Story and Art Forum

The Ghost and Mr Chicken with Don Knotts.

They are treating cars like amusement park rides now?  You have to be 54 inches tall to ride?  For those who think I'm serious, I'm being facetious again.

Not me , someone on FB. I saw a post the other day about a "Law"

Chapter 54: Breakfast Discussions The kitchen smelled of coffee and toast and the faint, sweet trace of barrier cream that had followed him down the stairs. Grace was sitting at the table with a mug in both hands, her back straight, her eyes on Millie. Millie sat across from her with her canvas bag on the floor between her feet, unzipped, its contents visible: the wipes, the cream, the rolled-up spare pull-up in its plastic sleeve. She had a piece of toast in one hand and was talking between bites, unhurried, professional, as if the morning's work had been nothing more than a warm-up for the real business of the day. "—and I'll need at least two spares in the bag," she was saying. "Three if we're out all day. Does he usually go through more than one during the day, or is it mainly dribbles?" "Depends," Grace said. "If he drinks enough and goes when he's told, one pull-up can last. But he doesn't always go when he's told. He'll say he doesn't need to and then twenty minutes later there's a wet patch." Millie nodded. "I'll keep him on sixy-minute intervals like you said. Shorter if he's drinking a lot, I think. And I'll do a proper check at each stop. Not just ask him, but actually look, you know." Liam pulled out a chair and sat down. Neither of them paused. Grace pushed the cereal box toward him without looking, the way you'd slide a bowl across to a dog while continuing a phone call. He poured. He chewed. He listened to two women plan his bladder like a delivery route. Stops, frequencies, contingencies for delays. "What about the cream?" Grace asked. "Should I get you extra?" "I've got my own. The hospital stuff is better for him. Thicker, lasts longer. But yours is fine for evenings." Millie glanced at Liam. "How's it feeling? The cream. Is it still stinging?" He looked at her. She was asking him a medical question at the breakfast table, in the same tone she might ask someone to pass the butter. As if the state of his groin were a reasonable topic between the cereal and the orange juice. "It's fine," he said. Millie held his gaze for a moment, assessing whether "fine" was data or deflection, and then turned back to Grace. It wasn't the conversation that did it. It was the ease. The warmth between them, the collegial shorthand of two people who had found a shared project and were enjoying the competence of the other. Grace was more relaxed than Liam had seen her in days. Millie was in her element. They were a team, and the project was him, and the project was going well. He put his spoon down. "Why did she have to be there?" Grace stopped. Millie stopped. The kitchen was suddenly very quiet: the hum of the fridge and the tick of the radiator and the distant scrape of James moving a chair in the living room. "Sophie," Liam said. He was looking at the table. "This morning. Up there. Why couldn't she just go downstairs? Just for five minutes. That's all it would have taken." Grace looked at Millie. A small, deferring glance. This is yours. Millie set her toast down and wiped her fingers on a napkin. She turned her body toward him, giving him her full attention, the way she probably turned toward Marcus when Marcus asked a question she'd been expecting. "Okay," she said. "That's a fair question. And I think you already know part of the answer, but let me walk you through it." She paused. Not for effect, but to find the right starting point, the way someone does when they're about to explain something they've thought about carefully. "Your mum was doing it the other way before I got here. Hiding it. Timing everything around Sophie's movements, sneaking to the bathroom when she wasn't looking, trying to keep it all behind closed doors. And you know what happened?" Liam didn't answer. He didn't need to. He knew what had happened. He'd lived it. "It fell apart," Millie said. Simply. Without blame. "Not because your mum wasn't trying. She was trying really hard. But you were fighting her on every check. Every change became a negotiation, and the negotiations took time, and the time meant the schedule slipped, and the schedule slipping meant accidents. And eventually Sophie found out anyway." The words sat in his stomach like cold water. She wasn't wrong. That was the unbearable part. She was describing exactly what had happened, and she was describing it as a systems failure, as if his resistance had been a design flaw in a machine rather than the last desperate act of a person trying to hold on to something. "So here's the thing," Millie continued. "I need a routine that works. Same place, same time, same steps, every morning. If I have to find an empty bathroom, or wait for Sophie to leave, or improvise a different spot depending on who's where, the whole thing gets wobbly. And when it gets wobbly, that's when things go wrong." She looked at him steadily. Warm, patient, immovable. "And think about it from Sophie's