Rainbow Diapers

Chapter 71 Morning Panic   Cait woke up out of the darkness of evil, and the light of the day was shining upon her with Daddy there, Eiboline there, and with that lady from the day before there! Why was she there?   The Ghost wasn’t there.   “You had a hard morning, Cait,” Harmony whispered. “Do you remember any of it?”   Cait put her thumb in her mouth.   “Are we not talking about what we know?” Kookaberry asked from his normally pinned leash on her left chest of her undershirt.   Cait shook her head.   Cait saw a red mark on Eiboline’s jaw. There were scratches and jarring red marks on Sean. It looked like they had been fighting each other, only Grandma got more likes in than Daddy did. That would make sense though. Daddy doesn’t hit like Father does, and Daddy doesn’t let anyone dis-be-spect Grandma. The mark on Grandma’s jaw was probably an accident to stop her attacking him.   “You don’t have to talk about this morning,” Harmony whispers with a smile. “We can work on something else for a minute, if you don’t mind?”   “What?” Cait, the idea of wanting to know what she’s up to catching her interest caused her thumb to come out of her mouth.   “Is it scary to wet the bed, Cait?”   Cait shrugged. Not until last night. Daddy gets mad if she doesn’t wet the bed. Wetting the bed is normal.   “Has your sister even woke up with you in bed with bruises before?”   “Well, Sometimes Roisin sleeps with me and she says I kick in my sleep. She does too, though. But we don’t really hurt each other. We just get annoyed because it wakes us up.”   When Harmony was finally leaving, Eiboline frowned.   “How come you and Daddy got in a fight?” Cait asked.   “A fight, Pet?” Grandma asked her whole facing to move in a small circle as though trying to search for Cait’s logic.   “Your jaw got red. “Did I do bad things and you fighting to keep or sent me back?”   “No, hon. Daddy doesn’t hit mommy.”   “Father does.”   “Well, you been with us almost two weeks. You haven’t seen Daddy get that mad, have you?”   “I never seen him mad. You don’t hit if you not mad. You don’t lie me, Grandma. Be member, Auntie said she peed her pants at the time for field? I know it mean to say it, but I be member you had so you don’t have to be scared me say you bad or Daddy bad. I know getting mad happened.”   “Cait? I did pee my pants at the field the other day. I’m not ashamed. And I am not scared to tell you the truth if Sean says something or does something that hurts my feelings, but he’s never hit me.”   “You hit all over his face.”   “No, Cait. I promise you. Sean told you that the farm big animals are sometimes dangerous.”   “Oh! Yeah. I knew Daddy doesn’t hit! I sorry I said Daddy hits. But Father does. He hits Mama, and he uses belt on Grainne when Grainne bad or Grainne makes us little kids be bad.”   Eiboline took Cait over to the dresser to get her boy underwears.   “I can pee my pants?” Cait asked.   “If you need to, you pee your pants, Cait. It’s okay,” Eiboline nodded. “Pee is not Cait, and Cait is not pee. Pee is just what the body needs, and Cait is Cait, a smart little girl that’s learning she can do a lot more than she thinks she can.”   Cait smiled.   Sean came up the stairs and stayed outside the room for a moment.   “Harmony says that she appreciates us calling her, and trusting her to do the right thing. She says that house calls normally cost double, but if it’s an emergency, she will wave all costs, even normal costs until the insurance is settled. She says she’d rather take a pay cut than have a child going through that kind of trauma and the whole family being helpless to do anything.”   “Isn’t that kind of her?” Grandma nodded.   “Well, we are going to be a little late for our meeting today, but I’ll call and let him know we had a crisis this morning. Maybe he’ll still meet us today.”   “You go ahead. I’ll just get Cait changed and let her see Summerstone so she can feel better.”   Daddy nodded. “Do you want to hug daddy?”   Cait ran over and hugged Sean. “I love you daddy. Grandma told me the big animals hurt you. I’m glad it was the big animals and you and Grandma didn’t hit Grandma. I don’t want to make you mad so you fight and hit Grandma.”   Daddy reached down and picked Cait up and hugged her tight. “We are not fighting about you, Pet. We both want you here, okay?”   “Okay.”   Chapter 72 Shane   Cait and Eiboline walked out to see Arnold working with some cows in the milking pen, and she saw Mama horse and Summerstone in her own play pen with Liam out there, brushing Summerstone.   “You’re brushing Summerstone?” Cait asked Liam.   “You weren’t feeling good. Your Aunt and Uncle were worried. We got here but your ….”   “Daddy…,” Cait said patiently. “You can do it. Say Daddy! I don’t see any uncles here, assept maybe you and your brother.”   “Daddy,” Liam nodded.   “Go on, what about Daddy?”   “Well, your Daddy told my Dad about everything that happened this morning, or at least the things that scared them. This lady came to talk to you, so My Dad and brother are over there, and I didn’t know if you’d be out here today, so I started to take care of your baby so he didn’t get weak on you.”   “He said everything? Even I pooped my pants in bed?”   “He didn’t exactly say that.”   “Oh,” Cait’s face got red. She looked down at the ground. “I’m dirty.”   “No,” Liam walked over and hugged her. “You are Cait. I don’t know anyone called dirty.”   Handing her the brush, he rubbed her shoulder. “And Summerstone agrees. Don’t you boy?”   Liam threw his head back and made this really good impression of a horse. “S-hu-hur-hure do.”   Cait giggled. “You good at horse talk.”   “I loved your card,” Liam said rubbing Cait’s hair while she was taking over brushing her baby. “It looked like an old authentic paper, too.”   “Huh?”   “The yellow stains gave it a look like it was really old and important.”   “Oh,” Cait looked down. “I accidentally….”   “Made it look old and valuable,” Liam rushed to interrupt. “I like it.”   “That was pee, you know,” Cait whispered.   “It was! Now it’s important. It doesn’t matter how it was made. It is the first card Cait ever gave anyone in Wisconsin. It is, isn’t it?”   “Yeah, I think so.”   “Cool. Someday, it’s going to be worth something really valuable in trading, and I’m going to have it.”   “You weird.”   “Know you are, what am I?”   Cait put her tongue out.   Sean came running out. “He says he’ll come here to talk to us. Something about having to resolve something with another Dairy Farmer.”   “That’s good, then,” Eiboline nodded.   “Yeah. He might want to check in Cait’s room though. I don’t want him seeing her mess. She’s had enough trauma for one day. He doesn’t need to know she peed the bed last night, or at least he doesn’t need to see the evidence of it.”   “I’ll get the bedding and sheets. You watch Cait, Sean.”   Cait walked over to the gate, Summerstone walking behind her.   “Am I did something bad?”   “No, Cait. You are doing everything right. I just don’t want you being on display if he decides to check your room. It might be good if you pick up ‘Front City’ for now though. You can put it back after he leaves, but he might not understand our methods if he sees toys all over the house. I don’t want him to judge you, Pet.”   “Okay.”   Cait looked down at her boy pants and then up at Daddy. “Daddy?”   “Yeah?”   “What if I pee?”   “Well, that’s why he’s putting you on our insurance. That’s what we are fixing. Your choice to pee. Not stopping you from peeing your pants, if you feel you need to, but giving you the choice between not doing that, and whatever other bigger thing is worrying you.”   “You won’t care if I pooped my pants while he’s here?”   “Not at all…,” then he frowned and reworded. “Actually, I would care. I want to see your little face if it happens, and I want to know how you feel. If you get scared or feel bad, then you will be taken from his view immediately. You are not to be shamed for your body being sick. But if you are happy, playing, and don’t notice, then I won’t care to notice either.”   “Okay.”   