grace wants to take care of her little sister, then that’s okay, as long as Grace isn’t left alone, Cait. If Grace needs to go potty or change her pants, whatever she needs, she has to be watched because of the suicide scare for now. You understand, Grace?”   “I… I peed,” Grace frowned her tears now coming down her face.   “Why did you tell me, child? I was going to give you privacy.”   “I… I don’t want you to think I am lying.”   “No, Grace. Taking care of your little sister because she peed her pants doesn’t automatically mean you are lying about wetting your own pants. You are sixteen. You are allowed to tell anyone you want if you pee, as long as you take care of your own problems. So now, I should confess. I knew you peed. That’s why I was going to leave the medicine. I want you to use it for your skin, too. And I’m still going to leave the room after I put medicine on Cait, so you can still help her dress if you two want, and you can still take care of changing yourself, but you put medicine on, understand?”   “Okay.”   In the bedroom, Grandma helped Cait pull down her itching stinging panties that stuck to her skin and she wiped her with a towel, or more patted her. “That’s how you dry yourself in a minute, Grace. Pat, don’t rub. We don’t want to tear more skin than we have to when we dry off an accident okay? I’m teaching you to do it so you can do it. You shouldn’t have to have an adult make you their doll. You’re a big girl that’s going through something. Only thing is… if you poop, I have to help. Poop is too hard for a young girl, especially one in trauma like you, sweetheart.”   “Okay.”   Grandma put the medicine on Cait, step by step and she made sure to put the tubes of medicine in order on the stand so it seemed, so Grace or Cait could keep track of what medicine was next because there were five kinds.   “There we are, Cait. Now, Grace can change you, and you remember the types of medicine that are done first and step by step, right?”   “Yeah?”   “So Grandma doesn’t need to be here. You help big sister put her medicine on, not by touching because she’s a young woman, but by reminding her what order it goes on since this is her first time doing it by herself.”   “Okay.”   “Grandma is letting me change you even though I peed my pants?” Grace asked after Grandma exited the room.   “Why not? Like she said, you have a hurt nine old girl heart, but you have a brain of bigger girl who is almost like a big person, like you having a job and ebery part. She said you young woman. I agree it. You don’t have to be dry to be woman. Grandma pees, sometimes, but don’t tell you know. It her story if she can tell you or why.”   “I wouldn’t ask a question like that from someone that’s putting the medicine out and trusting me to not waste it or to put clothes on their kid that just peed on accident while I’m wearing peed in pants myself.”   “Grandma knows. I know. But I just wanted you to know, I told you because that my aspect tation you. That you don’t tell no body she has trouble. It not like you or me, but it still a hard reason that her story. Okay?”   “I understand Cait.”   Chapter 114 Cait Can Take You Tuesday, July 1, 1980   Sean came in late morning, and he walked over to Cait and picked her up. “You want to go to the library today?”   “It’s Tuesday.”   “It is Tuesday, but here’s the thing, Cait. I have something I really need to do. Would you be okay with just Grandma taking you two today?”   “Yeah. But I like it when Daddy reads to me.”   “I know you do. But next week, we are going to see your sister, and I don’t want Arnold to have to do this particular thing, so I need to get it done between today and Next Monday when we take the trip. So, just this once, okay?”   “Okay,” Cait hugged him.   “How is Grace holding up?”   “She peed once?”   “Cait, no I didn’t mean for you to be a potty report. I mean, is she feeling okay? Is she having fun with you, and is she settling?”   “I don’t know. She got scared when she ask a dent tally peed outside by the house. But she changed me and she put her own medicine on and change her clothes. I don’t think she’s okay yet. I think, she’s just… trying to be okay, but it’s hard right now.”   “That’s understandable. She’s been through a lot.”   “When you girls all get home from the library, I will have to take time to take you to see the doctor. The doctor wants to check the hernia condition to make sure it hasn’t found another way to make things hard for you, and the bladder infection. I also want to get you more medicine since we are letting Grace use your medicine for her rashes, too.”   “Yeah.”   “And… I want to have them do a little check to make sure it’s just trauma making her wet her pants because if it’s anything that hasn’t been checked due to a belief that like you, her parents thought he was just doing it…. Well, that’s how your hernia got so bad, hon.”   “Okay. I peed on purpose earlier.”   “Not because you knew you couldn’t hold it?”   “Well… I did have a little pre-pee in my panties, but it wasn’t that. Grace was scared, so I peed my pants so she could take care me and not be scared Grandma knows she peed her pants.”   “You learn that from Billy, hon?”   “Kind of.”   “Well, be careful. Your body isn’t as healthy as Billy’s is… at least as far as we know, yet. You still have a bad rash and we don’t know about your infection. You aren’t supposed to be holding it anyway.”   “Oh. Eberything with Grace, I forgot. I held it at the pen until we got the house. I was opposed to pee my pants on purpose. Right?”   Daddy smiled and hugged Cait. “We just don’t want it to hurt. If you hurt when you were holding it then yes, you were supposed to pee your pants. If it didn’t hurt, then it’s just as it should be, sweetie.”   As Grandma put the girls in the car, and she actually opened the front door to the car for Grace, Grace looked up at her surprised, her eyes staring at Grandma. Her hands were shaking. Her mouth was opening and closing for a few times before she got out. “I… I might pee my pants.”   “Grandma could pee in the driver’s seat, but if I don’t sit here, then we don’t go anywhere, child. It’s not going to bother me if you pee your pants in the front seat anymore than it will if you pee in the back seat.”   “I’m… I poop in my panties sometimes.”   “Then we’ll change your pants. You don’t think as if I’m leaving home without a change for both you kids, do you? Not because you’re a baby, but because trauma does things to you, even Grandma has an extra pair of panties in the bag.”   Grace’s face went really red.   Grandma started the car, and Grandma sighed. “You should know, Grace. I have my own trauma. I pee my pants once in a while, usually more around when it happened.”   Cait looked down.   “My son was killed twelve years ago during a snake accident. That’s why Cait was protected and still has strict rules when she’s outside. You will follow those same rules until you are twenty or you leave the farm… when it comes to outside. I will not lose another kid to a careless snake attack, okay?”   “Okay, Grandma.”   “So, yes, I sometimes leak a little pee in my pants during the day, and I have full accidents twice a year, some years worse than others.”   “I’m sorry,” Grace frowned.   “It’s okay, but to say I’m over it is wrong. If I were, I wouldn’t still have full peeing accidents twice a year… some years lasting a month, and some years only being a day or two.”   “You only peed twice this year in the summer.” Cait whispered not sure she should tell but reminding Grandma it might have been an okay year for her.   “I was leaking in my panties, though. But see, Cait, that’s the difference of a healthy adult that has a little trauma and a kid that never gets her trauma resolved. I can deal with it and hide it from people I don’t trust. You have a harder time because you weren’t taught how to be in charge, and that’s why Sean says for now, you don’t potty train, hon. Did you know he told me I wasn’t potty trained for the first year after we lost our son?”   “You peed your pants all the time?” Grace asked.   “I wore diapers and Sean checked on me to make sure I didn’t leak in front of people. He made sure it was private.”   “That’s Daddy,” Cait nodded. “He cares heart more than peed pants.”   “That’s right, hon. And so does Grandma.”   They pulled up to the library, and Grandma turned to Grace. “You need the bathroom, or you peed your pants, you tell Cait, hon. You don’t need to tell Grandma everything. You are a young woman. You tell Cait because you need someone to take you, but Cait can take you to the bathroom as long as you watch each other. If you poop your pants, Cait tells me so I know you need Grandma’s help, not to get you in trouble. You are not potty trained, not for now. Not until we teach you to love yourself first.”   “Okay.”   “So, yes, you are allowed to use the potty, but there is no shaming and if it hurts, you are required to go in your pants to stop the hurting.”   “Okay.”   “Good girl. Cait?”   “I know. Pee my pants so I don’t hurt my batter and Grandma change me if I poop my pants.”   “Good girl. Now, Anyone want to use the toilet before we go in? Grace? Cait?”   No one said they had to go.   “Well, Grandma leaked. I’m going to change my panties and pee the rest and then I’ll see you both in the reading room, okay?”   Grace held Cait’s hand. “I never heard of a adult telling kids if they are not perfect before.”   Cait shrugged. “Me, too. Grandma and Daddy weird, but I love them so much better than my normal Mysery Daddy and mom, only told tell them. I don’t hurt them even if I am kind of scared of my old Daddy now.”   “You’re scared of him?”   “Yeah.”   Grace held me in her lap, like Billy, like Daddy, like everyone. If I didn’t know she pees her pants in group, or more, poops them, I wouldn’t have known. She held me and she was reading with me like Daddy. She let me use the ruler, the biggafier, and the papers in Grandma’s purse, and even then when I can’t get the word, she whispered parts of it, and waited for me to get it. Sometimes I still didn’t, but she never ever used the word stupid. Instead, she said….   “This one is tricky, Cait. Don’t think ch as in chain in this one, soften it.” When I was reading Machine. “Yeah,” she helped me more. “Ma. .. not I as in what you call yourself, but sometimes, it says ee….”   “Ma… Ma...een. Oh! Machine!”   “Good girl,” she whispered and kissed my face.   I looked up at her smiling. We looked just like a high school tutor teaching a elementary school kid to read better.   Then Reading Group started, and even though Grace was even bigger than Shane, Megan didn’t shame her coming and even Mrs. Vance not related to anyone else Cait knew, but just the librarian who ran everything smiled. “You know, we could use you on Tuesdays as another tutor. I saw you working with your little sister. You are fantastic.”   I smiled and giggled. The librarian even called her my sister!   “Well, next week, we are going to be out of town,” Grace said. “All of us. We are surprising my little sister’s real biological sister for her birthday with a visit.”   “That’s nice, hon. But let’s not call it being a real sister, huh? A real sister can be adopted, foster, or biological because to be a real sister, that’s heart, not relational blood.”   “I didn’t say real,” Grace frowned.   “But your voice dropped as in you were thinking it.”   “It did? I mean. Cait and me. We been through so much together. I do love her.”   “That’s what makes you real sisters, okay?”   “Okay.”   Then we started reading.   “Are you going to be missing for just one Tuesday?”   “That’s right,” Grandma said. “But I’m her guardian, so you and I should talk while Megan reads the group story. If you let her volunteer, and I want Cait and Grace to hear what I say so there is no surprise, so the four of us need a private space to talk to you.”   “We can go in my office.”   “There is no guarantee she will be in my house after July. We are on a trial run with CPS. Grace has had a hard time,” and this time, Grandma put Grace in her lap without permission. “Sorry, Grace. You are going to get scared and Grandma wants you to know you are loved.”   “Okay.   “Grace poops her pants sometimes. That’s what I’ve gathered, not that I’ve seen it yet. I have seen her pee once. So, if you take her, and let her work her for her health, which I am okay with as long as it doesn’t hurt her… you will let her use the toilet as soon as she says she’s going to, and if it goes in her pants, you direct the kids away from her until she cleans up. And Cait always goes with her to the bathroom. She’s been hurt really bad, and I will not let a job jeopardize her mental health. She… she almost had a suicide accident last weekend because people who are supposed to care for you can really hurt you.”   The librarian sat here, her eyes getting tighter, her legs shaking, her body telling Cait that every thing Grandma said about it bothered her.   “So, if you can’t protect her dignity, then I have to refuse your offer even though I think it would be very good for her mental health. She enjoyed helping Cait. I could see that. But her mental and emotional health is worth more right now. As of right now, My husband and I told both kids they are not potty trained. It’s not an excuse to deny them the toilet. They still go if they want. But they are not shamed, yelled at, or punished for poop in their pants. Do we understand each other?”   “You know, I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a foster parent ever setting a boundary like that before for a foster kid, and I’ve seen foster kids who are teens pee their pants before. You got it, Mrs. Kinsella. Cait goes with her if she asks to go to the toilet, and she goes whether to change dirty clothes or to use the pot, it’s up to her current situation. And both kids will be protected as much as I can. And since you are there, with them every week, I am sure you can help.”   Grandma smiled. “Then, Grace, if you want this job, Grandma will pay you ten dollars every Tuesday you do it. It teaches you responsibility.”   “But if I potty my pants, the money….”   “Is still yours, baby! That fucking aunt of yours can go to hell with her rules of withholding a promise because you aren’t potty trained right now. You got it, hon? You are not potty trained and that means, nothing is tied to you going potty in the toilet or your pants.”   “Okay.”   Grandma looked at Mrs. Vance. “Okay?”   “As you wish. I’ve been trying to find a qualified teen that would help us out. We keep getting more kids that want to come but we don’t have enough tutors. If she volunteers, we can accept a few bigger kids. There are some fourth and fifth graders that could use help.”   “I want to,” Grace smiled. “But you won’t care if I accidentally wet on the floor while teaching?”   “I will not, hon. We’ll teach the kids compassion at the same time. That’s an important lesson, too.”   When they came back, Cait walked over to Megan. “I sorry. My sister got troubles and we get help for her to be tutor start after we come back. Is that okay? My sister wants to, but she is really hurt and needs help. Your boss telled you I think when not no kids listen to it.”   Megan smiled. “I don’t need to know everything my peers need. I just need to know enough to work with them. I trust the librarian to tell me what I need to know.”   “Okay.”   “You can still help today if you want. Two fifth graders are watching. Can you take them? You were tutoring Cait, and I think the way you tutored her is perfect for them.”   “Okay,” Grace smiled with a blush.   “You are fifth graders, so you probably don’t sit in laps anymore, but just in case, you can’t sit in mine. We’ll explain later if it comes up, but it’s off limits for this tutoring, okay?”   The two fifth grade boys nodded.   “Okay, who’s first?”   Cait sat in Megan’s lap.   When they were going home, Grace had tutored four kids, Cait had the second Xanth book in hand and an extension with the library because of their extra time away, and Grandma had two dry happy little girls that peed in the car on the way home to get Sean for the doctor appointments.   Later, after Cait and Grace were clean and Sean had taken them all to the doctor, Sean looked like he was happy and he had papers that were in a thick folder almost double of what she knew they gave him about Grace when they left the hospital the day before….   Cait looked up at the doctor when she sat on the table. She remembered the first time here. “Grace will poop her pants. You can’t be mad her just cause she older. She sick at least her heart is like me. You can’t be said she doesn’t something that hurt, and she do it because she wants.”   The doctor frowned. “What do you mean?”   “The doctor in Mysery said still my big sister Grainne is do it because she wants, but she doesn’t. And you not allowed to say that for Grace. If you do, I tell every kid in elementary school who see you not believe you for treat them.”   “Yeah, I remember your family history. So who is Grace?”   “My foster big sister. De-aishis said she stays our house this month and maybe the whole year and maybe longer.”   “Well, if you have some papers giving me insurance and POA….”   Sean pushed papers to him. Cait knew Daddy didn’t have time to get the insurance thing because she knew what that took. Daddy a thing in the field that he wouldn’t tell Cait about? Right! He was protecting Grace going through that fockers at Ace surace because he knew they talk over kids. That’s what Cait was sure of and the Ghost didn’t say different.   Sean showed the papers. “I got them signed today a bit earlier. She has full insurance as long as DHS keeps her place with me, and they don’t expire until 60 days after she leaves my house in case of replacement.”   “That’s enough to get started. You’re good for it. I’ve seen how you work, and the hospital decided that if you say you’ll do it, they believe you. They saw you fight for Cait.”   “Good. I’d hate to sue someone else at Mercy. I didn’t even sue them, but I said something and DHS decided to sue them over Grace.”   “Oh!” The doctor’s face got sick-like and his mouth twitched. “It’s that Grace! Okay. Right.”   The doctor’s hand first felt around Cait’s stomach and he smiled. “Well, the danger is not present anyway. How is your pooping lately?”   “Okay. Just solid like normal. But I still do it my pants some and especially I keep peeing my pants.”   “Does it hurt to pee or poop, when it goes in the toilet or your pants or both?”   “No… not too much. It sometimes burns when I pee, but only sometimes. And skin still red and sore still gets opened.”   “May I see your sore? I know it’s in a place you don’t like looked at, but I should assess it to see if your medicine is right for you.”   “You can look, if Daddy allowed to hold me.”   “That’s fair, kiddo. Your daddy can hold you. I don’t need to touch, just see what it looks like. You can do any touching yourself if I need to see anything more clearly, okay?”   “Okay.”   The doctor let me pull down my pants and I pulled down my boy panties.   “That is a little redder and more raw than I’d like. You’ve been using your medicine every time you change your panties?”   “Yes. I promise.”   “We did forget to put her medicine on her twice today because there wasn’t a good place to do it, and I think she should have been changed a few times yesterday we didn’t get around to it because we were at the hospital in crisis for Grace.” Daddy was honest.   “Was the rash better before yesterday?”   “Not really,” Grandma frowned.   “We may need to increase her skin protection. What about her pee color? Has it changed, smelled bad, or was there any blood in it.”   “Not that anyone has noticed,” Daddy started but Grace spoke up.   “I changed her this morning when we woke up. We helped each other because I peed the bed, too. I don’t know if it was blood or not, but her pee was really really dark like orange dark.”   “Okay. I think I’ll need another pee sample. Cait, you need to pee your pants to do that like last time?”   “I… I feeled better to pee my pants to do it.”   “Okay. I’ll just have a little potty brought in, and you can pee through your panties if that helps, but not anything else. I need it as clean as possible.”   “I can try, but through my full clothes is easier.”   “The not getting on the toilet or moving rule?”   “That rule is a little easier. Daddy been working on me going potty when I first feel it wants if I can get and even I peeing my pants. But it just… you not Daddy. I don’t even pull down my pants you but Daddy can hold me.”   “I understand, hon. Well, try to just pee your panties if you can. I’ll leave the room for you.”   “Okay.”   Grace frowned at Cait. “I can leave, too, if it helps you pee your pants.”   “No. It’s not you. It’s he a man I don’t know. I don’t even want to do it a woman I don’t know, but friends and kids okay and family like Daddy Sean makes it easi…”   Pah-shee—shee—shee-t-t-t.   Pee started to pour through her panties and into the toilet.   “Why your panties then?” Grace asked.   “In case the medicals people come back in too fast. I scared on toilet them here, and pee just stops then. But scared them see not decent because doctor not looking for trouble then.”   Pah-shee—ee—t-t-t.   Cait looked up at Daddy. “Not yet. I feel more.”   Daddy turned to Grace.   “How about you, hon? Do you feel scared or would you want me to leave so you can do a pee sample or maybe have you taken to a bathroom? Eiboline will have to be with you, but you don’t need anyone else you don’t want.”   “I… I never peed in front of people before except for on accident in my pants. I don’t know, honestly, Uncle Sean.”   “Then I can just leave….”   “No. Please don’t. I… I feel safe with you around. I feel like, my mom can’t tell me what to do if she suddenly shows up if you are right there. You keep telling her to hold me and stuff.”   “Now.”   Pah-shee—ee—ee--ee--t-t-t.   Cait stood up pulling up her jeans. “I peed, Daddy.”   Daddy opened his arms and looked at both girls and they both walked over and sat on his legs, one on each one.   The doctor came back, Cait didn’t know how long it had been.   “You peed your panties?” he asked Cait.   “Yeah.”   “I need to see inside your panties?”   “Why?”   “For evidence of blood, hon. Just a quick look at the panties.”   “Can I take em off and hide?”   “Yes, that would be okay. Why don’t you just cover up on the table and pull your panties down under the blanket?”   “Okay.”   “Is there a reason you need to to see inside her underwear?” Daddy asked.   He swirled the white bowl thing in the toilet thing around that he took out and showed Sean. “That’s really orange, but do you see any blood?”   “I’m not sure what I’m looking for.”   “Well, there could be tiny specks that I can’t see, but her pee this dark and no physical evidence of blood…, I just don’t want to miss it, so sometimes blood can be trapped by the cloth and not fully show up if it’s a very small amount. I will have this tested anyway, but knowing sooner than later is sometimes really important.”   “Then, that’s as it should be.”   “Cait?” Doctor Foster addressed the covered child. “Do you understand what I’m saying?”   “Yeah. You worried I bleeded but how come pee in blood in it?”   “Well, pee can show us you have other dangerous problems and tell us if your kidneys are affected.”   “And that’s danger?”   “Yes, hon. If the kidneys get damaged, it’s very dangerous, so we want to make sure your kidneys are okay.”   “My pee dark three days, Mr. Doctor Foster.”   “Three days every time you pee, or not every time?”   “When I pee my pants, I don’t know. But maybe two times when I make it each of the days?”   “Okay. This is important, Cait. I will need to do a couple of other tests. Is that okay?”   “Yeah.”   “How would her kidneys get bad?” Grace asked.   “Well there are a lot of reasons they would get bad, but one is way is holding it when she does it way too long or if there are other complications that makes the bladder back up into the kidneys.”   “Okay.”   “I can give you a regular cup and you can pee in the bathroom….”   “Someone has to come with me. It’s my foster family’s rule so I’m not alone and try to hurt myself. They said it’s DHS and the hospital’s rule, too.”   “Well, you can bring anyone with you that you want, young lady. You are sixteen. We normally don’t even have your parents come back with you at this age when doing tests.”   “Not even if I ask?”   “Most teens don’t ask, but yes, if you ask there is a law that says we do it only with teen consent and parent consent, so if you want your parents, then we have to let them stay.”   “Good. And foster parents count, right?”   “Yes, with the documentation your guardians have, they are considered your parents for medical purposes.”   “Uncle Sean? Since Cait already peed, can you take me to the bathroom?”   “Don’t you want Mrs. Eiboline?” Dr. Foster asked.   “No. I love her, but my only experience with women watching… is I don’t do it fast enough, I not lady enough, I peed my pants and bad girl… and I don’t think Grandma is like that, but if it has to be an adult, I think Uncle Sean won’t make me think my mother and accidentally not get enough in the test cup for you.”   Sean looked at the doctor. “I know she’s sixteen, but what do you think?”   “She’s requesting you, sir. The bathroom is round the corner. Just make sure she doesn’t contaminate the cup by putting it directly in her pee stream after she squirts a couple of times.”   “Okay.”   While they went out, and the doctor gave back my panties that Grandma took to lock away and she put me clean panties in my hands, they talked about me more.   “Her panties don’t look like they trapped the blood particles, so the only way to know for sure is if we wait for the test results.”   “How long that takes?”   “Probably Friday. Now, I don’t like how bad your skin looks, so we are going to give it some stronger protective medicine and some stronger antibacteria medicine.”   “Will it hurt?”   “Yes, the anti-bacteria medicine will.”   “Do I still have to pee my pants?”   “Well, what is important, child, is you are not holding it more than a few minutes. If you can get on the toilet in a few minutes, it would be better for your skin if you don’t pee your pants all the time, but if you don’t know what a few minutes is… then it’s better out than hurting your bladder.”   “Okay. I not being mean her, but my sister poops her pants. Does she have a handiya?”   “We won’t know what is wrong until we do some checking, but what do you mean by a hand in ya?”   Eiboline smiled. “Cait’s language and pronunciation is a little off sometimes. She’s trying to say hernia. We’ve been working with reading with her to give her some more vocabulary, but she’s not really been educated right.”   “That’s neglect for sure. I really wish I could mobilize against those people that did this stuff to her,” Doctor Foster frowned. “DHS says they are looking into it, but that usually means, this is out of our area and we have too much to do where we are at.”   “I don’t want you to do it,” Cait frowned. “If Daddy disappeared in Mysery, then my sisters disappear. Then how do I have them? Grainne is strong. She protects the others.”   “Cait? Grainne won’t be strong forever. She was told by dad she’s going to have her school know in September that she wets herself. Her teachers are going to be told not to let her raise her hand and get out of class. She’s gonna do it in her pants at school,” Ghost told her.   Cait felt tears run down her eyes. She looked at Kooks, but he shrugged. “You know yourself, that that man is unknown if he will do that. He could. He likes control. He might be lying to scare her. The wrong people find out, and he gets in trouble. He could be just scaring her, but if she scared enough, she’ll pee her pants. She’s not in bis a not destroyable.”   Cait looked at the doctor. “Can’t you tell the doctor in Mysery that they must do real check her? Daddy said she checked, but even Daddy Sean gave money her check, they said nothing happened her. But they wrong. She does it without not need to protect a little sister now.”   Doctor Foster sighed. “I wished we could guarantee that. If I had the doctor’s information personally, I could write letting him know of the situation…, if I knew him, asking for a personal favor, but do you even know the doctor she saw?”   “No.”   “You keep getting someone to check whether you pee in the toilet or your panties, you make sure that there is no blood in the urine with your big people, okay?”   “Okay.”   Then he turned his attention to Grace as she sat down.   “You poop in your pants, hon?”   “All the time. I’m sorry.”   “No, don’t apologize,” Doctor Foster frowned. “I’m not here to judge you, only to figure how what it means. That’s why I have to confirm this is happening. You’re not in trouble if you poop in your panties here, young lady. You’re not the first adult to poop your pants.”   “I’m not an adult,” Grace frowned.   “You’re close enough, child. That’s why the law says if you wanted privacy, even parents can’t come back with you. Medically speaking, you have rights that kids Cait’s age are still too young for because certain things require decisions to be made by people who can process the whole picture. Cait is really smart, but she’s still only going on eleven years old.”   “So, if I’m an adult, mom says that makes me even more….”   “Na-uh, child. Don’t let someone negative turn this right and self agency around on you. You have a medical problem and maybe something emotional that makes you feel like you’re nine? You are Harmony’s patient, aren’t you?”   “Yes sir.”   “I don’t know what you and Harmony talk about, but I know Harmony specializes in big kids with emotional and mental problems that normally come from some sort of trauma. So…. In my office, you are an adult and in Harmony’s office, you are to her what you need to be. Is that fair, little miss?”   “Okay. But I poop my pants. How can I….”   “Adults poop their pants if they have a medical reason. Adults also poop their pants if trauma is bad enough. My only concern is finding out if something physical is making your emotional growth harder. That’s it. You don’t own me any explanations if you don’t have a physical problem. Here. Read this.”   As per Sean Kinsella’s request, though there is no proof anything physical exists, DHS gives him full authority to put her on his insurance as his dependent that will last two months past her placement with or when she is removed from the Kinsella home. This is to ensure that while there is no reason at this time to believe she is being affected by anything physical, that it is not missed in the mess of trying to help her through her trauma, and until further notice, it is requested that the doctor gives her a school note allowing her to ask to use the bathroom as she needs and to both eliminate water and solids in her underwear at school and be given discretion and access to her big people after the fact without shame or punishment.   “Uncle Sean requested it?”   The doctor frowned and nodded. “You understand that no one actually knows or suspects you have a physical problem, but your uncle, if you want to call him that, is doing this as insurance that anything physical hasn’t been overlooked.”   “I… yeah…. But why?”   “Because, pet,” Daddy whispered in the room. “Cait was misdiagnosed when she was on the government insurance and right now, this is a concern for her older sister, that she might not have a doctor who is doing what he can because of the system. We are making sure the kids in our house have the dignity of having every cause that makes healing exposed so you can heal and eventually choose if you will poop in your pants or not.”   “It’s not to stop me doing it?”   Sean took Grace’s hands looking her in the eyes. “No one can stop you doing it, if you are scared, or you even choose to do it. What I am doing is making sure you are not too scared to choose, that you don’t have physical problems that take that choice away, so by the time you leave our house as an adult, if we get to keep you that long, that if you potty your pants, we have done everything we can to make sure it’s your choice, and not something that happens to you. Whatever reasons a young lady your age would have to do it in your pants by choice, are not our business to sort as long as it is choice, and not something scaring you from making that choice yourself.”   Cait nodded. “I told my Grandma and Daddy are weird and that I love them. They said me, it’s my choice to pee my pants after I feel better and I can control it. They said they won’t even punish or yell at me if I go in my pants after I can choose not to.”   “And that’s as it should be,” Daddy said. “I trust when you are healthy, you will make the healthiest and best choice for yourself, so I figure the pants wetting will resolve itself once you feel safe enough and you don’t have any problems making it to the toilet. Until then, you get the treatment you are not potty trained, meaning no one shames you for going potty in your pants. You get time to feel comfortable and not scared, then when you are ready, you will toilet train yourself. You know what the toilet is and how to use it. The problem is after you do it a while in your pants, it will take practice, and I don’t want you practicing while you are prone to suicide or self harming names if you don’t make it. So… you are not potty trained, until you feel safe. Understand, Pet?”   “Yeah, It’s scary though.”   “Of course it is. Not one has given you the room to grow before. And you were nine when it started. You can’t spank a nine year old into not being scared. You just make a sixteen year old scared.”   “Yeah?”   “Let me tell you how they teach elephants not to kick spikes in the ground that chain elephants down. You know a full sized elephant, most of the time, those spikes would do nothing if an elephant chose just to pull on it, don’t you?”   “Yeah?”   “So why don’t they?”   “I… I never thought about why.”   “Many people don’t, Grace. But the ones who use them know why and it’s cruel. They chain them when they are babies like that, and every time they try to pull on it, they are punished, physically until they are scared to touch the spike or make it move in the slightest. They grow up like that, and that spike keeps them in place because they’ve learned to fear it. This is you and your nine year old problems. You never got comforted when your dad left, and your mom, whatever her reasons were, sought out your aunt, and now you are scared to demand your babysitting money you were supposed to get, just because you failed to not wet your pants again. That is the fear spike. If you need to wet your pants on your own terms after you are able to choose, then that’s health, and once you learn you can choose, then you can choose not to pee your pants because it’s not fun to be wet. But until you can be free enough to choose without consequences, you will never really be free of the spike.”   “Really?”   The doctor nodded. “Makes sense to me.”   “So, if I were eighteen years old, and fully able to control everything, and squatted and pooped my panties in front of you, my foster parents…,” Grace wanted something to expect.   “I would go over and find out why you pooped your pants,” Cait told her. “And I wouldn’t be like you did bad, but what mean thing made you do that again because I cared it your choice and you didn’t get upset it.”   “Then,” Daddy frowned. “I’d pick you up if you are still light enough and get you out of the public eye. Not that it’s shameful, but anything that puts pressure on a young adult like that will cause problems for the young lady, and I want to protect you from judgment at least until you are ready.”   “Then,” Grandma smiled. “You’d be taken upstairs while I make sure you have a change of clothes, and then over tea, we’d figure out if you did it for relief of stress, if something caused it, or if you don’t know what’s going on and we need to take you to see a doctor. As long as you are considered our child, we can keep you on insurance until you are twenty-four or you quit going to school. That’s the law.”   “You wouldn’t even yell at me to grow up?”   “Sweetheart? Did you forget what we talked about on the way to the library? If you have to grow up, then think about it. I still pee my pants sometimes because of trauma. It’s not something you fully grow out of, and if you still have that spike even a ghost of it, we will respect it’s there. And if you choose to do it to prove to your spike that you can pull it out of the ground, then I’d hold you, or if you are too heavy for me, Sean will hold you while you pee your pants.”   “You would?”   “You are having trouble understanding that right now,” Daddy said. “And that’s okay. This is not a promise to believe on through words alone. Just try to trust us because we are here now, making sure your choices are not being affected by physical problems, okay?”   “Okay.”   When Cait, and Grace, Grandma and Daddy drove the car back to the mailbox, and Grandpa opened the box, Cait was surprised to see she had a letter that had Grainne’s writing on the enbelope.   “Here you are, Cait,” Grandma was surprised sounded as she handed the back the enbelope to Cait.   “Daddy did something,” Ghost whispered.   “Ghost…,” Kooks whispered at it. “Don’t. Let Cait read.”   “She can’t read, though, can she?” Ghost started to pee its dress.   “Grace? Can you read for me?”   “Oh, okay.”   Grace opened the long square sleeve that held the paper inside. It was a longer letter this time, and it was apparent that Grainne had written two pages, Clo wrote one page, and the sisters drew one page each for a five paper letter.   Dear Cait; (Grainne’s writing looked a little shaky as she started the letter).   “Actually,” Grace frowned. “Cait? I think Grandma better look at this first letter first. It’s got stuff in it that… I think Grandma best read to you. She can explain it better than I can.”   “I can understand my sister.”   “Cait. I’m sorry. I can’t do this.”   She passed Grainne’s letter up to the front and then looked at Clo’s letter. “I can read this one to you if you want.”   “Okay.”                       Dear Cait   You should call Daddy and make sure he will let you visit before you come all the way up here in July. Daddy said that Grainne and me have to work enough, and if we don’t do enough, then he won’t let Grainne see you. I am trying to do what I can to make Daddy happy. So is Grainne.   Daddy says that you shouldn’t trust that they will keep their word, though. He says that mom doesn’t get to see Eiboline that often because Sean promises to take her to see her and then often says the dairy farm gets in the way of letting her get out enough, and he says he needs the car or truck or whatever because he has to make trips into town for the business. So don’t think they will take you, either.   I can’t help it. Daddy says I lost my privilege to pee my pants in the field because I disobeyed him and tried to lie to him about Grainne and Roisin doing it in their pants, so now I’m not supposed to pee my pants at all. But it keeps happening when I’m at work. Grainne keeps putting her clothes on me so Daddy blames her, but that means it looks like she pees a lot more than she does-in her pants. Plus, she can’t hold it as long as she used to. She wets her pants like three times a day at work plus at home sometimes. Some days she doesn’t go to the toilet at all, so… yeah, she poops her pants more than she used to, too.   I’m worried. She wets the bed in her sleep sometimes more than once in the night now. And Roisin wakes up wet from wetting the bed, but then Grainne has to tell her to pee in the bed so she doesn’t get caught going to the toilet outside of the time she is allowed. And… I don’t know why, but I started to pee the bed, too.   Grace looked over to me. “All of your sisters pee the bed now?”   “I don’t think Aoibhe was said to be wetting?”   Grace went back to the letter.   I hope we can see each other soon. We all love you. Grainne says for you to keep peeing your pants on purpose. If the Kinsellas don’t mind if you pee, then Daddy won’t want you back if you keep doing it, and you be safe there. So keep doing poops in your pants on purpose. Please. It keeps you safe and Grainne won’t have to poop for you. She has to do it for me, sometimes, and I’m worried about her.   We all love you.   Clodagh. Your loving sister.   “Daddy,” Cait whispered. “Clodagh says for me to pee and poop my pants on purpose at your house so Daddy won’t want me back too soon, and Grainne poops her pants more and now Clodagh wets the bed and Roisin wets in her sleep and when she first wakes up.”   Cait was crying when she was saying this. “I don’t know what to do, Daddy.”   “Now,” Sean frowned. “We’ll figure something out.”   Grace looked over to Grandma. “I bet he doesn’t even pay Grainne for watching her sisters while she’s trying to keep them safe by purposely peeing and pooping her pants. At least for me… it kept being an accident because Aunt wanted me to hold it.”   “It’s an accident for Grainne, too,” I told Grace. “Grainne wets the bed on accident, and in her pants sometimes on accident. At least she used to.”   “Oh. But it’s an accident because her body got weaker?”   “Yeah.”   “Mines not because my body is weaker. I go on accident just because I have to watch my cousins. I don’t usually try to pee my pants other times.”   Cait started “But you…,” and then she remembered. Grandma said it’s kind not to say everything you know. “Yeah. It not your fault if you can’t go bathroom all the time.”   Grandma looked over at Sean. “Sean, you need to do what the doctor said. You need to talk to Dan like we can do more than we can. We need to make sure Cait gets to see her sisters, and we need to try to set some boundaries. Almost all his kids pee the bed now, and the two older kids are constantly wetting their pants. In the field…. I guess that’s best for them at the moment, but at home in their own house… that’s just plain unacceptable, Sean.”   “Now,” But Daddy’s now wasn’t comforting or like things were okay. It was different. It was softer but it was heavier at the same time. It was like the whole car had something inside with us pushing on our laps making me pee my pants. I felt it coming out in squirts. Even Grace was starting to get her lap darkened in pee again.   We sat in the car for minutes in front of the house before anyone opened any car doors.   “I’m going to call Cheryl,” Daddy said. “Maybe she can and maybe she can’t do anything, but I feel like she can at least point me to some advice or something. We can’t let those kids suffer like that if we can help it.”   Grandma looked back at me. “Don’t you dare pee your pants just to stay out your father and mother’s hands, baby. You don’t need to do that. You wet em only if you want or need to, not for them. We have you now, and we will file for permanent custody because you were physically put in our laps.”   “No. You can’t get my sisters out of that house! How can I see them again?”   Grandma and Daddy looked at each other and sighed.   I was shaking and my jaw wouldn’t stop shaking. I peed some more. It was squirting still in my panties. Grace was squirting, too.   “Well, let Daddy just get some advice, Cait. We will do everything we can to help and make sure you get to see your sisters all the time. This is a very hard situation, but you don’t want your sisters to get watery poops.”   “No?”   “Grainne is definitely going to start doing that if she hasn’t already. She’s not being allowed to poop even in her pants without punishment. That’s how it happened to you, hon.”   “I… I know.”   Grace pulled me close and put me into her lap and hugged me.   “I’ll talk to Shane,” Grace told me. “I’ll make sure he knows how important it is that Grainne knows his family supports him, but he still pees his pants and feels a little afraid sometimes. And we can talk to Billy to make sure he knows that Grainne needs to understand that she’s not the only one that will pee her pants to protect her sister. They both need to talk to her, hon. And maybe Mia can talk to Clo.”   Sean frowned. “Are we taking another kid with us?”   “I don’t know,” Grace frowned. But Grainne needs at least three people to let her know that it’s okay socially to wet her pants, and that two of us do it all the time and one does it just to protect his sister. And Clo just started to wet her pants… Mia is strong like her, not wanting to be held, not wanting to be weak and show she cares if she’s wet. Clo seems like the same kind of person as Mia.”   “And you know this Mia is like this because…,” Daddy looked back at Grace.   “I was supposed to be her big sister, but we don’t really help each other. She won’t let me really do anything to help her, and she… I feel judged when I poop my pants in front of her, so I avoid her when I poop my pants.”   Daddy frowned. “That’s not how your playgroup was explained to us.”   Grace looked down. “It’s not his fault. Mia… She just has other things going on that I don’t fully know and I don’t want to say what I know. A good big sister keeps her sister’s secrets unless they hurt her.”   Daddy nodded. “Okay.”   Chapter 115 The Truth Can Only Be   Grace walked me into the house while I was looking at Aoibhe’s picture. It showed all of us sisters, mom and dad, but it had me to the side with cousins with question marks on their faces and me circled in both like overlapping circles for both families.   On the back, she wrote:   Katt win U kom bak? Tl me a (scratch lines) R Cus ins. Do U pla or werk? I (heart drawn) you. Aoibhe.   I took out Roisin’s picture as I sat at the table, and Grandma was still reading Grainne’s letter. Her letter was really long, now.   Roisin drew Grainne bigger than the rest of us. She drew see through pants, a black and white line skirt with no color so she put inside Grainne’s skirt, these ovals. Roisin’s poop labeled. Clo’s poop labeled. Cait’s poop labeled. And the poop that fell on the floor, was Grainne’s labeled and a lot more of it.   On the back she wrote: We miss you. Grainne too strong say but she miss you most. Her poop on the floor is more bigger and more times now. Her peed pants at in the house is more. I only peed my pants once today, but Grainne peed her pants three times. Clo helped me write. Love you. Roisin. The letter had been written in pencil. The start of the letter had nice neat thin cursive writing like Grainne does at school. Even if Cait wanted to, it would have been impossible to decipher the letter as it started off.   Dearest Bravest Little Sister;   Scary, huh? The Cows’ horns, the snakes, and a cousin that gets you out of bed when you are wet and a cousin that makes you cook, and clean and do stuff. At least I guess you don’t do the cow chores. Daddy says mommy’s letters said you too stupid to do the cows, so our cousins know that. But it’s weird, huh? Big bad cousin threatens Daddy about what he can do to us, but then Mama gets letters that the man is scaring you worse.   