Diapers Never Lie (Epilogue – 01/24/21)

[MinnesotaWriter]

Chapter 8: The Third Casket

Two years earlier...

I had never before felt so alone when surrounded by so many people. The funeral had not started on time, and I suspected that my mother was somehow to blame. In her absence, I remained in the lobby of the funeral home, the center of attention for everyone in need of someone to whom they could direct their condolences.

For the past half-hour, I had been the constant recipient of awkward hugs that lasted too long, whispered sympathies that each contained the same insincere words as the last, and pats on the back from people who I couldn't recall ever seeing before.

My father and sister had been dead for nearly a week, and I still hadn't shed a tear. I might cry now, not out of any sudden sense of sadness, but from the strength of the perfumed candles lining the wall near where I was standing. The smell of flowers might have been pleasant in a smaller dose, but the overwhelming nature of it made me wonder if it was causing me to experience a sudden onslaught of allergies.

I resisted the urge to rub my knuckles against my eyes, not because I didn't want to garner any more displays of empathy from the roughly sixty or so attendees milling about the room, but because mother had put makeup on me for the first time ever, and I didn't dare risk incurring her wrath by making a mess of it.

Two days ago, we had gone shopping for an appropriate dress, as the growth spur I had gone through in the past six months -- putting on another six inches in height -- made my previous dresses obsolete. Ladylike wasn't how anyone would describe me. Sure, I was now as tall as my mother, who wasn't a short woman, but I remained gangly after growing so quickly. Still, the dress was by far the nicest outfit mother had ever purchased for me. Pitch black and elegant, it streamed down to my feet in a way that my other dresses did not. More importantly, the ankle-length dress was loose enough around my waist that it didn't reveal the outline of my diaper.

It was true that I had been outgrowing the pull-ups I had been using for the past several years. They still fit, but much more snugly than before, and leaks were increasing at an alarming frequency. Whatever else I might say about the diapers, I couldn't deny that they at least did exactly what they were intended to, which is to ensure that no one but me noticed when I wet myself.

That isn't to say I didn't still throw a fit about mother's decision to make me wear a diaper to the funeral. I was mortified at the prospects of the cousins, who saw me paraded around in a diaper four years ago during the holidays, again spotting me in a diaper. The fact that the dress concealed the diaper better than I anticipated did mollify me some.

My cousins remained clustered in a group near the opposite corner of the room. They hadn't come to say anything to me, save for a few that walked over silently with their parents, their eyes shifting away from mine. Under other circumstances, the social ostracization from my peers would have been deeply hurtful, but I couldn't imagine how that incident wasn't, even now, replaying freshly in their memories. I wanted nothing to do with them.

There were only two visitors that I had hoped to see, Aunt Lydia and Uncle James. Four years had passed since that fateful Thanksgiving Day when I had both met them and last seen them. I had thought my father's threat for them to never step foot in the house again had been mere drunken bluster, but perhaps there had been more to it than I had been made aware of. Either way, I never had worked up the courage to ask about my aunt and uncles' whereabouts, and in truth, had given them little to no thought for a long time until now. If anything were to bring them back, the death of a brother and niece and the final moment of goodbye at a funeral would appear to be enough. Yet, they hadn't been among the visitors at the wake yesterday evening, and there was no sign of them today.

Mother stepped into sight from around the corner, her eyebrows narrowed; her hand clutched tightly around a cell phone by her side. What phone call could have been so important that it was worth delaying the funeral?

"Why aren't you greeting the guests," she whispered harshly at me, when she was close enough to speak without anyone else overhearing her.

"They've already taken their turns coming to talk to me."

Mother didn't appear satisfied with that answer, but she moved along without prolonging the argument. With a practiced touch, mother smoothed the expression on her face, and made eye contact with the pastor on the far side of the room, and the man hurried over to us

"We're ready to begin," she said, slipping her phone into her purse and dabbing at her eye with one of her sleeves.

"Why don't you come with me and get seated, and then I'll usher the guests in after you," he said.

The pastor took my mother's hand as he led us toward the front of the chapel and we each took a seat in the second row. While the diaper provided my bottom with a degree of protection from the wooden bench, I was unable to get my back into a position where it was comfortable against the pew. As the crowd of mourners made their way into the chapel, I received a firm pinch on my arm, a message from mother that I needed to stop fidgeting.

While I had been to my share of church services, I had never attended a funeral before. My gaze didn't linger at the pulpit for long, but shifted past it, to where the two caskets sat side by side. One open. One closed.

The ceremony began on a solemn note, as mournful organ music filled the room. A prayer was said, a hymn was sung, and several people who had known my father and sister had stood at the pulpit and given brief eulogies of them.

The pastor was now at the pulpit and had begun an exuberant recitation of how virtuous my father had been – loving, selfless, and devoted to his children, who never raised his voice in anger.

He's dead, what purpose is there to lie about how good of a person he was?

The man continued, extolling a wide array of platitudes that he said my father had possessed. I didn't get too bothered by it until the pastor described the deaths as the result of a tragic, unlucky accident.