With Front City put into a box and put away under the television cabinet where the VCR goes, it wasn’t out to be judged, but Cait realized a pee stain was on the carpet. “I gotta clean the carpet,” she told Daddy.   “No, Cait. The man will not know what the stain is, and if he figures it out, he has too much time on his hands. He’s not here to find out every time you proved you need help. He’s simply here to see if the company will help us or not. It’s the doctor’s business how often you pee your pants, hon, not the insurance man’s. Different jobs.”   “Okay,” but Cait put a finger in her mouth trying to make sense of that word jumble. ‘He fig yards out, too much time—hands? What about his feet and his head? Time doesn’t matter there? Doctor’s business for how much I pee, but not ni sure ace man? Different jobs? What job is ni sure ace?”   Daddy took Cait up and gave her a quick bath and put her in a blouse and skirt set. She still only had boy panties, but at least she looked more like a girl.   Then, this fat man with a thick mustache rang the door bell.   “Good afternoon,” the man presented a card. “Mr. Glover.” He shook Daddy’s hand, took Grandma’s hand and bowed hi head to it, and he rubbed Cait’s head.   Grandma got him some lemonade, and got Cait some, too.   “The company will give you a ten percent decrease in premiums if you sign this waiver not to sue our company for anything Brady did, though it does not protect Brady if you were to sue him separately.”   Daddy frowned. “Okay. But that’s not the issue right now.”   “Right. As for Cait. You have a power of attorney will drawn up making you her guardians?”   “Until December.”   “That might be a problem,” Mr. Glover was honest. “I’ve seen how hernias can go. Sometimes, they cure them the first time with surgery, but sometimes, they need more care. I am also concerned that the hernia, being as big a problem as it is, could be hiding other conditions that would need to be looked at.”   “What you mean?” Cait asked.   The man started to continue. “So, it’s probably not a good….”   “Excuse me, sir. My child asked a question. If you are going to ignore her, we go with my friend’s brother-in-law’s insurance.”   “You… you were already looking for another one?”   “Look. We are a community out here. I didn’t go looking for anything, but we farmers stick together, and he heard that Brady had terribly handled Cait, and honestly, with the trying to skip my wife last night, you aren’t looking much better to me. So, you going to talk to Cait, or do we drop this act?”   “Cait? Did you pee your pants recently?”   Cait looked down.   “Excuse me! SHE asked a Goddamned question! You have no right to ask her if she’s peed her pants. The doctor will ask her that when the time is right. You aren’t a healer, so she is not obligated to telling you if she’s wet or not.”   “Sorry. What was your question, girl?”   “Cait,” Sean’s face was getting red and his hands were opening and closing from fists. “Address the little lady right, or….”   “Yes, okay. I’m sorry. Young lady? Cait is it? What was your question?”   “You said the Ha ya na might something. You said it’s hiding or something? I forgot,” she had tears in her eyes.   “She’s a child,” Daddy told Mr. Glover. “She forgets when the conversation gets too far in. I’ll tell you what she asked. She asked what did you mean? She asked you after you said the hernia could be a big problem hiding other problems. So… she’s not dumb. She’s very smart. Just remember, she is still ten, so talk to her. Make sure you don’t use medical words unless you have to. Make sure she can respond to you. That’s how you know a kid understands. Want to try that again?”   “Yes, sir.”   “Go ahead, Cait. Just do your best. Daddy’s here if you need help.”   “What meaned that ha na ya is hiding and it needs more something?”   “Well, Cait…. I don’t know how long you’ve had the hernia, but I know that if it’s been any amount of time, you could have weak muscles, you could have other stomach and bladder issues caused by it. You could have digestive issues, and depending on the growth of the hernia, even lung issues.”   Cait’s finger was in her mouth. “How come pooping can cause eating problem? That means dijustin, right? And how come pooping can cause breath problem. That what lung does, it help breaths?”   “Well, first of all, a hernia is when your stomach tears on the inside, and the guts in the stomach area, the lower area, about right here…,” he touched Cait a little close to her hips. “This is where your intestines are. These are parts that help your stomach make food small enough to work in your body.”   “Okay.”   “Well, the ways a hernia happens, is your guts can try to climb into your chest, into your stomach which is really up here, or down into your pee pee organs or organs for babymaking and sometimes into your leg.”   “Okay.”   “The hernia can cause problems in those parts of your body it gets into, but it can also hide things in those areas that we wouldn’t know are wrong until we fixed the hernia.”   “And that can take from June is 1 July, August… December…. Seven months, but more?”   “That’s right. That’s why Brady tried to get the approval later. He wanted the doctor to identify what the insurance is paying for and try to limit what is covered. But I’m not happy with covering you to just December because your Daddy wants all the problems to be addressed as we can.”   “Okay.”   “And your daddy said you have mental concerns?”   “What Mental concerns? That I pee on purpose at church or school?”   “That is concerning for a ten year old, but no, something a bit more scary than that.”   “Dan, her father, is giving us until December. Even if I need to pay a higher premium… couldn’t we just pay until December and renew in November? He’ll give us longer if he realizes Cait is getting better.”   “The reason you are being given this power of attorney is you have access to insurance and he doesn’t?”   “That’s right.”   “What about DHS?”   “That’s what they used before. DHS doctors either didn’t want to look, or they missed the hernia completely the last time Dan had her to see a doctor.”   “I’ll have to go back and talk to my supervisor. How much more will you be willing to pay over what you were, if we let you renew it in December?”   “I can afford double the monthly fees with a 100 dollar deductible.”   “I’ll try to talk you into a better deal, but no promises. I do think we can get you insurance until December. I’m just afraid of what will happen if we decide we already helped her and someone in corporate says she should go back with her family.”   “Well, one step at a time, Mr. Glover. If you get us help with the Hernia, we can find other insurance for Cait if we must after that.”   “Come in tomorrow to fill out the papers. That will also be the limit for mental health since you only have the power of attorney that long, I’m afraid.”   “We’ll make it work, if you are willing.”   “Come anytime tomorrow. I’ll have papers drawn up until December, and my secretary can have you sign them if I’m busy. You have insurance until December. And your kid… She’s peeing her pants.”   Cait whispered. “Sorry.”   “I was just telling your big people, child. You didn’t do anything to be sorry about. This is why we are trying to help you see a doctor.”   As dinner time rolled around, and Cait was rebuilding Front City in the living room, the phone rang again.   Cait looked up. Did the insurance decide she’s bad and she doesn’t deserve them?   “What’s that? Yeah, we can bring her by at 8:30. No cost? What’s going on?” Eiboline was talking. “Yeah, anything that we can do to help her would be a blessing. Friends? Like her?”   “Sean, can we take Cait out to dinner tonight?” Eiboline asked.   “What’s the occasion?”   “No occasion. She’s needed at a trauma group that Harmony just told me about. A lot of the kids there have similar problems, and it pairs older kids and younger kids to help them talk to each other. Sometimes, older kids need younger kids who judge less, and sometimes, younger kids need older kids, who can teach them how to understand the difference between help and bullying.”   “What’s it going to cost us?”   “Well, that’s the beauty. It’s a low income program, so it will take DHS insurance, but also, we can pay $25 a month without any insurance. It’s not insurance based, so December dead-line or not, she won’t lose its support as long as they get their twenty-five that month.”   “Yeah, I’ll give her a bath.”   I was wearing my purple skirt and blue top. I like them. They are kind of bumpy and interesting to touch with my fingers especially over the blue top. It has designs in the fabric like a castle, but it’s hidden. It’s in the same blue. You have to look really hard to see it, but if you blind, you can see it easily. That because blind people see with their fingers. They told us that in third grade.   I licked my lips. They still tasted like barbecue chicken. There is a brown building that’s big but only a few cars are outside. Maybe it’s late.   A car stopped further back, and a little girl, maybe seven or eight years old got out and shoved with all her might to make the door shut. Then she ran up towards the doors. She saw a bigger girl with red hair in braids in front of her. The girl had red hair. Her top was too dark to see the color and her skirt was nearly knee in length.   She tapped her back as she passed and turned to face her.   “Are you here for playtime?”   “Playtime?”   “Yeah. If you are, you can follow me. You can pee your pants. It’s okay. Playtime lets you pee your pants. It’s not bad to pee your pants.”   I looked up at Daddy. “Kids don’t say that, Daddy.”   “Well, maybe she’s part of the group that was mentioned.   The girl walked through some doors that had words on the glass. P-lay-tim-?e Was that Playtime? A man was outside the door, reaching for each child’s hand, patting their back and handing them something.   “You must be Cait,” the man said. He had gray hair, blue eyes that were kind of tired looking, and his face sort of looked like Grandma’s sometimes. Daddy is strong. He never shows it, but if I had to guess, something had happened at him like Grandma. But he is trying to smile.   “Yeah. Cait. Not cat.” I looked up at him.   He took my hand. “We shake hands to let each other know that we are important.”   “Okay.”   “We safe hug, so you know that you don’t have to, so you can lean in as far as you want it, but you can pull away. That means, my body is mine. I hug you because I want to.” And he pulled me slightly patting my back. “You pull back as far as you want, and even break the hold. I won’t be mad.”   I pulled back. I don’t know him.   “Good job,” he whispered to me. I looked up at Daddy confused. He called it good when I didn’t want him to hug me?   Finally, he put a round sticker on my hand. It had a Bee on it. “Bee-u-tee-ful!” I could read that! That’s how I spell it… almost!   “Take a seat inside, please. I’ll be in there when all the kids are there.”   I think he was talking to Daddy and Grandma outside.   I looked up from the floor, and I saw these chairs in a circle… kind of… kind of like at reading circle time in second or third grade. The teacher’s chair is spaced out so she can see everyone. But in second and third grade, we sit on the floor in a circle around her. It’s like library time at school, too. But the kids… they all had stuff in their hands. Kookaberry was told to come. Grandma told me they wanted him there.   There was this really really tall kid. He had brown hair and blue eyes. He had a little red and white fox. There was this girl next to him. She was blond hair and green eyes. She had a panda in her arms. There were kids as big as really big people, like Daddy big people, but only he wasn’t apposed to not be a kid, so he couldn’t be as big as Daddy. But he was. And there was a kid the smallest is the one that touched my back on the way in. The maybe seven year old girl.   I frowned. There were ten chairs around the teacher’s chair. There were seven chairs with kids in them. I walked closer.   “If you pee your pants, your in the right group,” a boy told me. I don’t know, but I think he was a little older than me. “We have head problems. You allowed to pee your pants if you want. It’s not bad here.”   I frowned. “I didn’t.”   “You don’t have to pee your pants to be here. It’s just allowed.”   “Does kids pee their pants while in talking here?”   “Playing,” the boy said. “Yeah. We pee our pants all the time when we play. At least three or four kids in any meeting goes home in peed in pants, but we just hug someone that pees and we see it. We hug them to say… we see you, but you allowed to pull away if you don’t want hugged while you peeing your pants.”   “But… what if I poop my pants? I have a her a nya or something like that. It makes watery poops and it goes in my pants sometimes.”   The boy shrugged. “That girl over there poops her pants and doesn’t even know why. The doctors say they can’t find nothing wrong with her body but Mr. Vance says she has sickness and injuries that don’t show up on bodies. No one ever laughs. She gets extra hugs when she poops her pants.”   Cait’s eyes got as big as truck lights when she realized the girl he was pointing at. She was as tall as Grandma! She poops her pants? He can’t have pointed right. I must be looking at the wrong girl.   “What if I cry?”   “Most of us cry when we pee our pants, especially when some of us poop our pants. We cry, and then Mr. Vance stops what we are doing, and he teaches us to ask what happened. And when we find out poop happened, the pooped person gets hugs, and then he or she goes to the back with their helper-partner, and they change their underpants and put on some special clothes that Mr. Vance lets us wear, that says No such a Thing as Shame No More… No More!”   I guess Daddy and Grandma had to stay out. The man, with black and gray hair walked in behind two other kids that just came in. One of them was a boy that looked like he was the same height and weight as one of Grainne’s friends. He was probably in Junior High or something. He had sort of thick but flabby arms. He looked a little bit fat. His face looked like he had a lot of trouble with pimples. Grainne hates pimples.   Mr. Vance kept the boy next to him as he approached the teacher’s chair.   “Good evening, children. If you aren’t seated, I’d appreciate if we could all take our seats so we can get to the fun stuff.”   I sat next to the boy.   “That’s Shane, the kid next to the teacher. Shane must have been having trouble or something. He keeps having to stand by the teacher a lot this year. He has a nice mommy and daddy, but he has trouble with kids in his school and his house area,” the boy told me who had been telling me about people. “He’s gonna definitely pee his pants.”   “He is?”   “He always does,” the boy said. “But he’s really nice.”   “Hey, Johnny?” Mr. Vance whispered. “Do you remember what we talked about with letting other people tell about their problems rather than being the group reporter? I think it’s nice you are helping our new friend get comfortable, but you really shouldn’t tell other kids’ problems because you can’t really know everything. Remember?”   “Sorry. Cait was just scared because….”   “Johnny…,” Mr. Vance smiled at him softly for a minute and the boy got quiet. “That’s right. You let Cait tell us what is bothering her, son. You are really nice to make her feel comfortable, but don’t tell on your group, okay?”   “I’m sorry.”   “Young lady, can you come up here, please?”   I looked up. The man was definitely like a grandpa. He had an arm around the boy’s shoulders even though he was fourteen, and the boy wasn’t scared of him. He wasn’t fighting or shaking. I stood up. The boy looked down.   I looked down at his tan, brown, white striped shirt. I looked further down. His tan shorts were getting dark. He was doing it. He was peeing his pants?   I walked over and looked up at him. “Mister?” I looked at the boy in the eyes. “Are you okay?”   He nodded, but a tear went down his cheek.   “Are you scared?”   He shook his head no. “It’s just… I do this all the time. I want to stop, but I can’t.”   I looked down and whispered. “Me too.”   “Shane, this is your new buddy,” Mr. Vance told the boy. She’s struggling with a lot of issues, but one of the issues is almost like you. She feels scared at school and in public sometimes.”   The boy bent down to me, and he sighed. “I’m sorry your first image of me, is seeing me… being scared of being late again. I’m exactly two minutes late. I didn’t use the bathroom because I was late. I did it again even though Mr. Vance says it’s okay to be late to this group… I just… I can’t be late. It’s scary.”   I hugged him.   “Cait, hon?” Mr. Vance took my hand and backed me up. “In this group, we never force others to let us touch them. We always always seek permission. I know you were just reacting as all kids do, with empathy….”   “Apathing?”   “Yes, sweetheart. Empathy. It means with a wanting to understand and comfort a friend.”   “Oh, okay.”   “But, little lady, you are going to learn that we do our hugs in steps, so it gives people who are a little nervous of a hug time to adjust to it, and time to refuse if they want.”   “Oh.”   “Kids, stand up, please. First the little kids. Show me you know the steps to hug your big partners. Cait, watch, please.”   At the door, the man took my hand. The little kids did the same now. At the door the man put a hand on my back. The little kids put their hands on their big partner’s backs. Some of the big kids pulled back, some let the little kid rub as high as they can on their back, and some leaned in and hugged the little one back. The hug was broken when the big person pulled back.   I think my finger was in my mouth, but even though I tasted it and felt it, I couldn’t take it out.   “Now, big people, you hug your little ones. But this time, Vance went to one of the really big people, and he helped that girl do the steps. Then this boy by me, reached down and took my hands.   “Are you going to hug me?” I asked him.   “I peed,” he said. “I’m not going to do anything you don’t want. I don’t want you to think you have to hug a dirty big kid.”   “Oh. I didn’t mean that. Grandma says when I poop my pants, I’m not dirty. I just have trouble from my her an a?”   “What’s that?”   He reached a hand on my back and patted. I reached up. He shook his head. “I can’t fully hug you. I’m peeing my pants.”   “So? I pee all the time, and my Daddy puts me in his lap and even lets me pee in his lap when I’m crying.”   “He does?”   “Yeah. It’s just water, right?”   “Shane?” Mr. Vance put a hand on his shoulder. “Remember, in our group, you are not late until you are over ten minutes late. Parents have traffic, younger brothers and sisters, and sometimes crisis that they have to handle with your peers here. We have a rule. Ten minutes is not late, it’s just arriving with difficulties. And being late is okay. This isn’t school or any place where you get in trouble for being late. This is YOUR playtime.”   Shane nodded.   “Cait, how about you tell us who you are, and maybe share a fun experience where you were happy.”   “Not where I pee my pants?” I asked.   “Sweetheart, I’ll never ask anyone to tell a group about your reasons or your struggles with your bodies. Those are private, and only shared if someone wants to because they feel safe or they need help from their peer or me. Just keep it simple. Who you are and something you did that was fun.”   I smiled. I couldn’t help it. I was standing there next to a big kid that just peed his pants, and the teacher didn’t tell him to explain it, and he told him that he is allowed to be ten minutes late as normal and he’s allowed to be more late, too. And he was telling me to share something fun… not what I did bad. I think I like this place.   “My name Cait. Please don’t meow at me. I am not Caaaaat, like the animal. I am Cait… light how you say I Cait the ball… kind of… but kind of different.”   “Hi Cait,” everyone said, but the little boy was still talking. “Not caaat.”   “I have him,” she held up her Kookaberry. “Kookaberry has his own troubles. He doesn’t pee his pants, but he has been born in trouble with love, too. And I have a baby horse at my home. He just got borned last weekend. He’s mine though. Daddy says so. He name is Summerstone. He talks like… Hi yi yi. I a ha ha ham Summerstone.”   Everyone was smiling at me. No one was making fun of me. I told them and held up Kookaberry… and even the big kids had these friends in their laps they held up at the same time, and one bigger kid even put her thumb in her mouth. This was like… people like me!   I knew ghost was somewhere. I never get peace like this. I looked around at the shadows in the room, back at the door of the room, at the books on the far wall, at the round tables with stuff on them, and then back at the teacher. The ghost was hiding. The ghost… she wasn’t anywhere.   “Why you looking for that demon?” Kookaberry asked me. “Don’t let her ruin a place where you have friends. Leave her to haunt you where she always does. Don’t bring her here, okay?”   I shrugged. Kookaberry was right. I whispered up at Shane. “What a peer buddy?”   “We set up play time out side of group to be together, and in group, we help each other reminding that we are safe especially if we start to cry because someone is scared they got caught peeing. It’s really important during school. The high school girls cry the most when they pee their pants because it is somehow more scary and wrong the older you get that you pee.”   I frowned. “If your body is sick….”   “Not all of us are sick the same way, and it confuses us. I’m more sick in my head, which means I have less a reason to….”   “Shane,” Mr. Vance shook his head. “We talked about this. Your reasons for needing help are just as valid as everyone else. Don’t do that. Why don’t you take your buddy with you and sit down so we can open with story time, okay?”   Shane nodded. “Okay.”   After the playtime there, a book, playing with blocks and talking to Shane, and really having fun… I was walking out with Shane holding my hand, and I didn’t even know I peed until I was in the car and the ghost showed up as the car started moving.   “You peed.”   I took my thumb out of my mouth. “Yeah. I did. And I don’t care.”   The ghost popped out in an instant.   Mr. Vance was talking to Grandma and Daddy all the way to the car about what his goals are with the group, and he warned them that my buddy pees his pants, too. He said all the kids that go there have incontinence problems of one kind or another. It’s a support group, and the big kids need this even as much as little kids. “Without it, teenagers die.”   I remembered that last part he said.   I scooted up in my seat. “Grandma? Mister Vance is my favorite teacher ever. But how come he said without the group, that teenagers die?”   “I don’t know why he said that specifically to us. But I know he has his reasons,” Grandma said. “Just be kind to your peer friend, okay? He has trouble making it to the toilet, I guess.”   “He pees when he’s scared he’s late. He told me.” I told Grandma. Not to tell on him or tell his secrets, but so Grandma doesn’t get mad at him for peeing his pants like Father at home does with Grainne.   Chapter 73 I Have A Peer that “Gets It!” Cait bounced in the back seat with Kookaberry in her wet lap and she was talking about the group non-stop from leaving all the forty minutes it took to get back to the barn.   “First, Mr. Vance makes us start doing contact in a way that doesn’t force the other person to touch us, even if we want to hold them cause they crying. He says it’s always choice, even if we need a hug. If they don’t want us to give it, they always have their big people. He says you hold hands first. Hands is a safe zone. We always hold hands. We pass stuff, we greet with hands, we do stuff like high fives and everything. Hands is safe. If they pull their hands back, we know to stop.”   Cait looked down at her hands. “I keep putting my thumb in my mouth. I hope they don’t get mad my thumb is wet all the time.”   “Shane didn’t,” Kookaberry said.   “Then,” Cait looked up as Grandma looked back at her listening. “If they take our hands, we put a hand on their back. And that’s the hug. If they want to deep make it, I think that how he said it. Anyway, if they want the hug they can move more in. If they like the touch, they can stay where they are, and if they don’t like the hug then, they can pull back away. It not because they hate us, but because they need to be okay first sometimes. Mister Vance called it space.”   She was rambling, but she was so happy, she couldn’t help it.   “He read a book about a boy that saw a scary toilet. At the end of the book, he peed his pants, but his friends hugged him and said that sometimes, it’s just scary. It’s okay. After that, we played like… playing. Even high school kids were playing. Blocks, beads, stuff animal world, everything. Really big kids played and these two really big almost big people like your age, they play and peed their pants, and it’s okay, there!”   “Daddy?” Cait realized they were home. “What happens when the time is up in December. Do I lose my new playgroup?”   Daddy frowned. “As long as you stay with us, no, Cait. The power of attorney is limited though, not only in health care, but in allowing how long we keep you. Your parents have a right to get you after December. But we’ll talk to your Father and Mother, and maybe there will be enough progress that they let you stay until at least next summer. Maybe you’ll be healthy; both in mind and body by then.”   Cait sighed. “Can you pick me up? I peed my pants at group, but you never cared before if I pee in your lap.”   “I’ll carry, you, Pet. You don’t have to tell me you’re wet. It has nothing to do with whether I pick you up, sweetheart.”   There were no nightmares that night.   Cait was out the next morning, in her own pen where Daddy put both mother and Summerstone again. Cait was brushing him.   “I found someone that doesn’t look at me like I’m a alien,” Cait told Summerstone. “Shane has some of the same troubles, and he bigger than me. He wets his pants at school, too. He gets scared. He knows how it is, the recess rule. He gets it!”   Summerstone’s head went up and down.   “He even peed his pants right there in front of everyone just because he was two minutes late. So I know he’s not lying. He couldn’t hold it no more and peed his pants because of being late is worse than wetting his pants. That is exactly me at school. It because the recess rule and Father. Father’s belt if I don’t come in recess on time.”   Summerstone’s tail swished.   “The the other baby horses talk to you yet? You know, if you go to horse school, I will be really really mad at Daddy if he beats you just for being a second late from recess. You go potty okay? You don’t let horse school make you scared like me. You tell them that your Mama and your owner, Cait, that we said you allowed to pee your pants if they don’t let you go, and then we going to yell at the teacher, not our baby horse who doesn’t want to do it.”   Summerstone pushed his head on my chest. I patted his soft but firm nose. “You safe here, Summerstone. We love you, here.”   “Wh..ha..hat’s the re..he...cess… rule?”   Cait looked up at Summerstone. “Don’t you get recess?”   “Do-ho..hon’t know what it is.”   “Well, you get playtime at school, but when it time to come in, it time. Then you don’t ask to leave the room for forty minutes. So I take recess now, at… say it’s little hand twelve and big hand twelve. Recess ended. Now, forty counts for asking to go toilet… so I count the little hand to the 1… and the big hand goes 1 to 12, so that’s twelve minutes. And I have to wait forty. See?”   “So ho ho… you have to wa..ha..hait….” But even Summerstone is a baby, so he couldn’t really do the math.   “That’s like 12… 18… 24… for 2… 30… 36… is 3… you have to wait like four hours to pee?”   Cait nodded. “Yeah.”   “What if you didn’t go at recess?”   “Doesn’t matter. Not allowed to asked. So… you wait… or you pee your pants… of if you are bad like Cait, you poop your pants, too.”   “I don’t like your school,” Kookaberry fronwed.   “Me, too. But all kids have to go, so it not something even Daddy can stop.”   Eiboline walked out to the fence where I was in with Summerstone talking to him. “Cait? Can you come here, hon?”   The little girl patted Summerstone. “Go to Mama, boy. I’ll be back.”   Eiboline smiled. “Your mom wrote, but I found this tucked in the letter.”   “Grainne answered me?”   “No…. It’s too early for her to have had time to read your letter and answer it. This is her writing to you.”   A cereal box was ripped apart and black marker was written on the insides of the cereal box like paper.   Dear Cait.   I am doing what you asked me. I know that you were right. It hurts to hold it outside for a long time. Daddy doesn’t hit me if I do it in the field. I told Clo to do it, too. She did it on Tuesday. This letter is going in the mail tonight, but you probably get it on Friday.   Cait? Do you still pee your pants there? Daddy says the cousins are wrong. He says they can’t fix you because. I’m not going to tell why he said because. You already know his words. You don’t read it here.   Daddy saw me trying to go to the bathroom on Monday. I started leaking by the bathroom when he was in there. He looked at my feet. He said pull down your pants. I got scared. I peed on the floor. He said Goddamn you! He said go to bed. Now. I think he’s going to make me do the rule you have. You know. No getting up at night now. You pee in the night. Don’t make a mess. He talked to mom about it. I’m scared he’s going to make me do it. It only happened once. I have to be careful if I don’t want that rule.   Cait? Do you have anyone to play with? Do you have to work all the time? Daddy says you working there still. He said the cows are still going to get milked, and they have a worker for free. Of course you have to milk cows. Cows can kill. Are you scared?   Stupid Cereal box! No more room. I love you.   Grainne.   Grandma read the letter to me by the fence, and then she handed it to me. “I wanted to not read some of that,” Grandma told me. “But then, you wouldn’t trust me, when you started to read. I knew I had to. I am sorry Grainne is having a hard time.”   Grainne’s letter filled the whole brown inside of the cereal box in black marker. She found paper that daddy wouldn’t mind. She hided her letter in Mama’s letter.   “Grainne has to pee the bed,” I looked up at Grandma. “That’s my rule. You stay in bed and you are wet, Father doesn’t get mad and look where you peed even if you didn’t. If you not wet, he says where you hide it, and he smacks your face until you find a way to make a wet on the floor to show him. Then he spanks you for lying, but you stop being in trouble of him being mad.”   Grandma was shaking as Cait explained to her the rule.   “So, your eldest sister… will be expected to lie there awake, knowing she can usually get to the toilet, but be scared into peeing on herself in bed?”   Cait frowned. “So she doesn’t make a mess to the bathroom. She peed her pants, Grandma. The ghost made her pee her pants in the house. That was my fault. I didn’t do the deal right on Tuesday, and I didn’t pee my pants before you and Daddy saw me, and then I pooped too early after the second deal. I was bad, and now, Grainne is in trouble with daddy just like the ghost said would happen!”   “Grandma can call Daddy, hon.”   “NO! You can’t! Grainne will get it worse. Not only telling me she has to do it in bed now, but teaching me to tell you about our family private secrets. He gets really mad at Grainne and Clodagh when the family secrets are told. They tell them that’s their job, to keep us little sisters from telling people that he has daughters that are too stupid to stay dry and too willful than use the toilet. What willful means?”   “Willful means you are stubborn or you are going to do what you want no matter what trouble it causes,” Grandma frowned. “And Cait? Sometimes, the problem with abuse, is it takes your Will away from you. Your Will is your ability to do good things for yourself!”   “What’s abuse?”   