side. If she has to get up and leave her own room every morning because you need changing, that's her holiday being shaped around your routine. She's the one on the stairs in her pajamas, waiting for me to finish. She's the one who can't get dressed in her own space until I've done your cream and your pull-up. That's not fair on her, is it?" Liam opened his mouth. Closed it. The argument was a trap. If he said yes, it is fair, she should leave, he was saying that Sophie's mornings should revolve around his nappy changes. If he said nothing, the silence was agreement. "And the other thing," Millie said, leaning forward slightly. "If Sophie has to leave every time I come up, what does that tell her? What does she start thinking?" "I don't—" "She starts feeling like she's living with something dangerous. Something she has to be protected from. She hears the front door and thinks: right, Millie's here, I need to get out. She starts timing her mornings around you. And the whole thing becomes this big... event. Every day. And events are stressful. For everyone." "But if she just stays," Millie said, "and I just get on with it, quietly, quickly, and we all carry on with our morning, then after a few days it's just... part of the routine. She won't even notice." Claire appeared in the doorway. She had a mug of coffee and the slightly too-alert expression of someone who'd been listening from the hall and had decided the moment was right. "That's exactly it," Claire said, sitting down. "We tried the other way, love. We tried keeping it all hidden and separate and secret, and look where it ended up. Sophie finding out in the middle of the night because she thought you were on drugs." She shook her head. "Secrets don't work in a cabin this size. They just don't. So we do it properly this time. Out in the open, nice and calm, no drama." She took a sip of coffee. Claire had a way of talking that made everything sound like common sense, as if she were explaining the weather, or the best way to stack a dishwasher. "And honestly, from Sophie's perspective, this is much better. She knows what's happening. She knows it's handled. She doesn't have to worry or wonder or tiptoe around. She can just get on with her holiday." "It's not — it's not her I'm worried about," Liam said. His voice was tight. "It's me. She saw everything. She was right there, and she—" "And that's exactly why we keep it normal," Grace said. Her voice was quieter than Claire's, more measured, but it carried the same certainty. "If we start shuffling her out and hiding you away, we're telling her that what she saw this morning was something terrible. Something to be ashamed of. And once she starts thinking that way, it gets harder. For everyone." She paused. Chose her next words with care. "Including you. Because then every time she walks back in, you're both thinking about it. The thing she had to leave for. The thing behind the closed door. Whereas if she's just there, and it's just morning, and Millie does her job and everyone moves on..." She let the sentence trail. She didn't need to finish it. The logic had its own gravity. From the living room, James cleared his throat. The sound carried. Deliberate. An announcement of presence. He appeared in the kitchen doorway, mug in hand, the posture of a man who had been sitting with a newspaper and pretending not to listen and had run out of pretence. "I just wonder," he said carefully, looking at no one in particular, "whether Sophie actually wants to be there for all of that. It's a lot, isn't it? For a young girl. Seeing someone else's..." He trailed off, circling the word he couldn't land on. "She might just be too polite to say." Rob was behind him. Not in the doorway, further back, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, half in the conversation and half out of it. He gave a single nod. "Bit much," he said. Something shifted in Liam's chest. His dad and Rob. They could see it. They could see that making Sophie sit through a nappy change was unreasonable, and they were saying so, and for one brief, startling moment he had allies in the room. Grace turned to James with the patient expression she used when he said something she'd already considered and dismissed. "She was absolutely fine, James. Ask Millie. She didn't blink." "She was calm the whole time," Millie confirmed. "We chatted. She told me about Stavkroa. It was really natural." Claire, to Rob, with the warm certainty of a woman who knew her daughter: "Sophie can handle a lot more than you give her credit for, love. She's not going to faint at the sight of a nappy." Rob said nothing more. James retreated into his mug. The moment closed — not because the men were persuaded, but because their argument had been about Sophie, and the women were telling them Sophie was fine, and they didn't have the words for what they actually meant, which was that it wasn't about Sophie at all. Liam heard it happen. He heard the small, precise sound of his only allies being disarmed by the wrong argument. Footsteps on the stairs. Light. Quick. Sophie came into the kitchen in jeans and a jumper, her hair pulled back, phone in her