Liar. The car crash had been tragic, yes, but in no way could it be simply described as an unlucky accident. Even though it had been early in the afternoon, father had already been drunk when he got in the car. Mother had offered to drive, but daddy wasn't having any of it. Staying home meant the possibility of needing to change me, and he hadn't done that in years and wasn't going to get started again now.

About an hour later, I had eavesdropped by the door when two police cruisers pulled into our driveway, their lights on and sirens blazing. I scurried away to my room when the somber-faced officer delivered the news of the deaths to my mother, whose shrieks of denial could be heard from behind the shut door to my bedroom.

I put together the full scope of the story with the bits and pieces of information that had gradually come my way the next few days, as relatives we hadn't seen in ages trickled into town for the funeral.

The pastor's eulogy wrapped up, and another man took to the pulpit, his arms raised to direct a pair of final songs. I steadied the hefty hymnal on the bench in front of me, but I didn't need to glance down at the lyrics to follow along with them. However, I didn't join in with the song, opting to instead mouth the words as I pretended to take part in the ceremony.

When the ceremony at last concluded, I took one last walk by the caskets with mother. My father's casket remained open. When I had looked inside the casket the other night at the wake, his eyes had been closed, lips curled upward into the faintest of smiles, a whole arrangement intended to convey a sense of peace that I had never witnessed while he was alive. I didn't look in the casket this time. I averted my eyes toward the ground. My last memory of him wasn't going to be a lie.

My sister's casket was closed. Elaine hadn't been wearing a seatbelt. Supposedly there hadn't been much left for the embalmer to work with. Instead, a collection of photographs had been arranged on a small table next to it. I wasn't in any of them. I could hear mother sniffling as she attempted to maintain her composure. It took me a while to finally register the mood I was feeling. I was disappointed, disappointed that there wasn't a third casket.

-----

We'd been home from the funeral for over an hour, and I was still lying on my bed waiting for mother to come in and change the diaper I'd worn for the entirety of the funeral service and burial. I'd already asked mother to change me once. She'd just told me she come in later in my room. I knew better than to ask a second time, even as the moisture in the diaper was becoming more irritable against my skin.

With my dress off, all I had on was a training bra and a sagging, pale-green diaper with a pair of small tapes on each side barely holding it up. Without any appropriate diapers my size at Walmart, my parents had turned to the internet. I'm sure they bought the cheapest brand that they could find. Even though I'd had the diaper on for more than six hours, I'd hardly had anything to drink which meant that had gotten soaked, but it hadn't leaked.

When we moved to this house a couple years ago, my bedroom had been neglected while the home was furnished. Elaine had been given a fancy bed. Hers was a lofted bunk bed with a ladder to climb up to it. Beneath her bed, she had a desk and chair to sit out.

My room was an afterthought. As my old mattress had been ruined from nightly bedwetting, the new one my parents purchased after the move was one with a built-in plastic cover designed to make it fully waterproof. They hadn't bothered with a bedframe and had instead set it down in the far corner of the room.

I could smell the alcohol on mother's breath when she at last stepped into the bedroom. She laid out a changing pad on the bed, and I dutifully shifted over onto it, too tired and uncomfortable to make the always unsuccessful argument that I should be allowed to change myself. The reasons for why I wasn't allowed to change my own diapers had varied as I had gotten older.

As a younger child, it was because I wasn't big enough to do that. As I got older and was given chances to diaper myself, mother complained that leaks would happen because I couldn't diaper myself right, or said that she needed to clean me up because I wasn't doing a good enough job of it myself. For a while, those arguments got set aside as mainly wore pull-ups, but as pull-ups' usefulness came to an end, I was often at the mercy of mother for any changes or trips to the toilet.

Father had always been the one with a taste for liquor. Mother might join in with him on occasion, but more often than not, her chastisements over his alcoholism turned into full-fledged arguments. But tonight, her eyes were red, and her breath was reminiscent of my father's when he had deep into hard liquors.

She did a rushed, sloppy job of changing my diaper, mumbling words under her breath that I wasn't able to discern. As soon as she had left the room and shut the lights off, I carefully adjusted the tapes on the diaper to achieve a more comfortable fit. Waking up in a wet diaper was bad enough. I didn't need a wet bed in addition to it.

As guilty as these jealous thoughts made me feel, I couldn't help but wonder at the possibility of being allowed to move into my sister's bedroom. I'd long envied her bunkbed and the ability to have her own desk to sit and draw at, not to mention her much more well-equipped wardrobe. I fell asleep to dreams of better things.

That was not to be. My cautious inquires the next morning about possibly moving into my sister's room were rebuffed off-hand by mother, who made it clear that the topic was a non-starter. My schooling, which had been on pause for a week, remained neglected as I spent the day placing phone calls with increased agitation and anger in her voice. I was left to my own devices, which meant spending the day watching low-budget educational documentaries of dubious quality, such as the one on at the moment that was attempting to argue that dinosaurs and man had existed at the same time.