Grandma shook her head. “Well…, It’s like the insurance guy asking you if you recently peed your pants even though it’s not his business. It’s any time a teacher made you hold it when it was easy to see you were going to wet yourself. It’s your daddy telling you to purposefully staying in bed to pee, even though there is a good chance you can make it… and even if you pee in the hall… that should be encouraged over lying there and just giving up and pooping yourself to stay out of trouble. Does that make sense?”   Cait shrugged. “I cause trouble. It’s easier for people to clean up one place than two or three.”   Chapter 74 Cait Breaked The Diaper Wall   Grandma shook her head. “Well, we have an appointment to get the papers from the insurance this afternoon, and then we are going to see that doctor again. So go say goodbye to your baby, then we’ll get ready to leave, Love.”   A squirrel on the ground glanced left and right and chattered in its little head to its own ghost. Do you see anything? It looked at the two giant long legged things with pink legs at least on one of them, and as they walked away from the fence, the ghost relaxed and chittered to the outside squirrel.   The car pulled out of the drive, and a cat in a tree over the drive, watched as the three people inside it seemed to control the car in their own ways. It was a wonder that the same thing could need one person one minute and three people another.   “They’re going to fix my body now?” Cait asked leaning up from the backseat towards Grandma in the front passenger.   “We hope so, sweetheart. We are going to pick up proof of insurance on the way, and then we’ll be able to see if that doctor who saw you before is in.”   “What if she fixes it, but I still do it?”   “I don’t know, Pet. But what I do know, is your Daddy often says, one problem at a time, and right now, I think that’s great advice. Don’t you?”   “Okay.”   Cait sat back, put her thumb in her mouth on purpose this time… she lifted her thumb, looked at it, and stuffed it in her mouth, and she hugged Kookaberry. The hospital was scary. Surgery was scary. Her chest hurt a little bit.   “You don’t have to get surgery,” Ghost just-appeared in the car next to her. “Just tell the truth. Tell the doctor you don’t have this her nee ya, and that you just do it on purpose. Do it in front of the doctor. Poop your pants in front of the doctor so she won’t want to touch you.”   “It doesn’t work like that,” Kookaberry frowned at the ghost. “If she just poops her pants, the doctor will just change her. Besides, the doctor saw her inside with a magic screen. She knows what’s inside.”   “But the inside is Cait’s fault. She can….”   Chomp. “Ghost is wrong. Inside isn’t a human’s ability. Inside has a place where something is just is, and if it’s not, it can’t be put back just by thinks of it.”   Cait looked out the window. “My chest hurts,” she whispered.   Cait was in the car with Grandma, and they waited while Daddy just went in to get the papers from the ni sure ace people. The pain in her chest felt like she was drinking cold water, like ice water, with her inside her chest, and it was floating at her chest and not inside her stomach where it should be.   “Can I just poop my pants?” she whispered too low for anyone to hear.   “You should,” the ghost whispered to her. “Make your aunt think you did it because you want. Maybe she will tell Daddy that you just did it and you don’t need the doctor.”   Chomp! “Grandma, stupid Ghost, Grandma! And Grandma smarter than you, Smarter than Father, and smarter than even the doctor. She knows Cait.”   “Cait, hon?”   “See?” Kookaberry stared the Ghost until it dis-just-appeared.   “Yeah?” Cait asked holding her chest.   “It’s okay to be scared, child. And if you need to, you can pee your pants. Grandma doesn’t expect you won’t. This is really scary, and you don’t know what will happen. The doctor expects you to wet your pants, too, hon. She’s dealt with kids that have hurts like yours, and she knows it’s scary and that your body isn’t yours, right now. She won’t yell. If she did, Grandma will teach her how you are supposed to treat kids with scary problems.”   “Yeah,” Cait’s voice fell.   “I told you, Cait. Grandma knows you want to poop. She just said wet so you don’t feel like she’s watching you. She doesn’t have to watch. She knows you. She been cleaning you since you got here. She loves you.”   “Yeah,” Cait’s voice got a little louder.   “What if I did do it on purpose, Kooks?”   “Grandma said to do it. She said it’s expected. Why should you have to go and do it on a scary time, instead of just doing it on your time. Grandma knows you are scared, even if you do it on our time and not the scary time of doing it in front of other people. Who knows if it will come out in the big room where they wait you to be called? All those people watching? Do it now is your choice, and didn’t Daddy say it not about if you do it but giving you the choice? You tell him you did it on purpose and see if he’s telling the truth, about if he cares it is your choice. He says it should be your choice.”   “What if he kicked me out?”   “Grandma won’t let him. Grandma told you to go ahead. She knows you gonna poop. So just do it.”   Cait sighed.   “Look, let’s say they would kick you out. Isn’t it better to know now instead of find out after all this scary stuff, that they kick you out and you find out it was a lie all this time?”   Cait held Kooks closer. “Can I hold you while I poop my pants?”   “Yeah. Squeeze me with all your might until you pooping is done. You are my person. I want you to squeeze me if you’re scared. Then you don’t accidentally pinch someone that not made for it.”   “I can honestly poop and pee my pant with you?”   “Yeah. Do it. Do you think the little boy never peed on me?”   “He did?”   “I don’t remember. But he probably did. I don’t deny little big people the right to pee or poop. I am here for comfort, not judgment. And I won’t remember if you pottied on me too, if I am put in the hands of someone else. Your secrets stay your own unless someone else tells. I never tell my big people’s secrets.”   “Okay.”   Cait leaned up. “Grandma? I don’t want the people in the hospital waiting place to see me do it.”   “Hon?”   Daddy was walking back from the building.   “I want to do it on purpose… poop my pants.”   Grandma turned to face her. “Baby. You’re scared?”   Cait nodded.   Grandma got out and she started to move around the car. Daddy stopped and they looked at one another as she went to the back door.   “Is Cait okay?”   “She needs comfort, Sean. She’s about to poop her pants. She wants permission to do it right now, on her own terms instead of in front of other people.”   “I can take her in the building.”   “Sean? I think if she thought she could make it, she would have asked me to take her in. I don’t think she has a choice but poop her pants, and she’s scared. Let her just do it.”   He nodded. “I’d never tell her not to poop her pants. I want it to be her choice. I just want it to be… her choice. Not fear scaring her into it.”   Cait felt the tightness in her chest, the gentle pushing at her bottom. She could hold it and go inside, if she wanted to, but she didn’t want to. She didn’t want to get out of the car. She hoped Grandma won this time.   “Sean. Let’s trust she knows what she wants?” Eiboline whispered. “For the child’s sake, let’s trust her to know if she wants to poop her pants, or if she wants us to try to take her.”   “Alright.”   Sean went to Cait’s window, all the way around the car to her window. He motioned for her to roll it down. Cait did, her butt still trying to resist it coming out.   “Cait, Auntie has this magic I told you about before, where women sense things. I don’t have that. Can you tell me if it’s your choice to poop your pants, or if it’s fear that I will get mad if someone sees you do it, before I agree to let you poop your pants?”   “I want to. I’m sorry. I really want to. Not because you not embarrassed. Because they see after it. But I don’t have to let no one watching me do it assept Daddy and Grandma. You said it my choice. That why you want me fix, so I can do it if I want, and not because I can’t choose… or….”   “That’s exactly right, Pet. You go ahead and poop your pants, then hon. I’ll drive slow so you have time to finish going in your pants, okay?”   “Honest? You letting me choose to do it?”   “Honest, Pet. We have clean clothes for you with us. We knew you’d pee at some point. This is scary. It’s better you choose where it happens. You do it, baby, and we’ll clean you up before the doctor sees… in the car even, if you aren’t scared of being changed in the car.”   “I like being changed in the car better. Less people will see.”   “Then we’ll keep driving around until say you finished going potty, and then we’ll pull over, change your pants, and then take you into the hospital as if nothing happened, is that okay?”   “I love you, Daddy and Grandma!”   I sighed as I got out of the car, my messy skirt and panties on the floor of the car, but Daddy picked me up and turned my head away from the mess. “No going back on doing what you knew to be right for yourself, little Pet. You decided, and now we go in clean. Put your thumb in your mouth if you want, and hold your Kookaberry. Kookaberry knows why you chose this, and he chooses you, baby.”   And like that, the Kinsellas went into the hospital together as a family. Daddy even carried the ten year old up to the register place, and he whispered in at the lady. “This is Cait. You’ll direct your questions to her. I’ll help her with what she needs help answering, but talk to her. She’s a big girl.”   Cait was handed papers and documents as they asked, and she pushed them to the nurse people inside there.   “Can you give us a pee sample?” the lady asked.   “Only if you want to go out to the car and get my messy panties. I went potty in the car.”   “That’s alright. We can proceed without it. You’ll need to do some other tests, though.”   “Okay.”   The Kinsellas stayed right by Cait’s side the whole time they were testing her and from start to finish, if Eiboline needed the toilet, Sean held Cait. If Sean went to the toilet, he put her right on Eiboline’s lap in the wait periods. They kept her in their laps until all the tests… the most painful and scary, the blood taking was done right in Sean’s lap while she peed her pants… on purpose… on him.   They were finally in a room where they put a second bed.   “We have a policy that a parent can stay the night with kids under thirteen in these situations. We even provide a bed for you.”   “Thank you so much.”   Cait looked up at the nurse. “I peed on the blood test. I scared and I hurted, and I peed on purpose. I wanted… I chose to pee my pants. It made it hurt less. Because I focused to pee in front of people made the needle not get feeling in my arm.”   The nurse smiled. “You’re not the first one to pee your pants, but now, I understand why some twelve year olds do it. Thank you for explaining that.”   Later, in Cait’s little bedroom for the night, people set Cait up with what she needed, and then a nurse came in to start getting her ready for surgery that would happen the next day.   The nurse with the medicine in a bottle that Cait immediately recognized from last weekend flashed in front of Sean. “We need Cait to….”   “Wrong person,” Sean frowned. “I will hold her while you explain it to her, and I’ll help her understand what you need her to, but she’s smart. Tell her why she has to drink it and I promise you, she will understand and she’ll do it even if she thought you were being mean. That’s how she is right now. Explaining it to her makes you seem less mean.”   “Oh. Usually, kids understand when parents….”   “Trust me. She doesn’t fully understand or trust parents anymore… not in the traditional way a child should trust them. You will find the notes with your doctor if it’s important for understanding. But this little brave warrior has had to fight a world for a long time without the parents that protect her. So, trust me, she will trust YOU a lot more if you talk to HER, and not just to me. She trusts me, but that’s because I make sure SHE gets to ask questions and understand.”   The nurse sighed and she approached Cait. “Hey, little warrior? Can you climb in one of your big people’s lap. I have something scary to explain to help you get ready for tomorrow. I need your full attention.” She saw Cait’s raising thumb that was slowly climbing to her mouth.   “Yes, Cait, your thumb can go in your mouth, but not when you’re talking. I want to understand what you say if you ask me something.”   “Okay.” I liked this lady.   “Do you know what this medicine is?” The nurse asked me.   “Yeah. It makes me poop my pants so it all comes out and I can pee easy again. It makes my chest hurt less, too, when I want to poop.”   “Well, tonight it will make you potty your pants. We are going to put you in a diaper.”   “No! No diapers. I not a baby. I poop my own underwears.”   “Cait, we need you to wear a diaper….”   “NO!”   Sean looked up at the nurse. “Why do you need a diaper on her. If I pay for the bed or sheets, does it matter if she poops her pants?”   The nurse frowned. “Clean up is….”   “Eiboline will stay with her. Eiboline will clean her up.”   “That’s not how it’s done….”   “Cait will not be forced into diapers without a good reason, a reason that would make you diaper an adult and it is more understandable than making a mess.”   The nurse sighed. “I have to get a head nurse. I’m not allowed to change protocol on my own. I’ll be right back. I’m sorry I scared you, Cait. It’s just the rules.”   “Like the school forty minute rule before you ask to use a toilet after recess?”   “They do that at school?”   “Yeah, in fourth grade. That makes it hard to not pee my pants at school though.”   “You know what? Screw it. I’ll just say I forgot and thought you were sixteen or something.”   I really like this lady!   A head nurse came in with the nurse that let her wear her boy panties. “She’s not in a diaper.”   “She’s sixteen,” the nurse said.   “She doesn’t look sixteen me,” the head nurse frowned. “How old are you, child?”   “Nine… almost ten! I WILL NOT WEAR A DIAPER, and you not making me. If a sixteen year old doesn’t have to, then my Daddy says I don’t have to, too.”   Daddy had already left by this time, but Grandma was still there.   “Pet is right,” Grandma said. “She’s a smart little girl, and there is no reason you can give that should make a ten year old kid feel like less a person, that you wouldn’t have reason to tell a sixteen year old to.”   “We put diapers on sixteen year olds,” the head nurse said.   “They choice or your choice?” Cait asked.   “Well, we tell them how much better it is, and then most of them choose the diaper. You’re a child, so of course your first thought is… if I have a choice, I’m not a baby. You don’t understand why a diaper is a good choice.”   Cait looked up at Grandma. She was getting confused. “Did I choose bad?”   “No, Pet.” and then Grandma turned her attention to the head nurse. “How about you explain to this little lady why a diaper is a better choice? You are not putting her in a diaper unless you use her language to convince her, not scare her. I’ll call my husband. He knows how to talk to you bureaucrats.”   The nurse sighed. “Teenagers understand….”   “Understand what, exactly?” Eiboline asked. “That they have to give up their dignity to get help or that the diaper actually helps them not poop their pants?”   The nurse licked her lips.   The junior nurse whispered to the head nurse. “I lied on purpose. That kid is really smart, and her Daddy figure will have your job. I’ve seen his kind before. You need to tell Cait why and make it something you can tell her Daddy or they will be mad.”   “You think you know more than a head nurse?” the head nurse asked.   “She knows more than you!” Cait said jutting her chin out. “Chomp her, Kooks! She’s being taken by the stupid Ghost again!”   “I can’t,” Kooks whispered to Cait. “She’s a real person. What she’s doing is wrong, but all I can chomp are lies, not what she’s doing.”   “Kooks says you are wrong, and he only can’t chomp you because he can’t make you not be mean!”   The nurse shook her head. “I’ve never heard of a mother letting her child backtalk hospital professionals.”   Cait held up Kooks to her mouth. It was Cait’s voice, but the bear’s face that said it. “You not a Professor on als.”   