There were two lines scratched out that Grandma tried to read:   How is your pants? Clo thinks you are smart, but she can’t do it. Daddy. I peed. Roisin wets. I pooped my. This part is… Stupid eraser!   Cait bit her lip in anger. Daddy was lying again, and Grainne just believes him… probably because she’s wearing poopy panties again. She gets less feisty to Daddy when she wearing messy panties. The mess proves she not strong enough and smart enough like a Cait to keep her panties dry, so she not smart enough to tell Daddy he wrong.   The letter continued.   I don’t think you should stop poop your panties no more. It might can save you.   Grainne’s writing looked a little shaky and it started to get harder for Grandma to read, like maybe she left words off or maybe misspelled some. I don’t know because I can’t spell or write cursive, but Grandma had a really hard time it, and she read mine that other day, so it not because kid writing. Grainne always was good speller, so something else happened.   I wuz just talking at Dad now. He sid me to harry up the litter, so I sid sind it nest time. That becuz I donut want him to rid this won. I jist peed. Daddy told me to rite it, so I rite. I wuz bad and peed my pants in the bedrum. It becuz I don’t want to stop to rite the litter.   Cait looked up at Grandma. “Is it Grainne’s handwrite?”   “Yes, hon, it is. But it’s very nervous. I know Dan doesn’t write this neat, and Maire’s… I grew up with her, and in your house… yes, I don’t think Clo can write this clearly yet.”   I looked down. “Okay.”   “Do you want me to go on?”   “Yeah. Slow.”   “Well, the spelling is better, so I think your dad must have left the room in the next part.”   Sorry, Cait. I can’t let Dad know I can spell good. The more I get better the more he wants, and it’s getting so hard to always be the one that carries everyone. I love my sisters, so I do it, gladly, but it is making me tired. I think I saw one of the little sisters drawing me with loaded panties under my skirt. She knows.   Grainne’s writing got shaky again.   Cait? Please write me and tell me Daddy is wrong. Here is what he showed us from mom’s cousin and explained that you are really working hard there. So you’ll find the torn pieces in the envelope. But.   Cait has to carry heavy water buckets, she cleans up the floor until her knees are red and she sits there in it until she learns not to pee her pants. She has to feed all the animals on the farm, and she has to learn to cook. She uses knives. And that means Mrs. Kinsella makes you do all the dinner cooking and doesn’t care if you cut your fingers.   Do you read? Mom got a letter that you go to the library, and Sean makes you read books even too hard for me, like a story called A Spell For Chameleon that is supposed to be an adult book. Do they spank you when you mess up on so many words? Do they make you sit there and keep trying until poop goes in your pants. Daddy says Clo and me lucky. We have one not dangerous field to work on, and we don’t have to read and get spanked for not reading good. And I don’t want to believe you doing that. The cousins were really nice. Can you secret write me so you can tell me the truth and they don’t tell you what to write?   There were more crossed out words.   I just. No. Clo. No. Aoibhe makes Dad happy. She doesn’t wet her pants at the table or make messy sheets like.   Dad said you can come in July. He said he can’t control mom’s cousins, but if Clo doesn’t start working without pissing herself, she won’t get to see you. I told Clo to wear my stuff but don’t tell Daddy. I poop my pants more now. Dad finds out I poop my pants three times a day, sometimes, but Clo and Roisin don’t do it. (smiley face was written by the line.)   If I don’t control my in the house peeing more, I might not get to see you. You are like a reward to see for good behavior. So I don’t know what to do. If I don’t pee my pants Clo gets caught doing it and Roisin gets caught. If I do, I don’t get to see you. I want to see you. I don’t want my sisters to get in trouble. I can’t ask you. You are the little sister. I don’t have a big sister to ask for advice. Mom is no use. She just says to do what Dad says.   I better end the letter. Dad just left and I don’t want to miss the mail guy. I have to take Clo back to the field anyway. I’m going to let Clo pee her pants today. It’s because I don’t know yet, and I don’t want to punish her if I don’t know what I should do.   Love you,   Grainne.   Oh, and stay strong.   Cait sighed. “They still think you guys beat me?”   Grandma, very keen to see what Daddy meant by proof, emptied the pieces of paper on the table.   In Eiboline’s hand writing were the words that Dan used, but the letter was ripped up. The words stood alone as if they were ripped right out of the Bible for someone arguing against it could use it as proof against itself.   ::Cait woke up so eager to feed the animals, including Summerstone, the baby horse Sean gave her, that she wanted to do it in wet panties. That was so precious!::   ::Cait learned to can pickles, and helped me cut them up. She loved playing with me too much, so I told her that she didn’t have to do that, that she could be a little girl.::   ::Cait helped us make eggs with a surprise with sugar in it and she helped me with blue berry muffins.::   “This is his proof?” Grandma shook her head.   “That stuff was fun! No one told me I had to. I wanted to!” Cait yelled.   “Your sister says she doesn’t have a sister who she can get advice from. I… I’m a little older than her. But I pee my pants. Do you think…,” Grace tailed off.   “Are you saying you want to write my sister and help?”   “Well, I am not sure I qual….”   “You do more than anyone else ever! You peed your pants because your aunt and Grainne does it because of Daddy. You know what you want to tell yourself if you in the same place. You just tell Grainne.”   Grace looked at the Kinsellas. “If we go up there and this Dan says she can’t see her sister, are you going to make him let them meet?”   Sean smiled. “I have a plan that will make his threat lose weight. He will let Grainne see Cait, or he will be looking over his shoulder every five minutes for the police and DHS.   “Good. Because I’m going to tell Grainne to do what she always does and just wet her pants. I know it’s not the best thing, but no one else is around, and the one thing she is confident about, is she can protect her sisters by pooping her panties.”   Cait frowned. “So you will tell her to poop her panties?”   “Yes. You said they work all day in the field and don’t have toilet breaks, right?”   “Yeah.”   “I know from watching my cousins, they will fail at one of those things. Better their pants than the thing that they are supposed to do. I’ll just promise that Uncle Sean and Grandma will make sure she gets to see Cait, and I’ll tell her what they’ve done for me. If they can see that your cousins are helping someone who isn’t even their blood, then how can they treat Cait the way your Dad said, and I’ll get the full words of what your Dad said, and then… I’m going to make it a code. Adults hate kid codes. You’ll write how to read the code in your letter so this Dan doesn’t know my code because it’s not in my letter. It’s in your letter. Tell your sister something that tells her to use your code for my letter. That’s how we beat your Daddy. Your sister asked you to write in a way that proves you can write free, right?”   “Yeah. You are so smart!”   “You girls are going to take a bath,” Grandma told them. “And then you are going to have a whole ream of paper and pencils at the table, and you can take as long as you need. Like Front Room City sits in our living room as long as Cait needs it to.”   “I made that city the first night I felt safe here, and that was almost a month ago, and the only time I cleaned it up was when the lady that let you stay with us came so she didn’t think they let me keep the room messy. But it stays for friends’ visits. It stays all the time. They never touch it. Only a missed falled down block maybe they put up for me to fix it later… and always in reach near the city like on the TV table. That like my place in the living room, and they never inter-break it on me.”   Grace smiled. “That’s really nice.”   Later at the table in clean pajamas, the girls were talking about the code.   “First, on page one, we need to put little tiny letters next to the big ones. Ones that your Dad won’t see at first and might miss completely because of Grainne just turning the paper over and over. But your important letter tells her to do it anyway, that you promise, she will see it if she does it enough. Look carefully.”   “Okay, yeah? And then…?”   “Well, you know maybe you might already know the trick of ABC on top and ZYX on the bottom or something like that, that one letters means another?”   “Yeah?”   “That kind of code is too easy and this Dan will figure that out. So we Start with giving each letter in the words Do You Know How to Keep an Idiot busy? And we make D is one letter, o is a letter, y is one….”   “Okay! Yeah! I get it. But that’s not the whole alphabet!”   “That’s the beauty. As I write the letter, I make it so the other letters are easy to guess after you fill in enough of the known letters. And the more letters that are filled in from what you know, the more the letter is known!”   “Wow! You really are smart.”   After nearly two hours of Grace constructing a letter after Cait assigning each letter on her joke paper a letter, Grace had written a paper, and she then asked Cait. You read this, and try to copy the paper to another with the code. I’ll help you with the spelling, but with you putting the letters in, we double check if I messed up.   That was the what they worked on for another hour, and the letter was done.   ::Hi Grainne. I’m your new foster sister, well, at least through your sister calling your cousins Daddy and Grandma. My name is Grace. Now, that you can read this, I helped your sister read your sister’s last letter and I heard your letter read to Cait by your cousin-Grandmother. I am sixteen. You can read your mom’s letters later when Grandma will tell her, I’m sure. You said no one can give you advice. I know I’m just a pants pooping girl and I pee my pants without even the reasons you do, but if you look past it, I know a few things that will get you hit less and get you robbed less. But you don’t know me and I do poop my pants, so you decide.::   ::To help you understand why I think my advice will work for you. I have three cousins that I had to watch even into the summer. Sometimes, I watch them all day for four, five or six hours. If I mess up, I don’t get paid. One way I mess up, is I poop my pants. I have two boy cousins and a girl cousin. One boy cousin is eight. He won’t go in the girl’s bathroom, and I really don’t want him to watch me pee anyway. But if I leave him alone at home for even a minute he gets into stuff with his younger sister and baby brother, and then I get in trouble and what they mess up comes out of my pay. Usually they take my whole pay. If I take them to the park, they are too little, and so I have to take them to the toilet or take them home. They can wet their pants. They are too little, but I get all my pay taken from me if I poop my pants at the park, and if I pee them, then it depends on how much Aunt says it embarrassed her.::   ::Now, I know the cost of going potty in your pants and of not doing your chore you agreed to only too well. I lost money over my chores when I pottied my pants, but failing at the chore at all means you get the full chore taken from you and you never gain any trust, and you are too big to have that on you. Your trust, that you need, is being your sister’s safeguard. You don’t do it for money. You do it to keep your sisters safe, so you have no choice. You have to potty your pants so Clo and Roisin don’t do it as much.::   ::Now, here is the thing. The Kinsellas let your sister and me, their foster kid, a kid they barely knew because of going to the same counseling little kid play group even that Cait goes to. So, yeah, I am treated like a little kid especially because I go potty in my pants. But I learned how to read what the adults want more. I also know that the Kinsellas have a plan so you will see your sister even if you don’t earn it. So you can poop and pee your pants as much as you need to keep your sisters safe because you will not lose Cait time. Cait has a whole front room city I saw myself, and your sister says it was made in the first few days of staying with your mom’s cousins. She has one in her bedroom, too. Other houses, you don’t see a town made of blocks all over the living room that lasts one night… let alone starting it’s second month and Grandma Eiboline saying that it stays as it is as long as Cait needs it, and by the way, your cousin… Daddy Sean for her, Uncle Sean for me, holds you… even if you are sixteen years old… in his lap and you in pee pee pants. You just have to let him do it. I promise. That is a man that if he says he will do something. He will. He made the DHS people use HIS own money and insurance to get me checked by a doctor instead of some government thing that always fails. And you know what he says? The health so Cait and I don’t potty our pants no more… it’s not about stopping us going potty our pants. It’s about giving us the choice to not do it if we don’t want to. That…. That’s not people who expect you to stop peeing your pants. It’s people trying to help you so you have the confidence to stop because you don’t want to do it.::   Grace looked at Cait.   “Is it missing anything?”   “How about how… well… it’s hard, but Grainne will take it more meaning if you said Daddy and Grandma decided you get fostered them because they saw you first time cry and run away, and what it meaned your mom didn’t change and you almost knifed your parts that make you potty your pants.”   “Do I have to?”   “No. That the hardest thing to say. But if you did put it, Grainne doesn’t can ignore you know what it means to potty your pants and that feels.”   “I’ll put it, but your letter has to tell her I pee my pants first, then and you send yours a day before me, so I don’t have to…. Have her read I go potty my pants the same time I give advice, and that I almost suicided because I am not allowed to potty my pants at home. It sounds weird and stupid.”   “That’s because no one can get it, assept if you do it, but no one brave enough to tell it for real. I can’t tell Grainne I want to pee my pants, even if I wanted. I know how much it hurt. But you don’t have to write it.”   “I will.”   ::Cait says to say I met your people because they found me scared and I ran away. And then I almost committed suicide because my mom doesn’t get it, and I figured a wet bed was a lot more shameful than her not having a daughter shaming her anymore, so I was going to end it…. Suddenly a bunch of people came. Everyone except my mom at first. My mom did come in the end, but my aunt never did. I’m never watching my cousins again for her. It’s not just my rule though. Your people, Grandma Eiboline and Uncle Sean, it’s their rule that I don’t babysit for people that hurts me no more.::   ::Your new foster sister, Grace. Hang in there. We are coming next week even if your Daddy says no.::   Chapter 116 Does a Chapter Need A Name?   