As the day progressed and mother's voice became loud enough to carry throughout the house, I understood why she was so upset. When my parents made the decision to pull my sister and me from public schools to homeschool us, she quit her job to stay at home. She hadn't worked in seven years and had little desire to return to work.

Father's life insurance policy should have made us rich. But the policy had several loopholes, and dying as a result of your own drunken driving was one of the causes of death that the insurance company wouldn't pay out, no matter the manager mother asked to speak with or the threats of lawsuits that she delivered.

As the next weeks passed, mother sold off every item of my father's and Elaine's that she could get a buyer for. A month later, my sister's room was as barren as my own. And I was alone.

[BabySofia]

2 hours ago, MinnesotaWriter said:

As the next weeks passed, mother sold off every item of my father’s and Elaine’s that she could get a buyer for. A month later, my sister’s room was as barren as my own. And I was alone.

I can't believe she would even be trying to get her back... Seriously, this poor girl...

[Bonsai]

Of course Mother paid for the smart black funeral dress of the daughter before discovering the trickeries of life insurance policies ?

[kerry]

This woman's desire to get her daughter back gets more confusing with every chapter. And any court that would do it isn't worth its name.

BTW: The title of this chapter is one of the finest I have ever seen. ?

[Nat]

On 11/25/2020 at 2:30 PM, YourFNF said:

Oh you don't like consequences shit bird?

Fucking gaslighters....

I disagree, what it is is called lying and manipulation. They didn't make her feel crazy or nothing or make her question herself. What they did was called manipulation and lying. She is a child so of course she would buy this. We both know this is bull because it doesn't work that way. 

 

Also one thing that boggles my mind is I thought CPS shows up unnnounced so parents can't think of a cover up story. I am assuming this takes place not too long ago since she was playing the Nintendo Switch as a 14 year old so it would have been 2014 in this story for flashbacks. God I am this old now lol. 

 

 

[Nat]

This is definitely like the film Redemption but sibling was added and the dad was also abusive. I feel bad for the sister since it wasn't her fault and she was made the golden child but the mom got her karma. Now she is poor poor poor. 

 

it's not uncommon for abusers to want their kids back they hate, it's all about their image. 

 

I am curious about how she tried to kill her mother, was it an accident or just a lie her mom made up? 

 

This girl was lucky she didn't go to juvi hall because not all minors are so lucky and some get tried as adults. Not all judges are understanding when there was abuse. 

[Arendeth]

Thanks for the chapter.

[BabyStevie26]

I'm honestly wondering right now if Annabelle's mother wants custody back because being nearly killed by her own daughter made her realize "man, I really effed up" and wants to make amends,  or if it's just narcissistic "I want her back because she's mine."

[WBDaddy]

2 hours ago, BabyStevie26 said:

I'm honestly wondering right now if Annabelle's mother wants custody back because being nearly killed by her own daughter made her realize "man, I really effed up" and wants to make amends,  or if it's just narcissistic "I want her back because she's mine."

Even though the husband died in a drunk driving accident, Annabelle is still entitled to Social Security Survivor's Benefits until she graduates high school or turns 19, so there is a financial incentive for Mom to regain custody here.  

[MinnesotaWriter]

On 12/18/2020 at 2:07 PM, BabySofia said:

I can't believe she would even be trying to get her back... Seriously, this poor girl...

Narcissists going to narcissist. But yeah, they'll be an explanation about that.

On 12/18/2020 at 2:35 PM, Bonsai said:

Of course Mother paid for the smart black funeral dress of the daughter before discovering the trickeries of life insurance policies ?

Yes, in fact, she did. It's always interesting to get reader feedback and see what sticks out to them. That actually wasn't what I had in mind at all, though it it does fit in perfectly with the story.

I actually included the line about the nice dress more as a way to contrast that with how Annabelle is cared for at home and how her mother is just trying to create the appearance that she is well cared for.

On 12/18/2020 at 2:43 PM, kerry said:

This woman's desire to get her daughter back gets more confusing with every chapter. And any court that would do it isn't worth its name.

BTW: The title of this chapter is one of the finest I have ever seen. ?

Thanks, I always like it when I can get a tittle that plays into the chapter later on. 

On 12/18/2020 at 3:08 PM, Nat said:

I disagree, what it is is called lying and manipulation. They didn't make her feel crazy or nothing or make her question herself. What they did was called manipulation and lying. She is a child so of course she would buy this. We both know this is bull because it doesn't work that way. 

 

Also one thing that boggles my mind is I thought CPS shows up unnnounced so parents can't think of a cover up story. I am assuming this takes place not too long ago since she was playing the Nintendo Switch as a 14 year old so it would have been 2014 in this story for flashbacks. God I am this old now lol. 

 

 

CP does come about unannounced, in this case, the parents got tipped off about it, so they had time to be prepared.

On 12/18/2020 at 4:35 PM, Nat said:

This is definitely like the film Redemption but sibling was added and the dad was also abusive. I feel bad for the sister since it wasn't her fault and she was made the golden child but the mom got her karma. Now she is poor poor poor. 