The head nurse walked out. “The director will be in shortly to explain hospital rules,” hung on the air as the lady walked out. The young nurse looked at the ground. “I guess I’ll have to explain to my boyfriend.”   “Explain what?” Eiboline asked.   “Why… I got fired and we are going to be short this month.”   Cait frowned. “They fired you because you called me sixteen?”   “No, Cait. Because I told the head nurse off. That was my choice. You didn’t have anything to do with it.”   “Kooks made you tell us. That why you said it,” Cait said.   The nurse looked up at Cait and smiled. “It’s so nice that you still believe in Kooks. You keep believing in him a little longer, Cait. He’s really helping you.”   “Cait, come with Grandma,” Eiboline was not going to let nurses corner her little cousin while she went to call Sean for support.   Grandma walked with Cait in hand down a hall, and a choice of halls at a nursing station. She glanced around and finally found the signs that indicated public toilets and phones. They walked in that direction until they found a payphone.   A quarter later and a few words of love connection with Sean soon led into the reason for the call as Grandma told Daddy what was going on….   “The Hospital director is supposed to come and tell us about hospital rules. They are trying to force Cait to wear a diaper, and I fear police involvement might happen.”   Cait saw the pre-pee in Grandma’s shaking and her voice. She was scared. She might be trying to pee her pants… but she’s keeping it inside strong to protect Cait.   Cait looked down as she peed her boy underpants under the hospital gown.   Grandma and Daddy talked a little more, and eventually Grandma seemed to come to an agreement with Daddy.   “Okay. I’ll call Harmony. You call your brother-in-law’s lawyer?”   Cait looked up. Harmony? Does Harmony control the hospital? Grandma took Cait to the bathroom, not to change her. Her panties were in the hospital room, but so Grandma could finish peeing in the toilet. Cait wondered if Grandma did have pre-pee in her panties, but she respected her Grandma too much to ask or look.   It was an hour before the junior nurse came back to the hospital room.   “Nurse Sandra has been asked to leave for the night,” the younger nurse whispered. “The director says I’m going to get paid extra tonight because he needs me to handle you specifically until your surgery.” The younger nurse was talking directly to CAIT. “My name is nurse Elora. I will be your nurse until surgery, okay?”   “I like you,” Cait told Elora. “You talk to me.”   “I peed my pants,” Cait told Elora not a moment later. “You can stay if you want, but Grandma gonna change my wet boy panties.”   “Why boy panties?” Elora asked.   “Because they give me more time to get to the bathroom before pre-pee becomes real pee. I meet, that if you see it… It’s pee on the floor and I get in trouble, but if it hiding in my panties… it not real pee yet, and I don’t get in trouble.”   “Does your Uncle and Aunt hit you for peeing?”   “No. They the ones that let me pick the boy panties because I wanted more time to get to the toilet. No. It just school gets mad if I pee in the chair, but school has forty minute rule for going to toilet. And then if I move from where I am after pee is on the floor at Mysery home, then I get trouble for making pee bigger… but boy panties means I can move further and maybe get on the toilet before it pees out of my panties.”   Elora looked at Eiboline.   Eyboline just shrugged. “Cait needs help. Why not let her be confident? God didn’t invent underwears and who wears what, did he?”   “If you read the book with me,” Cait showed her the Xanth novel: A Spell for Chameleon, “It would be really fun. I don’t read good, but I can use a ruler and a biggafier to help me, and then hard words, you can tell me.” She looked up. “But you busy, right?”   “Well, the new head nurse told me that my only job tonight, is to watch you. You are allowed not to wear diapers, but we are more worried about poop going all over you because of it, so I need to make sure you are not sitting in it, and actually, your big person isn’t supposed to change you while in hospital care. It’s a law thing. I hope that’s okay.”   “You gonna tell me bad girl and tell me how bad pooping my pants is? Cause I already know it’s bad.”   “No, Cait. Like you said, you already know what is normal. This isn’t your fault. It’s to help you. The reason we usually put little kids in diapers, anyone under twelve, I mean, is that it keeps the mess on your butt to reduce the spread of being uncomfortable, and the chance that you might get sick from sleeping in a mess if we don’t get to you right away because sometimes the hospital gets busy.”   “Hey! If the first lady said that…. I don’t know… maybe I would say diapers is okay. But she made it sound like I baby! That why I said NO. Daddy said I choice. But that doesn’t mean I make stupid choice!”   “Well, diapers off the table unless you request it. I’m your nurse tonight. The only way I’ll be called away from you is if they need everyone for an emergency, so you can just wear your boy panties, if you want.”   “Okay. See? I told you I like you.”   Elora did it different than Daddy. When I got a word that’s hard, she said okay. Look. She wrote the word on a paper. And then she covered the part of the word with paper and two papers even to make only the part to read. And breaked the word so I read as I know how. And then she move the paper so I read two parts together and then all three. It was slower than reading with Daddy. But I learned to read Chameleon for real. She put paper on C then AM then says say together. I read Cham.   “That’s why the word is Chameleon, Cait. It has the rules in the word you already know. You just have to find the rules.”   “Okay!”   We read pages 11 to 25 together while Elora was reading with me, until I fell asleep. I pooped my pants again, but she didn’t say nothing about it. She pulled the blankets back as I was yawning.   “May I change you?” She asked me?   “Yeah. Sorry. It just happens.”   “That’s the medicine, Cait. It’s supposed to just happen. Your body has a lot of reasons it can’t control it. Not just the hernia. You are a younger child, so it’s not going to take as long to go through you, and you don’t always feel it coming out because it may have done some nerve damage to you. We don’t know yet.”   “What nervous damage?”   “Nerve damage means that if your body gets too much pain too often, it stops feeling it as pain. Pain is our body’s way to warn us, to protect us from doing something that hurts. Like we don’t put our hand in a fire because we feel the heat. If you had really bad nerve damage in your hand, you could catch fire and die if you put your hand in the fire. But because of pain—when it works right, it won’t let you die.”   “Oh! That’s like Daddy’s bulls in the pens by the house! They warn us snakes are there. They can’t kill all the snakes, but we know they there.”   “That’s right, Cait! It’s exactly like that. The bulls are your farm’s nerves.”    

Maybe this should be a section in the stories forum. Then each request could become a topic.  Any replies will then be related to that story only. May make it easier to reply to that thread as well. 

I have placed it on Amazon.  UK Link - https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0HJNTCYGK?dplnkId=c0abb019-6665-4988-b055-2e265bf00674 USA Link - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0HJNTCYGK?dplnkId=491d918d-9ac0-48e2-a94a-2818b9d604de Canada Link - https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B0HJNTCYGK?dplnkId=526bcbee-cd94-42ee-a017-229158d2401a I have only done a Nappy Version, but if you want me to crate a Diaper Version, please let me know. 

Chat support on my desktop

The first chapter was fast paced to sort of continue the positive vibe of the first story. I also wanted to start it in a very similar fashion to the first (the bus ride). Stuff is going to slow down as Jacob really starts to wrestle with his love of wearing diapers, his friendships (especially Olivia), and his little brother.