The strange unfamiliar long halls seemed dim and dangerous. There seemed to be tricky floor parts here, opening lockers that hid something scary inside there, and there seemed to be a rush to get through them, as if the things they could do to you, that were still unknown, was not as bad as whatever would happen if she didn’t get where she was going fast enough.   From behind her, her hair in curls at the back of her head, sides of her hair fell off her face in elegant soft locks of rust-brown hair. Her pink sweater was wet on the mid back and there were wet spots under its arms. The girl’s head tossed in her careful trot through the dangerous floor spots and the snapping lockers that opened and closed like alligator mouths that couldn’t move out at her if she stayed in the middle. Along the floor behind her, was a brown stream of puddle that went up to her running form.   The timing was urgent. The girl was panting. The panties she wore was getting heavier and wet.   Realization hit! It was September second! The girl was trying not to be late. Her panties felt even heavier and wetter. Her legs were wet. She was breathless. She didn’t know the teacher, but she knew it would be the worst one in school.   Suddenly. Without warning….   Something real happened! A wetting that hit skin and woke Cait as she laid next to Grace, and she realized Grace was peeing the bed again. She sighed. She was Grace, not Grainne. Grainne wasn’t pooping her pants in high school and about to be somehow hurt worse for being late on top of it.   Cait felt the back of her butt. She’s pooped her pants. She was Grainne, it seemed in the dream. Her panties had poop in them, her back was wet from sweat and her arms, too. She must have been dreaming hard and that’s why the image was out of breath. She cuddled closer to Grace and fell asleep in a closer, safer, big sister hold of her big sister here.   Cait thought she had just closed her eyes, but there was a soft whisper into the room. “Do you want to get up, hon?” Grandma stood there looking over at her and she saw Grace sitting up.   “I peed the bed.”   “That’s okay, honey. We’ve talk about that. I know it will take time for you to understand, but it’s okay that you peed the bed, sweetheart.”   “Um… Cait had an accident, too.”   “Cait always has accidents these days, particularly because her bladder is emptying like it is supposed to. Her body is just now able to empty the way it is meant to. More scary for us, is if she’s not wetting the bed right now.”   “Okay.”   Cait sat up.   “I didn’t mean to wake you, Cait,” Grandma whispered.   “You didn’t. But Grandma? Is my handiya finished?”   “It’s supposed to be back in place, hon. Why?”   “I pooped my pants earlier in my sleep, I woked up one time, and it had poop in my panties before you come now.”   “Well, the doctor said you wouldn’t magically stop pooping your pants just because the hernia isn’t there. But does it feel like watery-poops?”   “No. Just yucky regular stuff.”   “That means your body is doing what it’s supposed to be doing for now. I will need to check for blood specs in a minute, but your pooping is just fine, sweetheart. That’s what we want it to do for now.”   “Okay.”   The girls were downstairs in clean clothes for the day in about forty minutes, and Grace was allowed to help grandma cook, though Cait got to show off her own invention, the sweet eggs.   Daddy came in all dirty and he smiled at Cait.   “I haven’t fed the horses yet, hon. I knew you wanted to do that the chickens and the pigs, so we can do that after breakfast if you like.”   “We didn’t get the water with Grandma yet.”   “Well, the animals have to be fed.”   “We have water for now, Cait. We can fetch it after you feed the animals if you promise to do it before you brush Summerstone.”   “Okay.”   Grandma was teaching Grace to make cinnamon rolls after breakfast and Cait went with Daddy to get the animals fed.   “Daddy?”   “Yes, sweetheart?”   “I asked Daddy lots of times if I could help at the farm, and I asked mom in the kitchen, and I asked Grainne cleaning the house. Grainne, well, she’d get hit if I helped, so I know why she said no. But Daddy gets to make it look like you and Grandma are making me work, but why come Grainne doesn’t be member I wanted to help sometimes at home?”   “It’s all framing, hon. You dad isn’t the only one that knows that trick. You’ll find a lot of people do things like that to tell the story they want.”   “Grainne knows you were fixing my Handiya, right?”   “I’m not even sure she knows what that is, Cait. Your dad probably told her something about it being made up if he made it sound like I was putting you to work after chastising him for not allowing two young teenagers to use the bathroom when they were doing grown men’s work.”   Cait was feeding the chickens. She loved how the chickens bobbed and scratched at the ground, and how the little yellow chicks tried to do what the big ones did.   “Animals have it easy,” Cait told Daddy. “They don’t have any clothes to get yelled at for messing up. They just drop a poop on the ground and the other animals don’t mind it.”   “Well, animals do have their own rules. But it is true, if they don’t drop it in the wrong place the other animals don’t care.”   “If they don’t wear pants, where is the wrong place?”   “Well, most animals don’t want to mix where they eat with where they let it drop.”   “Oh, yeah, I can see that makes sense. But if they are just walking from one place to another, it doesn’t matter, even if they are on the way to the eating?”   “You’re not wrong, with most animals, for sure.”   “Don’t we force animals to sleep, poop, and eat in the same place, though?”   “Well, when we have to protect them from the weather and predators, we sort of do I suppose.”   “That’s not right. People have three rooms. One to sleep, one to poop in, and one to eat in. How come stables don’t?”   “Well,” Daddy sighed. “The norm doesn’t always take all that into consideration. Of course, we usually let them out most of the day, so they can do their thing outside. But a lot of it has to do with money. If each cow had it’s own house scaled to its size, we would barely survive as dairy farmers.”   “We could be wheat farmers.” Cait looked up at Daddy as they walked on to feed the pigs.   “We could, but the cows would lose space outside and be kept in tighter places.”   “Why come?”   “Well, we’d be selling the wheat, so we wouldn’t want them rampaging in it. So we’d have less space for cows to make space to grow wheat, and because wheat wouldn’t be enough to make a living from, we’d need to grow other things, and in the end, cows would be stuck in tight yards or barns all the time.”   “We could free them.”   “Freeing cows would have many of them fall to being food for large meat eaters, they would die out in the winter without warm places to sleep, and they would have less food than they get from farmers.”   “So Dairy farming takes care of the cows that give people milk?”   “Yes, Cait. It’s like the Bible says, God put the animals for us, but if we don’t take care of them then we lose them. People learned that when they came from other lands and over hunted some animals. Today, we don’t see many buffalo, and some animals are forever gone.”   “That’s what means God said… what’s that word. Stew Wart Ship. It means take care to the animals?”   “That’s right.”   “Then the animals take cared us, so God made something their heart that they learn to help who help them?”   “That seems to be what happened, yes.”   Cait took a buck of stuff from Daddy and started to pour it into the bin like giant bowls that Daddy called troughs for the pigs.   “So did you kids get the letters written?”   “Yeah, but we want to mail one today and one tomorrow.”   “You know, we are going next Tuesday.”   “Yeah?”   “Your second letter might not make it before we get there if you mail it tomorrow.”   “So we have to mail both today?”   “If you want them to have had a chance to read it before we get there.”   “I have to ask Grace, then. This is her good plan.”   “I’ll make sure you get your letter mailed so it goes out today, but yeah, I don’t know that one going to tomorrow… Gives it Friday, Saturday, Monday, and Tuesday is when we leave for Missouri.”   “Oh.”   When Cait and Grace and Grandma were walking towards the well…, Cait was thinking quietly about if there was a way to speed the mail up. She didn’t know if you could, but she had heard of them saying they can speed it up, sometimes. Can they do letters written by little kids though?   As they reached the peak of the hill that had the sign for the different places for the farm, Cait pulled at Grace’s free arm.   “Cait?”   “Grace, Daddy says we can’t mail it one letter today and one tomorrow because the one tomorrow won’t get there before we leave.”   “That’s going to be a blunder…,” Grace frowned. “But I have another idea. You send my letter. It looks like a girl that can’t write, so your dad doesn’t know what is going on, right? Anyway, you are also the one that coded it, so it’s your handwriting, right? Your dad will never know what happened. I will mail your decipher code and your letter in an envelope with my home address. And I’ll write her name, like it’s an official thing with in care of to your mom’s name. Your Uncle said something about a lawyer. I will ask your Uncle to say he expects a letter from a lawyer to Grainne. If he messes with the envelope in anyway, it will be against the law. And if we mail it tomorrow, then he can’t stop it. Then we can explain to Grainne about the key when we are in private. The ‘lawyer’ letter will scare your dad when Uncle Sean-Daddy tells your dad that Grainne should get a letter and is expecting her reply back, and if it looks like he watched her with any strange telling… that the DHS in Wisconsin could use that urge the DHS in Missouri to investigate why a child is being coerced to lie to a lawyer.”   “So we still send them a day apart?” Cait had a hard time getting all that mixed up plan.   “Yes. Then there is no chance he can get the code breaker because we intercept Grainne to read the letter with us, so we can teach her how to work it.”   “You are so smart!”   By nine, they were outside the post office waiting to for it to open to sent letter number one. Then Grace was driven to talk to Harmony while Cait and Grandma went to visit Ruth and Billy to make sure they were allowed to come.   Cait was at the door waiting for the Hendersons to open the door and Grandma had her hand.   “Mrs. Kinsella!” Mrs. Henderson bowed her in. Cait walked with Grandma.   “How are things?” Mrs. Henderson asked.   “As well as can be expected with a foster kid that’s had it almost as rough and even worse in some ways than my little cousin.”   “You are taking Billy with you?”   “Well, we decided that if the parents allowed it, and so that means you and Mr. Henderson, that we’d take a few kids to help. This is something that is going to take some serious help that is seen from the outside, so Cait is going to be really scared, and her real purpose for Billy is to help her older sisters. He’s just such a nice person, that she thinks he will show them that they are not judged from the outside as harshly as they think they are, at least not by everyone, and Cait is going to need a friend to hold her together, so if both kids could come….”   “I’d have to talk my husband about that. What we are really worried about, is how are you going to protect our kids from that crazy man?”   “Well, he has no say over kids under us. He has even acknowledged that with Cait the last time we visited and I reminded him that Cait does what I say, not him.”   “Okay…. But I still don’t want them sleeping there.”   “We’ll be getting three motel rooms. Sean will stay with the boys, I will stay with half of the girls, and Grace is almost sixteen and she’ll stay with the other girls.”   “How many kids are you taking with you?”   “Well, Grace, Shane, Billy, Ruth, Cait, and this girl named Mia but we also plan on having the birthday girl Grainne and the other older sister Clo share the room with Grace and Cait. So I will be with Ruth and Mia.”   “Well, if you are with Ruth and Sean is with Billy, then that does make me feel better.”   “Can I play with Ruth?” Cait asked when it looked like they stopped talking for a moment.   “Sure hon. Remember to come and get your Grandma’s help if you pee, okay?”   “I will.”       Chapter 117 Billy’s “Roll”   As I walked back towards Ruth’s room, I noticed that there was laughing in Billy’s one, so I stopped by his door and knocked.   “Yeah mom?”   “No?” I giggled.   “Cait! Come on in!”   Ruth ran over and hugged me immediately.   “Where’s your big friend?” Billy asked.   “Which one?”   “The girl that’s staying with you now.”   “She’s talking to our emotions doctor. Daddy has her.”   “Come on over. Ruth, you build a team, and I’ll teach Cait to build a team.”   “Okay, but she’s not playing for you.”   “No. I’m just teaching her how to make a team. You can teach her to play by letting her be an advisor assistant coach on your team.”   “Fair.”   “What you two talking about?” Cait looked at the floor where there were nine cards on the floor and two places had an extra card in front of them.   “It’s call Heavy Batters,” Billy said. “I am using my baseball collection as something more than just something to put in a binder so uselessly. This way, they actually get use from the stats on them.”   “But I made up the special rules after Billy told me someone can do something more better than someone else,” Ruth took credit of her work. “Like how I put Baby Ruth only hits or misses, and his misses are really high, but if he hits, everyone on base gets a run automatically.”   “So, you have to build the teams?”   “Yeah. I never choose Babe Ruth. In real life, he is the bomb, but in this game, he is more likely to cost you a run than to send enough people home to make up for his low batting ability.”   “Oh. I don’t know that much how baseball works.”   “Ruth doesn’t either. The point of the game is to have fun, not to know baseball. Everything you need to know is on the card, and if you can’t read, it’s okay. One of the rules of the game, is if you play a card, you have to read it or get someone to read it for you so everyone knows you’re not cheating, so…. We can shared the reading.”   “Oh, I like that rule.”   Billy showed Cait one of his favorite cards. “It has a batting of .015, but look at the special ability Ruth gave it. Gost- ::It can still a base every time a batter is at bat, and always gets one base even if they get an out.:: So that means it’s hard to get it on base, but once it’s on base, it will likely score.”   “That’s cool!”   “You can also get these special play cards that let you do things if you draw it instead of using a dice, and some of them can make even a low person get on base automatically. So when he is at bat, I almost always draw a card because even if he doesn’t get on base, a special card can do things, and if they are bad, well, he was probably going to strike out anyway.”   “So, it is a kind of strat a jie to play the game.”   “Yeah.”   “Talk of strat a jie, I have made new deal with mom. You and Shane need to help Grainne by two of you help. Shane is like her. So she can have her like friend, and you are like normal, so you can show how normal can assept her has go bathroom pants is not bad. She does it so Daddy doesn’t hit Clo and the others. Maybe she did it for me so much, she got hurted her body.”   “Oh, that sounds really hard.”   “Yeah.”   “I’ll take care of your sister, Cait. I promise. Maybe we can play Heavy Batters together.”   “That good. I think it good if you show Clo and Mia Heavy Batters, too. They might can help to each another.”   “Oh. So does every sister have one person to help?”   “No. Grace will teach the two little ones that Grainne no weird by she poops her pants, but she knows stuff and she is big girl. But they happier, so I hope they don’t need so much help as Clo and Grainne, and your sister, Ruth, is so I don’t lone when my sisters getting helps. And I talking Grainne about I afraid I caused her hurted.”   “You mean when you said that you were scared she stopped you getting hit by getting your dad to hit her?”   “Not Daddy hitting, but that not good, too, but more… she might have waterpoops already, and I didn’t know, and she might pooped her panties and wear them to not me in trouble.”   “And my reasoning doesn’t stop you thinking it was just you?”   “No. I got a reason to think she put my poop in her underwear.”   “I… I don’t think anyone would do that.”   “Well, I have to ask her.”   “Okay….”   Billy and Ruth had the teams they wanted set up, with Cait’s help.   “We are at bat first,” Ruth told Cait. “So his batting is 2. So I am going to draw and not roll the dice because a draw is really good if we get lucky and dice might not get a base until strike 2 or we might get three strikes.”   “Okay.”   “So you decided if they are bad at hitting, that they get a special ability for getting bases, if they have a hard time catching, they have something good about throwing, and if they are bad at something else, then they are good at something different?” Cait asked.   “Yeah. That maked the game more interesting, and even Billy said it meant that every player had something unique to put into the game, and so he agreed with me.”   Cait drew a card in the middle of Ruth-Cait’s turn. She tried to use another card as a straight thing but she didn’t have a biggafier with her so she struggled a little more than usual.   O-ne off the pe-o-p… purples on basie can steal a basie.   Cait looked at Ruth.   “Oh, um… How about we let Billy read it?” Ruth smield at me.   “Come on, Ruth, you can….”   “Billy, I need to talk to you over there.”   They walked away so I couldn’t hear them whisper. I started pre-pee in my panties, but I didn’t want to get in their way since they wanted a brother and sister talk, so I waited until pre-pee started to mean I couldn’t hold it no more because I’m not supposed to, and I felt it wetting my pants so I sighed as I peed my pants before they came back.   Billy frowned. “You had an accident, Cait.”   I looked down at my pants and then up at them. “Yeah?”   “Did your Grandma bring you clean clothes?”   “Yeah. We never go out of the house without clean clothes assept on Monday with Grace because that was a day that was no one can plan it.”   “It was pretty crazy, huh? Okay. Well, we better take you to get changed. It’s not comfortable to wear wet pants.”   Cait nodded. “I can still play?”   “Yeah, you can. We won’t even touched the cards until you get done being changed, and Ruth can even take you.”   “Okay.”   The whisper was witness by no one other than a small mosquito that landed on Ruth’s hair and it caught one small phrase. “If Cait can’t read it, for today, Neither can I.” and then if flew off before the big people started to move back to Cait.   “Mrs. Kineslla?” Ruth wasn’t scared to interrupt at all. “Cait accidentally not on purpose didn’t tell us in time and pee her pants. She said you have extra clothes.”   Grandma smiled. “Honey, Cait’s not allowed to hold it. If she was holding it, that’s the thing we don’t want her to do right now. Her doctor says that her body is in real bad shape, so she doesn’t have to have an accident to wet her pants. It’s best it is done on purpose right now. So, don’t worry. She won’t get yelled at. You don’t have to emphasize it wasn’t on purpose, okay?”   “Oh. I just didn’t want a big girl to get in trouble because Billy and me didn’t notice she had to go, and we had a secret and she tried to be nice and let me tell my brother a secret.”   “She is very polite, but I am hoping she just peed her pants hon, without holding it. That’s what she’s supposed to do right now, unless she catches herself early enough that she’s on the way to the bathroom long before she starts to feel scared she might pee.”   Grandma hugged Cait. “Did you wet on accident, or on purpose, Cait?”   “Accident. I don’t want to pee on purpose in front of Ruth.”   “Because she’s little?”   “Um… yeah. Plus I’m older.”   “I’m afraid if you want her to come on the trip, you will have to get used to her knowing your rule. Your Health is more important than social norms, hon. We’ll be in the car driving. I don’t want you trying to wait until we get to each stop. If you can’t wet in front of her at her own house, the Ruth stays behind, hon.”   “Please? I’ll pee on purpose. I just….” Cait face got red.   “This is what I’ve been telling you,” Eiboline turned to Mrs. Henderson. “That man has trained her to think that even when she’s sick and the doctor tells her not to wait, that it’s shameful to do what is needed rather than hurt herself.”   Ruth hugged Cait. “I am big enough to know if a doctor tells you to do something, that you listen to the doctor, Cait. And I’ll make sure Billy knows, too. He’s older. We just have to tell him it’s a doctor rule. You are allowed to do what the doctor says. You’re my friend. Remember?”   Cait frowned. “I… I know. I just…. I don’t want to be like this.”   Ruth hugged her for a few minutes, and Grandma stood with her clothes in her arms, talking to Mrs. Henderson until Ruth moved away.   When Cait and Ruth came back, they found that Billy had put out juice boxes for both of them and some cookies, while he had his own as well.   “Why you keep doing stuff for me?” Cait asked Billy.   “What do you mean?”   “You backed up your sister when at the park when your sister said no one gets to play if they meow at me that first day we met. You held me in church when I couldn’t go to the bathroom until it went in my pants, and then you held me anyway. And then you don’t even make fun of me for not being able to read as good as a fourth grader.”   Billy frowned and blushed. “I don’t remember you showing you couldn’t read as good as a fourth grader?”   “At church…, two Sundays ago, you told the sixth graders not to pick a fifth grader person to change to because you said you didn’t trust em not to pick on me, and then I did read, but you didn’t let no one made fun to me, and you tooked me to the bathroom a gazillion times, and then you even checked me when I cried in the bathroom and said I sick, but you never mean it. You just keep being nice.”   “Honestly?” Billy’s face got redder. “You’re my sister’s friend. Why shouldn’t I be nice to you?”   Ruth shook her head at Billy. “Cait doesn’t read good. But Cait not stupid. She knows you don’t do what other sixth graders do. You can tell her.”   “Ruth? I don’t think I’d even know how. I don’t know everything that happened to you.”   “Then I tell her.”   “Are you sure?”   “Yeah. She has a right to know what kind of broken friend she helped.”   “You’re not broken, Ruth. You just have trouble. Everyone has trouble at something.”   “It still we are friends, and she should know she not the only one that has trouble.”   “Yeah. I suppose.”   Ruth turned to me, pushed me to her bed until I fell on it and she climbed in my lap. She looked in my eyes. “You are a very nice, kind, beautiful big friend to me. That’s why Billy likes you.”   Cait looked down. “But some other big people don’t pee their pants if you were….”   “Your pants peeing doesn’t make you not qualitied for my friendship. Do you hear me? You are nice and kind and a big kid that doesn’t think about what other kids do bad.”   Cait looked down.   “Cait,” Billy sat next to me holding Ruth. “You did something for my sister that no one in her third grade class would do for her all year last year. You made her happy and strong again.”   “I didn’t even do nothing.”   “You looked my sister in the eye, that day in the park we met you, and you told her you’d be happy to play with her. In almost a full year, Ruth wouldn’t ask anyone to be friends, and it was because of what happened at school last year.”   “What happened?” Cait frowned.   “Only Ruth really knows the details, Cait. But Ruth, I’m here. You tell her as much as you want. She’s your friend. She won’t make you go on if you decide enough is enough, and if gets too nosy, I’ll stop her.”   “You don’t have to stop her. Cait’s not like that.”   “You’re probably right.”   Ruth leaned against me looking up into my face. “I was too scared to talk to people before, and the one time I tried last year, I think it was in September… maybe, I got so nervous I peed in my pants.”   I frowned. “That happened to me when I got nervous.”   “Yeah. But I just couldn’t do it. When I tried to talk to people, I get all mixed up with words, and my throat won’t say it, and I get really shaking bad. Then, last year, I tired to ask this kid a grade younger, but I was too nervous.”   Cait frowned. “I’m sorry.”   “Kids in my class started making fun of me and calling me freak because….” And Ruth started to cry and I felt warmth on my pants. I just peed, so I knew it wasn’t me. I adjusted her.   “Ruth? That was a horrible reason to call you names or be mean to you. You know that?”   Billy frowned. “She didn’t know that even though I kept trying to tell her that she wasn’t a freak and that those kids were just mean and she didn’t want them as friends anyway. And then you came along. She even thought you peed your pants that day, remember?”   “Yeah,” I felt my face get hot. “I did pee before and that’s why I smelled, but I was scared because I know what she means. I get called names because I peed my pants at school in fourth grade. I just changed in the car. That’s why I said I didn’t pee and could prove my panties were dry.”   “Well, you decided to be her friend even after she accused you of peeing your pants and there was no proof. And I decided that if you can let her get away with that, and you could still be her friend, then you were worth protecting even when I found out you do sometimes pee your pants.”   “That’s why you protect me?”   “Because you are my sister’s best and first real friend she asked to be friends with. Yeah. You started to help her change and now, the Sunday School are all her friends, except for a few kids that I wouldn’t approve if she was friends with anyway like the Sullibitch clan.”   “Don’t call them bitch on purpose,” Cait frowned. “I don’t like them, but bitch is a hurt word. It’s like stupid, and my friends don’t hurt people, not even people that are mean. I don’t like hurts at all. I just don’t. That’s why I say focker and not stupid at people.”   Billy frowned. “That’s why I like you, Cait. You are kind even when some kids don’t deserve it.”   Chapter 118 What Really Happened While Billy Rolled for Cait   When Cait and Eiboline got where they picked up by Sean later on and were in the car, Cait noticed that Grace was smirking a bit.   “You were not in the Emotional Doctor’s place all this time.”   “No, I wasn’t,” she smiled. “Uncle Sean and I went got this envelope that we’ll mail the decoder with tomorrow in, we talked to Cheryl, the lady that’s going to help Uncle Sean and Grandma Eiboline keep me for as long as they can, and Cheryl says she’s going to talk to a lawyer about sending a scare letter, but just have it drawn up to say what she wants it to, and then Cheryl will send it herself right to Grainne so that Grainne’s rights can be explained along with a reporting schema so that she knows how to prove what she’s saying and get someone to listen.”   “You gotta slow down,” Cait told Grace. I don’t even know some of thoses words, and I know you being happy makes it a good thing, but I still need help. I’m not as smart as you.”   “You mean,” Grace said helpfully. “That you are not out of elementary school yet, and haven’t learned some of these-s words yet,” and Cait wasn’t sure… but it sounded funny when she said these-s like she was doing it to show Cait that there was nothing wrong with the word even though Cait realized that it sounded different coming from a big person saying it.   “Whatever, you gotta tell me more slow and assplain some of the words.”   “Well, you know Cheryl?”   Cait frowned. “She the lady that was in there when you went to the hospital because of Monday?”   “Yeah.”   Cait put her hands together and deep into her pre-peeing lap. “Yeah?”   “She works for DHS. She’s going to send Cait a letter after she gets a lawyer to type up a letter. The two letters will be in one envelope, one from an out of town DHS to tell her what Wisconsin can do, and one will be from a lawyer that can tell Grainne what she can do.”   “So, Grainne can do something?”   “That’s what the DHS woman seemed to say. Eitherway, we get the cover of a real DHS letter coming after our decoder, so if your dear ol Dad does get our decoder and thinks oh, it’s a kid trick, and then opens that one, he shoots himself in the foot!”   “How that going to keep my sisters together.”   “I don’t know that part, Cait. This is more about giving Grainne tools to make your dad stop punishing her and her sisters for things that either he causes or they can’t control because they are hurting. That’s the main issue, right, to give her a way to stop being punished if she can’t help wetting her pants anymore?”   “Yeah. I guess so.”   “If your dad is smart at all, he’s not going to want Grainne to report that he even touched an envelope that was marked to Grainne and had in care of her mother, not him on it. In care of means that the person that receives it and maybe reads it for a kid, is the one marked in care of.”   “Oh. Really?”   “Yep.”   “But if Daddy is her real daddy?”   “Doesn’t matter. DHS is more important and besides, it already was addressed to one of the legal parents, the Mom. DHS has to work around abusive parents all the time, so it is normal to leave out an abusive parent.”   “Daddy not abusive. We just make mistakes and have to learn not to be bad,” Cait frowned.   “Do you really believe that?” Grace asked Cait.   Cait shrugged. “Daddy thinks it though.”   Ghost sat on Grace’s lap. “You’re peeing your pants right now and didn’t even tell your cousins or your Daddy Sean and Grandma that you are peeing though, so what do you call it?”   Cait looked down at her darkening pants where her hands were. “Daddy and Grandma said I was allowed to pee my pants though. The doctor even said it.”   “But peeing your pants isn’t normal. Your whole fourth grade in Mysery doesn’t pee their pants, and you are going into fifth. I can’t imagine what will happen when the fifth graders finds out their classmate poops her pants!”   “I apposed to poop my pants!”   Grace scooted closer and hugged her. “Cait? Are you okay?”   Cait looked up at her. “I’m getting wet.”   “I know. I thought Uncle Sean said you’re not toilet trained and Grandma said you have to listen to the doctor. So why are you trying to convince someone that you are supposed to poop your pants? I know that and so do your people in this car, so… who are you trying to convince? Yourself?”   Cait frowned. “It the Ghost one more. She said the fifth graders will be really mean. The fourth graders thinked it funny a fourth grade is wet her pants at school. When I go in fifth and I am poop my pants every time, they are going to really be mean.”   “Remember the fifth graders you told me about in Sunday School?”   “That’s at church.”   “So, I’m not supposed to believe that Kate and Patricia would really stick with me at school?”   “No. I’m not saying that. But they are only two girls, Grace. I wouldn’t trust all the high school kids are going to change just because those two like you, and even if someone in fifth grade here decided I not too weird, most of the fifth grade will still see a girl that poops her pants.”   “You’re right, Cait. But you can choose not to let people that hurt you mean anything to you.”   “Yeah?”   “Well, I mean, I guess they mean something. You can’t get away from people exactly. I will also care that my mom is hurt and mad and that my aunt was just trying to make me grow up, but I chose to stay with the Kinsellas even though I love my mom. You can choose to stay with the fifth grader that doesn’t mind you pooping your pants and not sit with the ones that pick on you for it.”   “Yeah. I guess I can try. In fourth grade though, no one sat with me.”   “Yeah. I’m sorry about that.”   “So if a fourth grader won’t… no one sit with you last year when you poop your pant in tenth grade, did they?”   “No.”   The girls both looked at the floor.   “I think Kate and Patricia sit with you if they can. But they have different teachers or they don’t get to see you….”   “Yeah. I know what you mean.”   They both looked at their laps, both of them peeing now.   “I peed,” Cait told Daddy.   “I’m wetting little by little, too,” Grace whispered to the front.   “That’s alright, babies,” Daddy said. “My big girls are allowed not to be potty trained for a while. I want you both to feel better in your emotions and your mental heads before we work on you registering before you start peeing your pants. If you feel it want to try to go potty, you can always ask when we are in the car if I can pull over in time, or go when there is a toilet right there, but you are not required to use the toilet until Harmony says you are emotionally and mentally ready to be responsible for that again, and even then, you are allowed in my house to pee your pants because you want to. I’m not your bladder keeper. I’m here to make sure you have the choice sooner rather than later.”   “And Cait,” Grandma cautioned. “No holding it for very long until the medical doctor says that your bladder is ready, too. That’s a hard rule. Even if you are emotionally and mentally ready, you need to be physically ready so you don’t hurt your body again.”   “I know,” Cait whispered.   “So, you two are saying…,” Grace gulped. “Even if I just choose to pee on purpose or poop my pants on purpose, you don’t even care about that, only that I can choose to do it or not?”   Daddy sighed. “Grace, that’s what we been saying the whole time. I know it’s different than you have grown up with, and it might take a few more times of saying it before it sinks in. But yes. The reason for visits to see the doctor and to get your head right emotionally and mentally, is so you have the choice on where you go potty if it’s in your pants or the toilet. Big girls don’t easily choose their pants when it’s their choice, so I trust you if you decided your pants was a better choice at the time.”   Chapter 119 Parker’s House As they pulled up not outside their house, but outside Kate’s house, Cait looked at Grace. “Did you know we were going here?”   “No?”   “Out girls,” Sean opened Grace’s door. “We have clean clothes for you and your friend already knows you have wetting problems, so there’s no reason you can’t change here. We need to talk to Kate’s mom about a couple of things.”   “Oh, okay.”   As Cait looked around, she could see that money wise, Kate’s parents were not better off than her own Mysery parents. Actually, they might have it worse. So why wasn’t Kate peeing her pants and having trouble and looking like she couldn’t afford stuff at school?   “Good evening, Jason,” Daddy said to Kate’s dad.   “Your children need to take a bath?”   “That would probably help, but they have to do it together. Crisis prevention rules. Grace is still on suicide watch.”   “Right. Well, I’ll have Kate supervise them, if that’s okay with you.”   “I think it would help.”   “Kate! Would you come here, hon?”   The young woman walked over to her dad and hugged him as she looked at Grace pointedly, as if she was trying to say something secret that Cait didn’t get yet. Of course, Cait knew Kate. Kate rescued Grace on the Suicide day, and she and Patricia had sat with Grace in a little kids’ Sunday School so Grace would have peer friends along with being in the comfort of her house guest that took her to church.   “Grace!” Kate smiled when she let go of her dad and reached out to hug Grace. “That’s my dad, as you likely guessed. Mom is making dinner.”   “I’m sorry it’s late, Jason,” Daddy told Kate’s Dad, but we’re here to ask you a big favor, and I know it’s short notice. But Kate has been a Godsend to our foster child.”   “You keep getting more and more children, lately,” Kate’s Dad teased. “If you’re not careful, you’ll have all the orphans in Wisconsin in your house, especially all the ones that didn’t get the love they deserved.”   Daddy smiled and so did Grandma.   “If we had a place to keep them and could do it, we would,” Grandma added.   Jason smiled. “Well, I’m not one that can judge you on that. But I will tell you, my own little teen is quite enough for me at the moment. But maybe when she’s grown up, maybe after a few years, we’ll do what you and Sean did for Cait.”   “That one was… a family crisis, which is why we need a favor. But before we do that, the girls need to change their pants and get a bath.”   “Kate will take them.”   Kate took Cait’s hand and smiled at her. “Come on, let’s watch your big sister together so she doesn’t feel lonely, okay?”   Cait nodded. “Okay. But she’s smarter than me, so talk her like she’s big like you.”   The teens smiled at each other. “Your little sister, Cait, well, I’d seen her at church since June, and she is a little cutie, but she’s just so precious, Grace.”   “I know. I love her so much!”   Cait looked up at them confused. Wait, she wasn’t talking to Cait because she was ignoring Grace like the ace sure ance men did to Cait? What is going on, exactly. She wasn’t use this. This wasn’t the kind of thing that has ever happened to her before. The girl… she wasn’t exactly talking down at Cait but she… didn’t know what to feel. She liked it. She called Cait precious and cute? Like a big person that tolerates a baby because the baby is cute, but she didn’t say Cait was a baby. She involved Cait in taking care to make sure Grace didn’t do something harming. It felt good, but it was confusing.   Kate started to undress Cait.   “Be careful,” Kate did tell Grace. “I’m watching, but you’re big like me. The importance isn’t you can’t do stuff on your own, just that I need to make sure you don’t feel lonely, right?”   “I guess?” Grace whispered.   Kate patted Cait’s backside.   “Why you pat my bottom?”   “Just making sure, sweetheart. You’d had a terrible time, according to my dad. You poop your pants, sometimes, right?”   “Yeah.”   “I just didn’t want any surprises while I’m helping you.”   Cait didn’t say anything. She couldn’t tell if Kate knew that Cait could bathe herself or not, but Kate wasn’t mean to her.   “Grace? Bring your panties over here,” Kate requested. It wasn’t a you have to do it tone. It was a please tone but without the magic word.   “Your pee is really dark, Grace. Get in the tub. I have to get your parents after I get Cait undressed.”   “I peed dark, too. I mean, I don’t know now, but I did before, and the doctor is checking both Grace and me our stuff in hospital and tell us Friday.”   “I should still tell your Grandma about Grace, and if you’re pee is dark, I’ll tell her about you, too. I’m not getting her in trouble. That’s a symptom of infection.”   “I know.” Cait whispered.   Cait and Grace were in the tub looked at one another in, quietly. Cait didn’t know what to say.   Then Grandma came in with Grace and Grace showed her both of the girls’ wet panties.   “I knew Cait would have dark urine, and we are supposed to look for blood in her panties, but this is the first time Grace has had dark urine.”   “I’m sorry,” Grace whispered.   “You’re not in trouble, hon. We’ll just tell the doctor on Friday when we see him in case it changes something. We just want you to be healthy, hon. Remember?”   “Yeah.”   “You can go ahead and take care of the girls,” Grandma told Kate. “I’ll just take their dirty clothes with me now.”   When Grandma was out of the bathroom, Kate told Grace to go ahead and wash. Then she started to wash me without asking, but I didn’t really mind. I knew she wasn’t supposed to have to wash a kid my age…. But I felt safe in her hands. She was treating me like a big kid does a little kid that she likes, and I liked it.   “Grace, I want you to know something,” Kate frowned. “You’re not bad for peeing your pants.”   “My mom and aunt says six years is too long to be doing it, that he hurt is over and I’m just milking it for attention.”   “What meets milking it? I know what milking a cow does, but this not that.”   “It means that they think she’s trying to recover as slow as she can on purpose for some benefit that even I can’t imagine she’d get.” Kate washed under Cait’s arms.   Kate turned back to Grace. “Well, they are wrong. And you could have done something worse. I lost my big sister when I was eight.”   “Your big sister?”   “She died from a car accident. And I loved her so much that it still hurts to talk about it.”   “You don’t pee your pants, though.”   “I did something worse for several years. I don’t want to talk about that right now, but I want you to know, if wetting your pants is the worst you’ve done from your dad running out on you? You are way ahead of what happened to me, and I’m proud of you.”   I looked up at Kate. “If she ahead of what you did, but you proud….”   Kate, immediately knowing my confused, rubbed my back as she washed it. “What I mean, hon, is Grace is only goes potty in her pants, and that’s body trauma talking. I peed my pants from eight until I was like twelve. But my Dad and Mom didn’t say I was bad for it. They supported me, and that’s the difference of your sister. Plus… just because I stopped wetting my pants doesn’t mean I stopped wetting the bed or escalating to something else.”   “What something else?”   “That’s a story that I’m not willing to tell right, now, Cait. I’m sorry.”   “Okay.”   “Damn it,” Grace started to cry as the water started to turn brown. “Stupid body!” and she put both of her hands on her face as Cait saw bubbles lifting to the top of the bathwater, and she knew what Grace was doing.   Immediately, Kate reached for Grace, not Cait. “Get out of the tub,” Kate told Cait as she held Grace and made sure Grace didn’t slip and she put her on the floor, making her sit instead of stand.   “Grace? It’s just an accident,” Kate whispered to her. “It’s okay. I’ve seen it happen at school all last year. You’re not dirty. You’re just hurt. You understand me? I’m your friend. I know you’re hurt. You don’t have to be scared.”   Cait reached into her big sister’s lap and sat there hugging her. “I poop my pants, too, big sister. Be member? No one mad or no think anything but you are Cait big sister, and you love and help your little sister, and you just accident because you hurt.”   Kate called out. “Daddy! Help!”   Jason was the first one in the bathroom, and he saw the three children huddled together. “Did she hurt herself?” He asked Kate in worry.   “No. She pooped in the water, but she’s… cussing at herself and she’s scared and crying, and I don’t know what to do. Cait got dirty because they were both bathing together. I… don’t want to mess this up. One wrong thing… and she might make a mistake I made.”   “Now, you are different girls,” Jason picked his own crying child up off the floor.   Eiboline got Cait off of Grace, and the Sean looked up at the others. “This is why Grace needs Kate, but if Kate is not strong enough for this, or you are worried about what we talked about, we can ask Patricia.”   “We’ll talk to Patricia’s family for you and to Kate, and let you know tomorrow which girl it will be. For now, you clean your teenager up. We’ll dress Kate and Cait for now, and get them some dinner while you get Grace feeling right.”   “Thank you.”   When Cait sat at the table, after washing her hands, she looked up at Grandma. “What do you mean, Kate or Patricia and will it be?”   “Hon, we didn’t want to get Grace’s hopes up or yours, but Grace can’t go into a place like that without her own support. You thought of everyone but the one that needs it most. Grace will have no family there, and she needs friends, hon. We came here to see if Kate could go as Grace’s support.”   “Oh, wow! I so sorry. I just thought… well, I didn’t.”   “You’re ten, child.” Kate rubbed my back. “You can’t think of everything. The fact you even engineered this family help for your sisters shows a strong and mature Cait that most kids my age and even I know I couldn’t put together by myself.”   “You can,” Cait frowned. “Trust me, if you needed, you can. It’s sabibal not smart.”   Cait and Grace climbed into the bed after a second bath that night, and they hugged each other.   “I’m scared, Grace. Can you hold me and we sleeping and it’s okay I pee my pants on you sleeping?”   “Can I pee on you?” Grace smiled as an answer.   Chapter 120 Why Choose?   Clo’s face was in the dark. Cait felt her hands and her toes tighten. Clo’s breathing was labored. Cait felt her heart clinch in her chest and her throat tighten. Clo’s body shaking caused Cait to feel leaking pre-pee into her panties. Where was Clo? It was still dark. Cait wasn’t there, was she? She couldn’t tell.   “Clo?” she called.   No answer.   “Clodagh! Are you there?” she called louder.   “No answer.   More pre-pee was wetting her boy panties again. It wouldn’t hold for much longer.   The darkness was slowly lifting. There were desks around Clo. Clo was looking at the clock and down at her paper. She was moving in her seat, the same squirmies Cait used to do before Cait recently gave up and started to just pee in fourth grade.   There were bigger people around. Clo was big. There were kids laughing and talking about parties. Clo was blushing red and holding her hands on her lap, and trying not to talk to anyone. Did she smell? Cait couldn’t tell.   More pee went into Cait’s panties and woke her up. She was peeing the bed. Grace was still dry. She whispered. “I’m sorry,” but Grace kept sleeping.   Cait felt the light in the bedroom wake her a second time, and her big sister pushed back the blankets. Grace was dry… except where Cait peed on her.   “I did that,” Cait whispered.   Grace shrugged. “I have good days, sometimes. I pee the bed like two or three times a week, when I’m at home. I just been wetting more here. I don’t really know why?”   “Strange bed,” Grandma appeared by Daddy. “You’re just nervous and that makes the body react more. It’s okay if you pee the bed more some weeks than others. I told you that I do.”   Grace looked down. “Yeah. I remember.”   “Sean, give Cait a bath and take her out to do some of her chores so she can see Summerstone. I’ll take care of Grace for now.”   “Daddy? Is Kate really going to come with Grace, then?” Cait asked as she stepped into the bathtub.   “The plan is either her or Patricia,” he nodded.   “It’s too bad they don’t both come,” Cait frowned. “It was both of them that made her feel welcome last week at church, and both of them that were there for her when she almost died on Monday. Kate found her, but Patricia went to the hospital and was there before we were.”   “I know, Cait, but our car is running out of space.”   “I can sit in Billy’s lap. He doesn’t mind if I pee my pants. And his sister can sit in one of the big girl’s laps. Only Grace pees her pants of the big girls, so Ruth won’t have to sit in any pee she doesn’t want to.”   “Well, we don’t even know how Patricia’s parents feel, hon.”   “I know. I just said it’s too bad we can’t. I’m not saying we can or should.”   “I know what you want though, munchkin.”   Cait giggled. “I want candy for breakfast too, but it doesn’t mean Grandma will let me.”   Sean nodded. “But you also know that asking for candy for breakfast is unreasonable. You are planning how people could sit to try to make squeezing into one car reasonable.”   Cait shrugged. “But you have another stuff I don’t know, so I don’t really know it can do it.”   Sean shook his head and with a chuckle started to wash Cait’s hair.   “Daddy? Is Grace hurt worse than me?”   “It’s not about worse, Cait. It’s about how. When you compare how more hurt one is than another, then you miss the point of healing. You are both hurt in very real ways, and you are recovering but you’re not fully there, not even halfway, hon. Can Grace is in her beginning steps. You will both take a while, and no one can promise that neither of you will be fully out of this self blame and self hurt by the time you are twenty. But we can’t help if we don’t try.”   “I didn’t mean to not get Grace help her hurts.”   “She knows that, baby. It’s not always easy to factor in someone else when your mind is preoccupied with those that you are most scared don’t have anyone at the moment. And you are only ten years after all. That’s why you are supposed to have big people that care. Big people help you see what you miss.”   “Grace didn’t even peed the bed last night.”   “Yeah. Continence isn’t a measure of how mad you are hurt, hon. It’s not something that has an easy formula to understand how much one person hurts over another, nor does it tell you how someone hurts.”   “I used to not pee in my sleep even in fourth grade.”   “Well, it’s also a case of a medical problem getting worse because it was never fixed, Cait.”   “Wait, you never peed the bed before fourth grade?” Kooks suddenly spoke to me again.   “Yeah?”   “You don’t know nothing,” Ghost interrupted. “Go back to sleep.”   Chomp.   “You said what if Grainne has been peeing for you since you were very little, right?”   “Yeah?”   “Well, if you just started peeing in your sleep in fourth grade….”   “I pee my pants since first grade.”   “Okay. I know. But your dream said your sisters both got on each side of you and peed their pants on purpose because you peed the bed worse because you were sick. That had to be fourth grade because even if you peed before then, and had the rule, you’d wake up before they had to pee on you to cover your wetting that bad.”   Cait frowned. “Yeah?”   “So, Grainne and Clo peed on you last year sometime… at least the peeing. Does that help with the pooping thing?”   “I had to be in third grade the first time she put poop in her panties.”   “Grainne would have been how old then?”   “Um… she’s going to be 15… I in fifth. She’s be twelve or thirteen.”   “So…, not ten like you thought in your dream. See?”   “You don’t know….”   Chomp!   “So Grainne started to put my poop in her panties in twelve… hey! That’s when she started junior high school!”   “So it is possible she didn’t put your poop in her panties then? Is it possible she put yours in the toilet, and she was already pooping her pants because Junior high is more hard than elementary school?”   “Um… Maybe?”   “How about we ask the question different on Tuesday. How about we ask her how poop got in her panties when you were in third grade, and sick. Maybe she will tell you the truth, and why you remember her peed her pants on the way home, why her panties were wet?”   “Um… okay?”   “If she says she did it to protect you, then you will know.”   “She won’t say that,” the Ghost frowned. Kooks didn’t chomp.   “Daddy?” Cait looked back to Sean who was still bathing her while Ghost and Kooks argued over facts. “What if Grainne peed her pants in elementary school and started pooping her pants from when she started junior high?”   “Do you know that’s what happened?”   “No? But I was just thinking when I really started to pee in my sleep. I have to pee in the bed before…. But I started to pee in my sleep last year.”   “And…?”   “And that means Grainne and Clo didn’t pee on me in my bed until last year, and that means Grainne didn’t poop her pants until the year before, and I only saw one time but I think she hided it sometimes.”   “Okay…?”   “Well, what if that means Grainne doesn’t have the same owie I have, the handiya, but she still has what Shane, and Grace, and what maybe Mia does, pee because something else that turned to poop to protect me and then Clo?”   “Are you saying we should be looking into her getting mental health more than physical health checks right now?”   “Um… I don’t know.”   “Well…. It would make sense, but that’s going to be a harder sell to your father. DHS as far as I know, don’t provide mental health unless they can prove there’s a cause for it.”   “And you can give Daddy money again for that checks?’   “Do you think your dad would take that serious or would he buy adult drink.”   “He’d buy drink,” Cait’s chest fell in defeat.   “Let’s go feed Summerstone,” Sean lifted Cait out of the bath. “You should relax a bit and come back to the problem. It doesn’t do to dwell on a heavy problem like this all day. When you think of something that will help, then it’s good to come back, but trying to force the answer by thinking all day hurts you in mental ways you can’t possibly understand until it’s done.”   “Really?”   “That’s right, Cait, and one more thing. Would you want to not care about Summerstone right because you are stuck on something you can’t do anything about right now?”   “No.”   “So what is the right thing?”   “Take care my baby first.”   Sean patted her naked butt sending her to the bedroom to find clothes for herself.   Cait opened the curtain wide. Daddy opened it when I had my first bath. No one outside to see me. I like the sun. These were thoughts she had as she stood naked in front of the window looking down and she saw the grave coral that her family had for Ron. It didn’t have his body, but it didn’t have to. It had his ghost, the last place he played before it happened.   She looked back at the dresser, and she didn’t know why, but she put the lonely horse closer to it’s Mom horse. “You forgive me, Grandma. Ron says the pony been lonely for too long. It need mom for just a little bit, and then I’ll put it back tonight.”   Then she started to get dressed.   Cait smiled at the chickens. “You all have your own troubles, huh? But food not one of your troubles… not today. Here. We have lots of corn for you!”   “You allowed to pop an egg in your underwear, chicken. It not a sin to potty your pants. Grandma even does it.” She said this to a chicken hovered over chicks and not eating, so she put some corn in front of it.   Then she went off to the pigs.   “You got your suits all muddy, Mr. Pig? I not asking you are in trouble. I asking, did you fun? You be healthy and play in the mud as much as you want, you still eat!”   And finally, she got to Summerstone and her mama Horse, Ginger.   “I put you by your mama, upstairs. If I take you away your mama too much, you tell me. I don’t a right to get in the way you and your mama who knows you best and takes care you best. Only if she kick you, but she never hurt you that I see.”   “Cait?” the ghost looked clean this time and it faced Kooks with a confidence Cait has only seen twice recent. “The dresser shrine is wrong.”   Cait looked at Kooks who was always clipped to her shirt when he wasn’t his spirit self talking to her.   Kooks didn’t say anything.   “What’s wrong with it?”   “Where is the dog?” Ghost asked.   “In it’s guarding place.”   “But when something is wrong, and Sean is guarding, where is he? In his place, or holding someone?”   Cait frowned.   “Cait, don’t look at this as Cait’s life. Look at it as Ron’s life. The animals are the main characters, that’s why they are freely being while the humans are being shown as background, making a fence, putting hay in a barn, and stuff. They make the farm work, but the animals are the main characters. So if the Dog is Sean, where should it be?”   Cait frowned. “I don’t know.”   “I don’t either, but I know it wasn’t on the protection box when the boy died.”   Kooks didn’t chomp.   “The baby horse is wrong.”   “Why?”   “It’s not by its Mama or the dog. That’s not Ron’s world, Cait, that’s yours. Someone moved the baby horse. It was by its mama horse when the boy died.”   “You can’t know that.”   “But do you think Eiboline and Sean sent you off to bed not caring if you peed your pants, not caring if you age, not caring if you were even crying? Would Ron think like that?”   “No.”   Kooks didn’t Chomp.   “Finally the water gun pointed right at the horse baby!”   Cait frowned. “Then who moved it!”   “The dog? One Grief stricken father. The baby horse? A Grief stricken father again, with the nod of a Grief stricken mother.”   “What about the gun?” Cait’s thumb was in her mouth.   “The Ghost of Ron, who went back in time and made himself place it there just before he left the scene.”   “Why?”   “Ron doesn’t even know why, but if you took the gun out of the picture fully? I don’t think Grandma would see.”   Cait looked at Kooks. No Chomp.   “You can’t tell me that Ghost is right! She’s just trying to mess up Grandma’s shrine.”   “People do things in Grief and don’t remember doing it,” Kooks told Cait. “And the water gun…. Ghosts do things that people don’t know how they do it all the time. Is it really impossible for a ghost to convince itself just before it dies that something belongs on a scene as a warning?”   Cait frowned. “Mysery Dad says no thing as a ghost.”   “And yet, we both talk to Ghost all the time, a ghost that usually pees her pants, so we know she’s real.”   Cait frowned.   “Why the boy ghost is here?”   Kooks shrugged. “Ghosts have their own reasons. We don’t know enough about him to ask.”   Cait looked up at Summerstone. “What do you think, boy?”   Summerstone went right for the favorite part of Cait that it loved, it’s muzzle in her red hair.   Daddy came back after feeding the cows and he walked me into the house. That’s when I saw that Grandma had Grace making oatmeal and bacon while Grandma was making pancakes and blueberry muffins.   “Pour some juice for everyone if you would, Cait,” Grandma asked.   As the Kinsellas were eating breakfast, the phone rang. Grandma went to answer it, and Cait only heard her say their number as that is what she always does to make certain it’s not a wrong number.   “Well, that would be fine, I’m sure. But are you both sure that’s going to be okay.”   There was a pause.   “Yeah, both Sean and Cait are here. Yes, Grace is here, too. Well, they are eating breakfast, but I’m sure it won’t bother them. Sean, first? Sure.”   Daddy went to see who was on the phone.   “Wow, well, I mean if it doesn’t put you out or anything. Yeah, it would really be helpful. Yes sir. Well, thank you so much.”   There was a pause.   “Grace? Yeah, she’s here.”   Cait watched Grace go to the phone, and she started to smile. Someone was definitely going with her. She could tell by the way Daddy was saying it would be helpful. She picked the phone from Daddy and he came back to sit at the table.   “Well, we’re going to have an extra car and two extra drivers,” Daddy smiled. “So we just need to contact Mia then later.”   “I’d like to talk to her, first,” Grace frowned. “I don’t know if it will help at all, but she is the little one in our pairing, so she’s my responsibility.”   “You can call her after we finish breakfast if you like.” Daddy hugged her as Grace handed the phone towards Cait.   “Hello?”   “Hey, it’s me, Patricia. So, Kate called last night, and we have a big station wagon that seats seven plus your car seats four, so that’s eleven. And my grandma are going to watch my little brothers, so my mom is going to drive my car and we figured you and Grace can decide who is sitting where, but I think at least one of us should sit with Grace, and one of us should sit with you so you aren’t too scared. Three adults are coming alone, my mom and your two cousin-whatever-you-call-them….”   “Grandma and Daddy?”   “Yeah. So, what do you think?”   “Ruth’s going to be coming with me,” Cait told the phone.   “Of course, that should be apparent. So, there are us two big girls plus Grace, You and Ruth and that brother of hers, then your Shane… So that’s seven kids….”   “Plus Grace is taking Mia, and I need Mia to come anyway if her mom lets her.”   “Okay. There’s eight kids and three adults… eleven people, and one car seats seven and on can seat five in a pinch for twelve, so we have space for even one more if we forgot someone.”   “Why you using your car?”   “My mom says she trusts the Kinsellas, and if they weren’t going to your farm in Missouri, she’d be okay them taking all us kids, but she doesn’t know what an abusive man like your dad will be like and wants to make sure there is a second car there in case Sean has to ask an adult to get the kids out of the way.”   “I have four sisters.”   “I’m sure my mom has already thought of that and is going to talk to Sean more about it. There are twelve, and even two extra spaces can be squeezed into my station wagon if your little sisters are small enough, we could fit fourteen. There are eleven plus is Sean were staying back to keep your dad occupied, then fourteen spaces for all the kids… 12 of us and two parents driving would be just enough, and if Sean came with us then a couple of kids can sit in a lap.”   “Well, I wouldn’t ask anyone to come and be in danger at my farm. Daddy controls only the kids that his, and even when Daddy-Sean said he gave me up for the Summer before, he didn’t argue it.”   “Well, this is the only way my mom and by extension, Kate’s mom really feels comfortable, is that we have an escape as well as any kid that doesn’t legally have to stay at the house because those kids are that man’s.”   “Yeah. I get it. So you are both going to come then?”   “That’s right, Cait.”   “Yay!”    

Maddison climbed down from the piggyback ride and approached Emilly and Alice. Before leaving, Ana said, "Behave yourselves, girls." Maddison sat on the floor, and Emilly suggested, "Let's play house! How about you be the baby, Maddison?" Seeing no ulterior motives and thinking it was all innocent, Maddison agreed, saying, "Sure, I can be the baby." ================================== Ana headed downstairs, the image of Maddison on the piggyback ride still in her mind. She asked Camilla, "Tell me the baby monitor recorded it." Smiling, Camilla replied, "It recorded in high definition." The two watched the replay, delighted, but then Camilla remarked, "The problem is that it’s not picking up the girls right now—that’s going to be an issue."

Emily and Alice happily cheered wanting to ride on the horses in their room, Alice saying to Emily that there were so many fun games that all three of them could play. When they got into the nurseries Ana smiled as she saw Maddison rocking on the rocking horse giggling and laughing like a little girl. Alice happy giggled along with Maddison, after she was set on the floor Alice went over to the clothes drawer and pulled out a baby bonnet and tied it around her head before asking Madison to play house with her.

@Richie boy:  in my opinion, it is better that you find and reply to an old thread than start a new one with a similar subject.  I say good to you for finding an item of interest to you.  Don’t be overly concerned by the comments about reviving an old thread. Welcome to the site.