 

it's not uncommon for abusers to want their kids back they hate, it's all about their image. 

 

I am curious about how she tried to kill her mother, was it an accident or just a lie her mom made up? 

 

This girl was lucky she didn't go to juvi hall because not all minors are so lucky and some get tried as adults. Not all judges are understanding when there was abuse. 

I can confirm that the attempt to kill the mother was intentional, Annabelle makes that part clear at least. As to the how of it, there's going to be one more flashback.

22 hours ago, Arendeth said:

Thanks for the chapter.

You're welcome!

11 hours ago, BabyStevie26 said:

I'm honestly wondering right now if Annabelle's mother wants custody back because being nearly killed by her own daughter made her realize "man, I really effed up" and wants to make amends,  or if it's just narcissistic "I want her back because she's mine."

We'll get a good look at the mother's motivations really soon.

9 hours ago, WBDaddy said:

Even though the husband died in a drunk driving accident, Annabelle is still entitled to Social Security Survivor's Benefits until she graduates high school or turns 19, so there is a financial incentive for Mom to regain custody here.  

That is an intriguing theory.

[WBDaddy]

20 minutes ago, MinnesotaWriter said:

That is an intriguing theory.

More speculation than a theory, just a point to ponder in trying to explain why she was trying to regain custody.  There'd be at least a little bit of money in it, and based on this last update, bitch is broke as hell.   

[Nat]

Oh boy money, Annabelle is just a money machine for her bio mom then.

[SashaButters]

Wow I can't believe I waited till now to read this. This is really good. 

I imagine money being a motive as well as pure vindictiveness. "How dare your life get better than mine, I'm going to make sure you suffer with me" sort of thing.

 

[WBDaddy]

31 minutes ago, SashaButters said:

Wow I can't believe I waited till now to read this. This is really good. 

I imagine money being a motive as well as pure vindictiveness. "How dare your life get better than mine, I'm going to make sure you suffer with me" sort of thing.

 

Absolutely.  In fact, I doubt there's one singular aspect to Mom's motivation.  Trying to repair her own image, for example.  Her daughter tried to kill her, yet here she is, selflessly fighting to get her back because she loves her sooooo very much.   And yes, not only vindictiveness toward Annabelle, but also the aunt and uncle, the very people that tried to destroy their family the first time.  "Hell no, you're not going to win!"

[SashaButters]

9 minutes ago, WBDaddy said:

Absolutely.  In fact, I doubt there's one singular aspect to Mom's motivation.  Trying to repair her own image, for example.  Her daughter tried to kill her, yet here she is, selflessly fighting to get her back because she loves her sooooo very much.   And yes, not only vindictiveness toward Annabelle, but also the aunt and uncle, the very people that tried to destroy their family the first time.  "Hell no, you're not going to win!"

Yes exactly, there's never clear definitive answer as to why people do these sorts of things. It's more of a pie chart with certain percentages going to a number of different complex motives.

[Nat]

The mom should fear her daughter because she can try and kill her again and trust me, I am sure a kid would be happier to be in juvi hall or prison than be in the hands of their abuser. She is a teen so I do not think she would be thinking that far ahead of her consequences to her actions which is the reason why states have laws for when minors can be tried as adults. 

[Little Sherri]

I finally found time to have a look at this one; it is well-written. 

[MinnesotaWriter]

Chapter 9: The Question

Present time...

The top drawer of my dresser slid open without a single creak or groan. As with everything in the bedroom, it was new and in perfect condition. Mine. That wasn't a description I had thought I would end up giving it. I hadn't noticed the shift in how I perceived my environment, but at some point in the past several months, I'd come to accept my aunt and uncle's house as home, not simply a place I would be temporarily staying.

Three months had passed since mother had filed her lawsuit to regain custody of me. The initial terror of that first week had receded, replaced first with a curiosity about the legal process, followed by a retreat into indifference. It's not as if I weren't mindful of the consequences of what would happen should my mother's attempt to take me back succeed, but the longer it dragged out, the less I thought of it.

Legal stuff isn't nearly as exciting as it gets shown on TV. Shocking, right? I had yet to step foot in a courtroom, everything that had happened up to this point had been lawyers from both sides filing documents and mailing them back and forth. The hearing was supposed to take place in about two weeks, but it had been delayed twice already, so it wasn't at the forefront of my mind.

I still hadn't gotten over how amusing it was that legal documents were referred to as briefs. The first time that the attorney my aunt and uncle had hired visited the house to discuss their legal strategy, his comment about "needing to get the briefs ready" had me laughing so hard that I didn't even realize I had wet my pull-up.

All the websites I purchased diapers from never actually referred to them as diapers, opting instead for a range of euphemisms. Disposable briefs were the most common one, though I failed to see how it made anyone feel better about purchasing them.

I'd slipped into a sleeveless tank top after drying off from the shower. The summer heat was too oppressive for anything more than that. I examined the contents of the drawer, surveying my options for what else I could put on.