back pocket. She read the room in half a second — the way everyone's posture shifted, the fractional pause in conversation, the too-casual way Claire reached for the butter. She knew. "You were talking about me," she said. Not a question. A beat. Grace took it: "We were just discussing the morning routine. How things work with Millie upstairs." Sophie pulled out a chair and sat. She took an apple from the bowl and turned it in her hands. "What about it?" she said, carefully. Claire leaned forward. "Just checking in, darling. Whether you're comfortable being in the room when Millie's looking after Liam." Sophie glanced at Millie. Then at the table. She was choosing something. Not words exactly, but a position. A place to stand. "It was a bit... I don't know. This morning was a lot." She paused. "But I think I'd rather just be there than have to leave every time and sit downstairs wondering when I'm allowed back in my own room. That would be worse, actually. Like I'm in the way." Claire nodded. Encouraging, proud. Millie smiled. Grace's face softened a fraction. "And I think it's the right thing," Sophie continued. She wasn't looking at Liam. She was looking at the apple, turning it, her voice careful and measured, the voice of someone delivering a considered opinion. "He should be able to get sorted in his own bed, in his own space. Where he's comfortable. Rather than getting dragged to the bathroom every morning. That would make it into a much bigger deal." His own bed. His own space. Comfortable. Every word was Millie's framework, returned to the room in Sophie's voice as if she'd arrived at it independently. She was speaking about his nappy change the way you'd speak about a child's bedtime routine — with concern for his comfort, for the importance of familiar surroundings, for the avoidance of unnecessary disruption. She meant every word. She was being kind. And the kindness sat on his chest like a stone. She turned to him. Her eyes met his — steady, warm, the faintest trace of something that might have been an apology or might have been pity. "It's okay, Liam. Honestly. I really don't mind." A pause. The table held its breath. Then her mouth twitched — just the corner, the beginning of something lighter. "I mean — it's not like I've never seen a willy before." Silence. One second. Two. Claire burst out laughing — a bright, relieved sound that broke the tension like a window opening. Millie laughed too, short and warm. Grace allowed herself a small, controlled smile — the closest she came to amusement during a crisis. Rob shifted against the wall. "Right, well," he said, and his face had the pinched, uncomfortable expression of a father who had just heard his daughter say something he would have preferred not to hear. Sophie grinned at him. "Joking, Dad." The grin faded. She sat up straighter. The lighter register fell away, and what replaced it was something quieter — earnest, almost adult in its composure. "But really," she said. "It's good that he's got someone who can help. Someone who actually knows what they're doing." Help. The word settled over the table like dust. Nobody flinched at it. Nobody noticed it. It was the most natural word in the world: help, the thing you gave to people who couldn't manage on their own. Children. Patients. People whose bodies had outgrown their capabilities and who needed someone to step in and take charge. Claire reached across and squeezed Sophie's hand. "That's very mature of you, darling." Millie smiled at Sophie. A warm, collegial smile, one capable woman to another. Grace said nothing. But the tension in her shoulders had loosened, and she picked up her mug with both hands, and the small, visible release of her grip said everything: the system was holding. The system had been ratified. The conversation moved on. Someone mentioned the weather. James asked about the road to the lift complex. Millie began packing her canvas bag: zipping, organizing, preparing for the day ahead. The kitchen settled into the ordinary sounds of a family getting ready to leave. Liam sat with his empty bowl and his dry pull-up and the barrier cream drying slowly into his skin, and he looked at the table, and he said it quietly. "I'd just like some privacy. That's all." Grace didn't look up from her mug. But her voice was gentle, genuinely gentle, which was worse than sharp. "I know, sweetheart. But this isn't only about what you'd like, is it? It's about what works. For all of us." She reached across and touched his wrist. A brief, maternal gesture — warm, automatic, the kind of touch you give to a child who doesn't understand why the answer is no. Millie stood and shouldered her bag. "Right," she said brightly. "Shall we get going? The snow's meant to be brilliant today." Chairs scraped. Mugs were rinsed. The morning moved forward, carrying Liam with it, and the conversation he'd lost stayed behind at the table with the crumbs and the cooling dregs of tea, already forgotten by everyone except the boy whose privacy had just been put to a vote. Chapter 55: The New Handler The car smelled of coffee and zinc cream. James drove in silence, both hands on the wheel, his eyes