A diaper was out of the question. My work on finally getting toilet trained wasn't finished, but I had at least gotten to the point where I was only wearing diapers at night or when I left the house. Even in public, it was with a diaper brand I found that had re-adjustable tapes so that I could still have access to a toilet. Besides, I didn't even want to think about how badly a diaper would make me sweat. That left me with several options of pull-ups to put on.

My aunt and uncle hadn't exactly forbidden me from wearing panties, but they both had strongly encouraged me to stick with pull-ups until I could be certain I wouldn't be having any accidents. I could understand their reasoning. The house was mostly carpeted, and those types of stains could be difficult to clean up. I would have been resentful had it been mother who had issued that type of edict to me, but it was easy to let it slide since they otherwise left me to my own devices when it came to my toileting issues.

Offers of an occasional diaper change from my aunt had stopped after I began to decline them. I even had my own debit card, which they sent money to so that I could make purchases of diapers and pull-ups for myself. This newfound independence helped alleviate the annoyance of having to forego wearing panties, several pairs of which were now located in the top drawer of my dresser, next to my pull-ups. I could have stuck the underwear in the closet, hidden away until I was fully ready for it, but I had been so excited about the purchase that I wasn't able to keep them out of sight.

Every time I opened the drawer, I could barely resist the urge to grab one of the panties and run my fingers through it, at times even slipping it on for a few minutes, imagining the day when the pull-ups and diapers were all discarded, and all that remained in the top drawer of the dress were rows of regular, normal, adult underwear.

Maybe I could wear them again this morning, if only for a few minutes while I did my hair. Privacy was another benefit of living with my aunt and uncle. I never had to worry about them abruptly barging into my bedroom. They rarely bothered me, but if they wanted to get my attention, they knocked and then waited for me to come to the bedroom door and open it.

I slipped on a pair of lavender panties and went back into the bathroom. The mirror was still slightly fogged up from the shower, so I had to grab a towel and wipe up the remaining moisture so that I could see my reflection. The image that peered back at me still wasn't completely clear, but it would do, as I grabbed a brush to get any remaining tangles out of my hair.

I still couldn't get over how different the panties felt and looked. Gone was the bulkiness between my legs, the struggle to avoid waddling, the crinkling sound as I walked. The underwear was so thin that it didn't feel like I had anything on at all. The sense of freedom, of being unconstrained, of not being ashamed of my body or how I looked. I never wanted it to end.

I decided not to put my hair into any fancy braids today. I didn't want to spend all morning getting ready. I grabbed a stretchy hair tie from the drawer next to the sink and pulled my shoulder-length hair into a simple ponytail.

As fun as it was to wear the panties, I knew it was time to get changed out of them. I still hadn't managed to pull off a day where I had avoided any accidents, but I also have managed at least one successful trip to pee in the toilet every day for the past several weeks. Progress was coming at a slower pace than I would before, but as long as it was coming, I could wait for it.

I had a couple of plain-white medical brand pull-ups with various levels of absorbency. I applied a generous amount of lavender-scented baby powder before putting on a pull-up. I finished by pulling on a knee-length skirt along with some shorts to make sure the pull-up was fully concealed, as I headed to the kitchen to eat breakfast before my tutor arrived.

---

The question had been gnawing at the back of my mind ever since I realized that my aunt and uncle wanted me to live with them and were willing to fight my mother in court for the right to maintain custody of me. It wasn't a kind question, and I wasn't certain I wanted to know the answer to it, given its power to impact the very nature of my relationship with my new guardians. The tutoring session hadn't gone well today. I had been so distracted that I hadn't even gotten halfway through the practice test I had been assigned to complete.

The tutor was gone for the day. Such a relief. Since there wasn't any way I was going to let her know about my toileting issues, it also meant that I couldn't be rushing off to the bathroom nearly as often as I would need to do to avoid any daytime accidents. Next week I would have to go through five straight days of tests. While the plan was for me to start my freshman year of high school in the fall, they had to be certain that I was academically prepared for it.

With the tutor gone, I had Aunt Lydia to myself for an hour or so before Uncle James got home from work. She was nestled into her reading chair in the living room, a situation that usually led me to play video games in my room so as not to disturb her.

I wasn't good at starting conversations, even when it was about simple stuff, like, what the weather was going to be like or what I might want to eat for dinner. I didn't have the slightest clue about how to broach a more sensitive topic with my aunt. It wasn't that I didn't like talking to her, it's just that she was always the one initiating our conversations.

I stood right at the corner of the room for several minutes, my feet fidgeting, trying to work up the courage to finally ask the question. My aunt was seated in her reading chair with her back to me and her feet stretched forward on the recliner. She was flipping casually through a magazine with her reading glasses on. My mouth and lips were dry. I wasn't sure if any words would even come out if I were to open my mouth. Screw it, I can ask later. I had begun to turn around and head back to my bedroom when my aunt spoke up herself.

"Is there something you need?" Aunt Lydia said.

She hadn't looked up from her magazine but somehow had sensed my discomfort even though her back was to me.

What to say? What to say? What to say? Why hadn't I come up with a fallback question? I blurted the question out, almost angrily, though I hadn't intended for my tone to be confrontational.

"Are you getting paid to take care of me?"

Aunt Lydia took off her reading glasses and turned to look at me.

"No, we aren't getting paid to take care of you," she said. "Why would you think that?"

Why would I think that? That thought had come from when I had sifted through mom's mail and found the checks that had come every month, not that any of the money had found its way into my pockets. Where were those checks being sent now? And was Aunt Lydia being truthful? Or had I been mistaken?

I stayed silent, hoping that Aunt Lydia would give more of an explanation, which she did.

"You were getting some monthly payments after your father's death, but that is going into a trust fund for you until turned eighteen."

"A trust fund?"

"That's just basically a bank account that no one else can take money out of until it's time to give it to you."

"But why didn't you tell me about it?

A frown appeared on Aunt Lydia's face. She looked upset. I knew I shouldn't have brought this topic up. What was I thinking?

"I thought you already knew," she said. "The money should have already been going there since your father's accident."

I shook my head sideways. I had been aware of the checks, but that they were solely intended for my use was a surprise.

"That bitch," Aunt Lydia muttered.

I nearly jumped. My aunt never swore.

"Of course, my sister was keeping the money for herself."

[WBDaddy]

Feeling a little punk because I called it.   

[MinnesotaWriter]

On 1/14/2021 at 11:51 PM, WBDaddy said:

Feeling a little punk because I called it.   

Need to change your username to Nostradamus ? 

[MinnesotaWriter]

Chapter 10: Midnight Choices

Several months ago...

My skin itched underneath the scratchy, cotton nightgown, but with the heating bill left unpaid, and the temperature getting close to freezing, the outfit was still preferable to spending the entire night shivering beneath paper-thin blankets with no clothing on other than a diaper.

I had nothing to drink today besides a single eight-ounce glass of water around noon. Mother's latest theory on dealing with my untrainable bladder was to severely limit my fluid intake along with closely monitoring everything I ate. Sure, I was peeing less during the last several weeks. But I still had no control over my bladder, and the more concentrated urine was becoming increasingly irritable to my skin.

The ragged mattress I was lying on hadn't been replaced in the two years that had passed since the death of my father and sister in a drunken car crash. Most everything else had been. Everything that belonged to my father or sister had been sold, the remainder of our old house gradually ransacked as monthly bills came due. Last to go was the house itself. Three bedrooms and two bathrooms were more space than what would be needed for a single mother and her daughter, but the sale came out of desperation, not practicality. Mother purchased the mobile home about a year ago, and we've lived in a handful of trailer parks since then, each seedier than the last.

The plastic covering of the mattress was ripped in several places, but I used that to my advantage, as I had stuck a bobby pin into the mattress through one of the tears in the cover, keeping the hairpin completely out of mother's sight. I'd been changed and put to bed around 9 p.m. And by put to bed I mean mother sent me to the smaller of the two bedrooms and had locked the door behind me.

Sound traveled easily through the walls of the mobile home, and noises made during her nighttime routine appeared like clockwork – the TV blaring on some violent, late-night show. Glass bottles being tossed across the room. The clamor of furniture being shoved around – until I at last heard her bedroom door shut.

With the hallway light, which had been shining into my room through the crack at the bottom of the door, now off, my room was in near-total darkness. I didn't know how long I waited after mother had gone to bed. I didn't have a clock in my room. But I counted to one-thousand, and, in hearing no noise coming from her bedroom across the hallway, determined that it was safe to make my move. I retrieved the bobby pin from inside the mattress. The discovery of what I could do with it the other night had been a moment of pure genius.

With the pin in hand, I crept stealthily toward the door. The first night I had picked the lock on the door, it had taken me what must have been nearly an hour to pull it off. Tonight, I got the door unlocked in five minutes. My stomach rumbled as I stepped into the hallway. I briefly froze, listening for any sound that might indicate that my growing hunger had betrayed me.

I was down to getting two diaper changes a day, with mother changing me once in the evening and once in the morning. With how little I was getting to eat and drink, there weren't any issues with leaks, but the lengthy time between changes had recently led to some uncomfortable rashes and chaffing.

With no sign of danger, I tucked the bobby pin into my hair and resumed my walk across the floor, gingerly stepping forward, not only because I wanted to avoid making any noise that would wake mother, but because of the discomfort of doing so, as each step caused the edges of the diaper to rub against already chaffing skin.

A brief burst of light shot into the room as I inched open the door to the refrigerator. I held down the button inside the fridge to get the light to shut off while I used my free hand to blindly rummage through the remaining contents of the fridge without filling the mobile home with light.

After a few moments of searching, I grabbed what felt to be a half-gallon jug of milk from the top shelf and shut the fridge. In the darkness of the kitchen, the starlight coming in through the windows wasn't enough to allow me to determine the expiration date, only that the plastic jug had a heftiness to it that made it seem as if it was mostly full. I spun open the lid and raised the tip of the jug to my nose. A cautious sniff told me that it hadn't gone bad yet.