fixed on the road as if the act of driving required every particle of his concentration. Liam sat behind him with his skis propped against his knees, their tips pressing into the headliner, and tried not to think about the pull-up. It was fresh — Millie had put it on less than an hour ago, upstairs, with Sophie two meters away and Grace standing in the doorway like a foreman inspecting a shift change — and it sat high and snug against his hips beneath the ski thermals and the heavy salopettes. The barrier cream Millie had used was thicker than his mum's zinc, more clinical, and it hadn't fully absorbed. It sat on his skin like a second layer, greasy and warm, and every time the car went over a bump he felt the pull-up shift against it with a faint, slippery friction that made his jaw tighten. Sophie sat in the front passenger seat. She hadn't spoken since they'd left the cabin. She was looking at her phone, scrolling slowly, her thumb moving with the deliberate, mechanical rhythm of someone who wasn't reading anything. Millie sat next to him. She had her canvas bag between her feet — the one with the hospital-grade cream she kept going on about, the wipes, the spare pull-up. She'd changed into ski gear: black salopettes, a bright blue jacket, her hair in a high ponytail that swung when she moved. She looked like a normal nineteen-year-old heading out for a day on the slopes. If you didn't know, you wouldn't know. But Liam knew. He could feel her presence beside him like a low electrical current — her knee almost touching his, her scanning eyes, the way she'd glanced at his waistband when he'd climbed into the car and given the faintest nod to herself, as if confirming a reading on an instrument. James pulled into the small turning area, a good distance from the main lift complex. He stopped the car but didn't turn off the engine. "Right," he said, looking straight ahead. "Have a good day, then." He cleared his throat. That was it. The full extent of his contribution. They got out. The doors slammed in sequence — Sophie first, then Millie, then Liam, hauling his skis off the back seat with a clatter that echoed across the empty car park. James reversed, his tires crunching through the packed snow, and disappeared around the bend without looking back. They stood there. Three of them, in a small, isolated triangle on the turning area: Liam with his skis resting on his shoulder like a yoke, Sophie with her arms crossed tight against her body and her eyes fixed on the ground, and Millie, who stood with her hands on her hips and looked exactly like what she was — a girl at work, disguised as a ski tourist. The sun was sharp. It threw long shadows across the snow and made Liam's face feel naked and exposed. Millie cleared her throat. She stepped closer, into their space. "Right," she said, and her voice was low but it cut through the cold morning air with a professional clarity that left no room for misunderstanding. "Before we go down to the others, let's get the cover story straight. They don't need to know I'm here for anything other than skiing. It'll just get messy." Liam felt a spike of hope mix with the shame. He looked at Sophie. She was still standing with her arms crossed, biting her lip until it went white. "You'll cover for it?" Liam asked carefully. "Just — pretend?" "Of course," said Millie, and she sent him a smile that was both warm and firm — the smile you give a client you're trying to reassure. "It's a holiday. And we all know each other, so it's natural enough that I tag along. If Sophie's on board, we keep this as our little internal project. To the others, I'm just Millie who got up early, bumped into you in the car park, and decided to ski with you because the rest of my lot were too slow. Sound all right, Sophie?" Sophie lifted her head. There was no relief in her face. Just a flickering, social terror. "Yeah," she said quickly, almost whispering, her eyes darting around as if the trees had ears. "I meant what I said this morning by the way. At the cabin, it's fine. I can deal with it. I understand that he needs the help and I'm not going to make it weird." She swallowed. Her eyes moved from the lift complex to the figures in the distance, the noise, the bright colors. "But out here? I’d really prefer they don't know or at least that I know. None of them. Not Jake, not Mia, not anyone." Her voice had changed. At breakfast she'd been composed, measured, the understanding teenager who could handle it. Here, in the open, with the mountain and the Millfield group somewhere below them, her composure had peeled back to reveal something rawer underneath. "If Jake finds out that I'm spending every morning in a room where someone's getting his nappy changed—" She stopped. Her jaw tightened. She started again, quieter. "I can handle what happens at the cabin. That's private. But I'm not going to be 'the girl who hangs around with the nappy boy.' I'm sorry, I know it sounds harsh, but I'm just not." She didn't look at Liam when she said it. She didn't need to. The distinction she'd drawn was perfectly clear: she could live with the reality, as long as the reality stayed indoors. What