I raised the milk jug to my lips and took the slightest of sips. As much as I wanted to chug it down, I couldn't leave any evidence that I had snuck out to the kitchen. Mother didn't know that I had managed to pick the lock that she used to keep me in my bedroom all night long, and the situation needed to stay that way.

Having taken a couple of additional sips of milk, I reached for the refrigerator door so I could put the milk jug back in and see if there were other items that could be discreetly snacked on

Instead of bringing my foot back down onto the linoleum floor of the kitchen, my heel came down on top of one of mother's bottles. As I slipped forward, my hand yanked the refrigerator door all the way open, flooding the room with light. I dropped the jug of milk onto the floor as I braced myself for the fall. As I landed on my knees, the bottle spun out behind me, resulting in a loud, metallic clink as it came into contact with other bottles that must have been left on the floor.

I rolled onto my side, clutching at my knee and biting my lip while trying desperately to not add any more noise to the midnight cacophony. Exactly how many fucking bottles of alcohol had mother left out this time? At least she might be wasted enough not to notice this clamor. I peered down the now dimly lit hallway toward her bedroom, not seeing any signs that I had immediately roused mother from her slumber.

I felt something cold and wet against my hand. The milk jug had cracked and was spilling its contents across the kitchen floor. No, no, no. How am I supposed to cover this up now? I set the milk jug upright. Thankfully, the crack was near the middle of the jug, so it hadn't spilled its entire contents. I held up the jug so that I could view it in the light of the still-open fridge. The crack wasn't all that noticeable. I placed the milk jug back on the top shelf of the fridge and closed the refrigerator door with the hope that the damage might go unnoticed in the morning. Now, what to do about the milk puddle?

We were out of paper towels and didn't even have any of the leftover napkins mother would grab in large handfuls when getting take-out fast food, so I would have to make do with a rag from the bathroom. I practically crawled to the bathroom, timidly stretching my hands out in front of me to make sure I didn't knock anything over that would add to the commotion I had already made.

As I stood up in the bathroom and rummaged through a storage shelf for a cleaning rag I could use, I felt a painful rumble in my stomach, but this time it wasn't because I was hungry. A week or more must have passed since I had drunk any milk, and it wasn't sitting well in my stomach. I was beginning to feel pressure building up in my bowels, like a balloon that was being inflated to the point of bursting.

It's not as if I wasn't used to messing myself by now. Several months had passed since mother had let me wear anything other than a diaper. But I usually tried to time my bowel movements to around the time mother would be changing me.

How I wished I could sit on the toilet. In the past several weeks, the only times mother had allowed me to relieve myself on the toilet were the times between diaper changes. But I couldn't go to the toilet by myself. Removing the tapes would only rip the plastic covering of the diaper, leaving me unable to put it back on and in a huge amount of trouble with mother in the morning.

Whatever reaction the milk had caused in the inner workings of my body was going to come to fruition much sooner than later. I tugged at the bottom of the diaper to loosen it up and make room for what was about to enter it. I bent my knees forward and squatted slightly. I didn't need to squeeze any of my muscles, as my body did the rest. The resulting smell was bearable, though I was well practiced in breathing through my mouth and not my nose.

I let several minutes pass without moving. A shitty diaper didn't feel as bad as long as I remained still, but with each step I took back toward the kitchen, I could feel the sticky fecal matter spreading across my butt. I needed to get the milk wiped up, and then hide the rag in the dirty laundry and hope that mother doesn't noticed it. I had only just gotten on my knees in front of the puddle of milk when the lights came on.

"Annabelle, what the fuck are you doing out of your bedroom?" mother screamed.

I didn't have time to answer as I scrambled off the floor as mother stepped toward me, not that there was anything to say in my defense. Her puffy eyes and dark red cheeks were indicative of how she had spent the evening. I tried to raise my arms up, but I wasn't quick enough as her hand slapped downward across my cheek. I braced myself for another blow, but mother stepped back with her hand cupped against her nose.

"Eww, did you really shit yourself again? You know you're not getting your diaper changed until morning, young lady."

I had never been more relieved to have pooped in a diaper before. If doing so spared me a beating it would be almost worth it. I'd forgotten about the rag I'd left lying on the floor. Mother hadn't noticed the rag at first, but it at last caught her attention.

"What the hell is that on the floor?" she muttered, reaching down to pick up the rag and spotting the puddle of milk on the floor.

Mother shoved me out of her way and stomped across the kitchen to the fridge, which she flung open, rattling the condiments stored on the shelves inside the fridge door. She pulled the jug of milk out of the fridge; the crack more obvious than I realized.

"You little thief," mother squealed. "No wonder you are still waking up with a wet diaper every morning. You're sneaking out to get a drink every night."

I remained silent. Any protest that this was in fact only the second night that I had pulled this stunt wasn't going to be believed and wasn't going to make her less angry at me.

"And this milk is ruined now," she muttered, almost as an afterthought.