she couldn't live with was anyone else knowing she lived with it. His condition was something she'd accommodate in private and deny in public, the way you might accept a family secret without ever speaking it aloud at school. "Deal," said Millie quietly. She turned to Liam and laid a hand on his arm. The grip was firm through the jacket — a physical marker of her authority. "But Liam, it's a trade. If I'm going to lie for you and cover for you in front of my own friends, then I need a hundred per cent cooperation. That means no negotiating on toilet breaks or checks. When I say now, it's now. No discussion, no dragging your feet, no trying to buy time." "No no, I know," Liam said. He would have promised to ski backwards down every run for the rest of the week if it meant Jake never found out. "Good," said Millie brightly, and she let go of his arm. "Target for today: empty bladder, dry pull-up, big smiles when we're done this afternoon. No accidents, no smell, no drama. Let's go." They walked the last stretch down to the lifts. Sophie went ahead, her stride quick and hunted, as if she wanted to put physical distance between herself and the care team behind her. But as they rounded the corner and saw the Millfield group standing in a noisy, neon-colored cluster by the meeting point — all laughter and cigarette smoke and the clatter of poles — a transformation happened. Sophie straightened her back. She flicked her hair, and the nervous, withdrawn expression she'd been wearing since last night vanished like morning mist. She put on a mask. A mask of ease and flirtation. "Hey!" she called, waving. Jake spotted them first. He was leaning against the barrier with his goggles pushed up on his forehead, his face broad and sun-reddened, and when he saw Liam his whole body opened up. "Bodyguard!" he bellowed across the snow. "Where the hell have you been? We thought you'd gone home!" Liam mumbled something about family stuff, a quiet day yesterday, nothing serious. Jake clapped him on the shoulder hard enough to stagger him. "Family stuff," Jake repeated, grinning. "Sounds grim. Well, you're back now." He spotted Millie behind Liam. "Oi! What are you doing over here? Ditching us for the bodyguard?" Millie laughed. "You lot were still in bed when I left," she said, dropping her skis into the rack. "I bumped into these two in the car park, and they were actually ready to ski, so I thought I'd slum it with the early risers for once." "Slum it," Jake said, clutching his chest. He turned to Liam. "She your new handler or what? Or your pimp maybe?" Will snorted. Mia shook her head. Liam's stomach dropped through his ski boots. "Something like that," Millie said, already adjusting her bindings. The morning was better than he'd expected. Not good — nothing was good — but the skiing itself was a kind of anesthetic. The cold air, the speed, the focus required to navigate the runs — all of it pushed the pull-up and the cream and the scanning eyes to the periphery of his consciousness, where they sat like background static rather than the main frequency. The group skied together, all of them, and Millie was back among her own — chatting with Will about conditions, ribbing Jade about her goggles, swapping route tips with Mia. Nobody questioned it. But Liam could feel her eyes. Not constantly — not the paranoid, every-second surveillance he'd feared — but in intervals. A glance across the slope when they stopped for breath. A quick scan of his face at the top of the lift. The way she'd drift from Jake's side toward his when the group paused, and then drift back before anyone noticed. At half ten, she touched his elbow. "Quick stop," she said, casually enough for the others to hear. "I need the loo. Coming?" Jake, who was adjusting his bindings, didn't look up. "Get a room," he said, and Will barked a laugh. Millie ignored them. She led Liam across the packed snow toward the small timber toilet building that sat at the edge of the tree line, its roof heavy with snow. The door scraped open. Inside, it was cold and bright — white tiles, a single toilet, a small basin, a mirror with a crack running diagonally across it. The smell of disinfectant and pine. Millie closed the door. The lock clicked. "Right," she said. She pulled off her gloves and laid them on the basin. "First check. Let's see how we're getting on." She didn't go to the toilet. She went to the middle of the floor, where there was the most space, and crouched. She patted her thighs — an inviting gesture. "Over here, Liam. Trousers down. All the way." Liam sighed. He looked at his own reflection in the cracked mirror — a tall young man in smart ski gear, standing in a toilet building on a mountain, waiting to be inspected. He undid his salopettes. Unzipped. Pushed them down over his hips and let them fall heavy around his boots. Then the thermal leggings. He hooked his thumbs into the waistband and pulled them down. He stood there in his jacket and helmet, trousers pooled around his boots. The white pull-up gleamed in the harsh light. It was still dry, still snug, exactly as Millie had fitted it. Millie didn't pull it down. Instead, she slid two fingers under the elastic at the side, just at the hip. She worked them down along his skin, under the plastic, deep into the crease of his groin. A practiced, invasive movement. She was feeling for warmth. For moisture. Liam stared at the ceiling and bit his lip. "Dry," she said, and withdrew her fingers. "Good." She stood up. She placed a hand on his shoulder and turned him with a firm grip. "I'll just check the back," she said. "Just in case. Your mum said I should keep an eye on — well, the what you’ve got going on over there, if anything goes wrong." "Millie, seriously," Liam muttered, trying to pull away. "There's nothing. I haven't —" "I'm checking anyway," she interrupted calmly. "No chances." Before he could react further, she slid her hand down the back of his pull-up. She pulled the elastic outward, bent slightly, and looked directly down — down at his backside, inspecting him with the efficiency of a mechanic checking an engine. The cold air hit his skin. "Fine," she said, and released the elastic. It snapped back against his lower back with a quiet swip. "Clean and clear. No skid marks. Sit down and try to wee." Liam turned. He shuffled to the toilet with his trousers around his ankles and sat. The pull-up tightened around his thighs. "Try now," said Millie. She leaned against the basin, crossed her arms, and looked at him. "Relax your stomach." He closed his eyes and pushed. It was hard. The silence, her gaze, the humiliation. "It's a pretty decent spot, isn't it?" she said suddenly — an awkward, professional attempt at small talk to help him relax, as if they were sitting in a café. "Have you been here before with your family? I reckon the runs are well good this year, even though the snow's a bit heavy." Liam opened his eyes and stared at her. She was chatting about the slopes while he sat on the toilet in a pull-up under her supervision. "Millie... I'm trying to wee," he said, strained. "Can you just — not?" "Yeah, yeah, I'm just talking," she said, unfazed. "Sometimes it helps to think about something else. Have you thought about what you're doing after sixth form? Jake was saying something about a gap year in Val Thorens." He managed to squeeze out a small amount. A thin trickle that hit the water. Plink-plink. "Done," he said quickly. "There's no more." "Was that it?" Millie stepped away from the basin and tore off a generous strip of toilet paper. "All right. But we need to make sure you're properly dry. We don't want any drips in the pull-up irritating your skin." She stepped right up to him. "Spread your legs." Liam sighed and reached for the paper. "I can do it my —" "No," said Millie, and she moved the paper out of his reach. She stepped between his spread knees, her thighs touching his. "Remember the deal, Liam. Your mum told me about yesterday. About those little presents you leave in your pants because you're in too much of a rush to wipe properly. I'm not dealing with that." She bent down, level with his lap. "I'll do it. Then I know your willy's dry and your bottom's clean. It's quicker, and we know the hygiene's sorted. Spread them a bit more." Liam felt his face burn. Your willy. She'd said it the way you'd say it to a five-year-old. But he had no choice. He spread his legs. "That's it," said Millie cheerfully. She dabbed him dry at the front — a few quick, efficient touches at the tip, holding him with a clinical matter-of-factness that made it worse. Then she brought her hand underneath, lifted gently with the back of her hand to reach, and wiped him thoroughly at the back. It was not sexual. It was not tender. It was pure, plain maintenance. "There we go," she said, and dropped the paper into the toilet. "Clean and tidy." She pulled the pull-up back into place, straightened the elastics at the groin, smoothed the front panel. "Trousers up," she said, and went to the basin to scrub her hands. Liam dressed. He felt hollowed out. She had wiped him like a three-year-old. A girl from his own social group. "All set," said Millie, drying her hands. She smiled at him in the cracked mirror. "See? Quick and painless. We'll do the same in a couple of hours. Back out there — big smiles, yeah?" The jump was the best moment of the day. It came in the late afternoon, on the steepest run, the one with the kicker at the bottom that Liam had botched two days ago — the same jump that had started the entire avalanche of nappies and surveillance and humiliation. Jake took it first, a big, lazy arc through the air, effortless and cool. Something hot and defiant flared inside Liam. He accelerated. He ignored the heavy, shifting sensation of the pull-up between his thighs, ignored the fear of leakage on impact. He crouched. He hit the ramp. He flew. He stretched his body out in the air, found the balance in the chaos, and landed clean and steady on the other side. Snow sprayed up around him in a white cloud as he carved to a stop beside the others. "Yes!" Millie clapped her mittens together. "Get in!" Even Jake nodded. "Nice one, bodyguard. Proper style." Sophie skied over and punched his arm. "You did it! I told you you could." Liam smiled. For one second — one bright, burning second — he forgot the pull-up. He forgot the cream. He forgot the inspection in the toilet building and Millie's fingers under the elastic and the way she'd said your willy like he was four years old. He was just a boy who'd landed a jump, and his friends were cheering, and the mountain air was cold and sharp and clean. Then Millie caught his eye across the group and gave him a small, discreet nod. The nod that meant: well done, but we're due another check in forty minutes. The second vanished. Jake noticed the synchronisation at the afternoon check. They'd stopped at a different toilet block — a rougher building, half-buried in snow — and Millie had steered Liam toward it with her usual casual "quick stop." "You two are inseparable, eh?" Jake said, leaning on his poles with an expression that was all grin and no suspicion. "Every time he goes for a slash, you're right behind him. Is this a carer thing? Professional habit?" "Mate, he can barely tie his own laces," Millie said, deadpan. "Someone's got to supervise." The group laughed. Jake shoved Liam's shoulder. "Bodyguard needs a bodyguard. Love it." Liam laughed too, because that was what you did. You laughed at the joke that was your life. At the bottom of the last run, with the light turning amber and the shadows stretching long across the car park, Jake pulled off his goggles and grinned at the group. "Stavkroa? Will's buying the first round. He lost a bet on the black run." "I never agreed to that," Will said, but he was already unclipping his skis. Jade was in. Mia was in. Sophie was in before anyone had finished the sentence — "Yes, definitely, God yes" — her whole body turning toward Jake like a flower tracking the sun. The evening was already happening in her head: the lights, the music, Jake's arm behind her on the bench. Liam felt Millie's eyes on him. A quick, sideways glance — not obvious, not a signal anyone else would read, but enough. "I'll pass," he said. "Knackered." Jake raised an eyebrow. "Soft, bodyguard." "Leave him," said Sophie, already pulling out her phone to text someone. She didn't look back. The group moved off toward Stavkroa, their voices fading into the cold air — laughter, the scrape of boots on tarmac, Will protesting about the bet. Sophie went with them. She didn't wave. Liam and Millie stood in the emptying car park, their skis planted upright in the snow, and waited for James. James arrived at quarter past four, the car warm and smelling of the heater. He didn't ask about the day. He didn't ask why Sophie wasn't with them. He drove in silence, both hands on the wheel, the way he always drove — as if the mechanics of steering were absorbing every thought he might otherwise have to express. At the cabin, Millie came inside. She set her canvas bag down by the door and went straight to the kitchen, where Grace was standing at the counter with a cup of tea and the expression of a woman who had been waiting all day for a report. Liam hung back in the hallway, pretending to unlace his boots. He could hear them. "How was he?" Grace's voice. Low, controlled, but with something underneath it — something almost fragile. "Really good," said Millie. "Dry all day. Every check. He cooperated at every stop — no arguments, no dragging his feet. He went when I told him to go, stood there and let me check, didn't fuss once." A pause. Liam could picture his mother's face — the careful, held expression of someone who didn't dare believe it yet. "He didn't fight you?" Grace said. "Not once." Another pause. Longer. "Right," said Grace. "That's — that's good. That's really good." Her voice caught slightly on the second 'good,' as though the word itself was heavier than she'd expected. "And the group? The other kids? They didn't—" "They don't know a thing," Millie said. "He was brilliant. Honestly, Grace. He just got on with it." Liam pulled off his second boot and set it carefully on the mat. He stood in his socks in the hallway and listened to a nineteen-year-old girl deliver a performance review on his bladder to his mother, and the thing that burned — the thing that sat in his throat like a coal — was that they were both so pleased. So relieved. As if he'd passed an exam. As if staying dry and standing still while someone inspected his pull-up constituted an achievement. Millie left twenty minutes later, her canvas bag over her shoulder, her boots crunching on the frozen path. "See you at seven," she said to Liam at the door. Then, quieter, to Grace: "He'll be fine tonight. Same routine as last night — the tape one at bedtime, yeah?" Grace nodded. "I'll take it from here." The door closed. The cabin settled into its evening silence. The hours between Millie leaving and bedtime were the longest of the day. Liam changed out of his ski gear in the bathroom — thermals off, salopettes hung on the back of the door, joggers on over the pull-up. The pull-up was still dry. A full day. He caught himself feeling a flicker of something that might have been pride, and the shame of that pride was worse than anything Millie had done to him in the toilet building. Dinner was at six. Chicken casserole that Claire had made in the slow cooker. The table was wrong — too many empty chairs. Sophie's seat was empty. Rob's seat was empty — he'd gone to the village shop and hadn't come back yet. It was Liam, Grace, James, and Claire, and the conversation was a careful, surface-level thing that moved between the weather forecast and the road conditions and whether the Tuesday flight home would be on time. Nobody mentioned Millie. Nobody mentioned the pull-up. Nobody mentioned Sophie. After dinner, Liam sat on the sofa and scrolled his phone. He had no messages. He opened Instagram. Jake had posted a story: Stavkroa, the fairy lights, a crowd of faces Liam half-recognised from the slopes. Sophie was in the background of one shot, laughing at something, a drink in her hand, Jake's arm draped over the back of the bench behind her. She looked free. She looked like a seventeen-year-old on holiday. He closed the app. At half eight, Grace appeared in the sitting room doorway. She was holding the grey supply bag — the one with the tape nappies, the zinc cream, the wipes, the nappy bags. "Right," she said. Not a question. Not a negotiation. Just: right. Liam got up. He followed her to the bathroom without a word. There was nothing to say. This was the part of the day that had always been hers — the evening, the tape, the bedtime routine — and Millie's presence during the day hadn't changed it. If anything, it had made it more fixed: Millie handled the daylight hours, and Grace handled the rest. She closed the bathroom door. She set the supply bag on the edge of the bathtub and pulled out the nappy — thick, white, folded into a neat rectangle. She unfolded it on the closed toilet lid and smoothed it flat with both hands. The adhesive tabs crinkled under her fingers. "Joggers," she said. He pushed them down. The pull-up was dry — pristine, untouched, the skater-boy graphics still bright and intact. A full day's worth of cooperation, visible in a single piece of absorbent padding. Grace didn't comment. She peeled the pull-up down to his ankles, and he stepped out of it. She dropped it into a nappy bag and tied it off with a quick, practised twist — even though it was clean, because that was the protocol. He stood there. His hands went to cover himself. They always did. "Hands," Grace said. He moved them. She took a wipe from the packet — cold, wet, sharp with that unmistakable baby-product smell — and cleaned him. Front first: a thorough wipe down and around, lifting with the back of her hand, making sure. Then she turned him with a hand on his hip. "Turn." He turned. She wiped his backside, methodical, firm, checking for anything Millie might have missed. There was nothing. She dropped the wipe into the nappy bag. The zinc cream came next. Her zinc cream — not Millie's hospital-grade barrier cream, but the familiar thick, sweet-smelling white paste that Liam had been smelling on his own skin since the first night. She squeezed a measure onto her fingers, rubbed them together to warm it, and applied it in silence. Inner thighs. Groin. Under. She lifted him — a quick, efficient gesture — and applied it to his backside. Her hands were sure and unhurried, and she didn't speak while she worked. That was the difference between Grace and Millie: Millie filled the silence with warmth; Grace let the silence do its work. "Down you go," she said, and pointed at the bath mat. He lay down. The mat was thin and cold. Grace knelt beside him, positioned the diaper under him, and he lowered his hips onto it. The padding was thick and wide, pushing his thighs apart. She pulled the front panel up, smoothed it flat, and taped — right side first, ritsch, then left, ritsch. She ran a finger along each leg opening, adjusting the elastic against his skin, checking the seal. She stood up. Washed her hands. Dried them on the towel. "Pajamas on. Teeth. Bed. You know the drill" Three words. The entire evening, compressed into an instruction. Liam pulled on his pajamas — the navy flannel with the white stripe — over the nappy. The bulk was obvious: thicker through the crotch, higher at the waist, pressing outward at the hips. He brushed his teeth while Grace packed the supply bag. They didn't look at each other in the mirror. "Nighty night," she said at the bathroom door. She touched his shoulder — briefly, almost absently, the way you'd pat a dog on the head as you passed. Then she went downstairs. He climbed the narrow stairs to the loft. The plastic sheet crinkled as he lowered himself onto the mattress. The nappy was warm now, moulding to his body, its bulk shifting as he turned onto his side and pulled the duvet up to his chin. Sophie's bed was empty. Her duvet was thrown back, her pillow dented from the morning. Her charger cable hung from the shelf, waiting. Downstairs, he could hear Grace and Claire talking in low voices. The words were indistinct — just the murmur of two women, steady and unhurried, talking about something that mattered to them. He closed his eyes. The plastic sheet crinkled once, and then was still.

,,I am not Emmy.  My name is…’’ I turn to you and look at your  face thinking about something ,,who are you and what do you want from me?’’