I ducked as mother chucked the jug of milk at my head and it careered past me and into the hallway. Her rage outweighed any disgust she felt at my messy diaper as she assailed me, the slaps coming on my face, head, and shoulder as I retreated backward toward the hallway that led to both of our bedrooms. I could have turned and run back into my bedroom, my normal reaction to when she got out of control. That would have put a stop to the beating but would also have left me in the room till morning to stew in a messy diaper with windows I couldn't open.

What the fuck did she expect from me? I was thirsty and couldn't fall asleep with a dry mouth. As I slowly gave way toward the bedroom, I sidestepped the milk jug and the puddle it had created on the floor. The whole side of the jug had split open, emptying the remainder of its contents. Mother wasn't as lucky, her foot stepped squarely in the middle of the puddle as she reached out to strike me again. I turned to the side and flattened myself against the hallway wall as she tumbled past me onto the floor.

This was my chance. I raced past her to the other end of the mobile home. I didn't dare run outside, not with how cold it was and my lack of a winter outfit. With my luck, mother would lock me out until the morning. Instead, I stepped into a closet near the front door and placed a broom between the handles to hold the closet doors shut.

Mother was slow in getting up from the floor. She hadn't been asleep in bed all that long. Maybe the liquor was finally getting to her. From my hiding spot, I could hear the irregular pace of her footsteps as she approached the closet. She gave the doors a single tug, but the broom helped hold the doors in place as I also grabbed at the door handles in a game of tug of war.

"If you don't come out now, you will be grounded for the rest of your fucking life," she yelled.

The threat didn't hold much sway with me. I was already grounded. I basically never left the mobile home. Partly because mother didn't ever want to take me anywhere, and partly because I didn't have any outfits that really hid my diaper well enough for me to even be comfortable with asking to go somewhere in public. I was locked in my bedroom each night, not allowed to have any food or to use the toilet except at certain times. Yes, I legitimately had accidents, but I wasn't allowed to change myself or be responsible for my own toileting needs.

In short, I couldn't picture any discipline worse than my daily routine, giving me no desire to give in to her demands. Without an answer from me, mother resumed her attempts to pry the door open. With as hard as mother was pounding and tugging on the closet door, I was amazed that it hadn't given way. At last, she leaned back against the wall, panting heavily.

"Listen you little bitch. I'm coming back in a few minutes and if you aren't out of the closet by then I will make you regret it."

The front door opened, and I heard mother step outside, though I didn't have any idea of where she would be going or what she was doing.

The reprieve created by her absence allowed me to examine the sparse contents of the closet with the light shining in from the hallway through the slits in the closet doors. Besides mom's outfits, there were a couple of jackets I had outgrown and a few threadbare ones from a thrift store that still fit me. Much of the remaining space was taken up with cardboard boxes, likely containing items that weren't valuable enough to sell, but not so useless as to be thrown out in the trash. I reached to the back of the closet when my hand closed around a narrow, cold, metal tube.

I pulled the object toward me to the revelation that it was my father's old shotgun. I'm surprised that mother had kept it. The gun had to be worth a decent amount of money at a pawn shop. I didn't have a clue as to whether it was loaded or not, or how to check that other than by pulling the trigger. But it gave me an idea. I set the gun back down and removed the broom from the door handles so that I could get out of the closet. I made my way to the living room with the shotgun and waited for mother to come back inside.

When mom stepped back inside the mobile home, I saw why she had gone outside. As I peeked around the corner, she was holding an iron crowbar in her hand that she must have retrieved from the car. Mother hadn't noticed me yet; her attention was focused on the now-empty closet.

"Annabelle, you had better be in your bedroom," she called out aimlessly.

I stepped back from the corner and stood at the back of the living room. It would have been easier to hold the shotgun if I was seated, but I couldn't do that comfortably in a messy diaper.

Mother flinched at the sight of the gun, when she caught sight of me, but otherwise didn't react as we remained in a silent standoff. Her crowbar held loosely in her right hand. My shotgun held upright and aimed at her chest.

"You put that down right now before you get into any more trouble than you already are."

I didn't budge. I didn't have any goals past that obstinate refusal. I just knew that I was done with all the restrictions, all the abuse, all the shame. And I wasn't going to do another single fucking thing that she asked me to.

"Look, I'll put this down," mother said.

She took a step forward and placed the crowbar on the floor, but when she stood up, she was now several feet closer to me.

"Stay back," I said, taking a backward step myself.

"Annabelle, put the gun down, it isn't even loaded."

The contradiction in that message confused me. If it wasn't loaded, why did it matter if I put it down or not? The weight of the shotgun was getting to me. I wasn't sure how much longer I could keep the shotgun pointed at mother with how much it was straining my arms to keep it upright. After another lengthy moment of silence had passed, I began to involuntarily lower the gun so that it was pointed in front of mother rather than right at her.

Mother seized the opportunity and took another couple of steps forward. It took all my remaining strength to point the shotgun back at her.

"Stop," I shouted.

Mother came to another pause, this time only ten feet away from me. Sweat trickled down my back. My arms shook. I held the shotgun upright, but I couldn't keep it steadily pointed at mother as it wavered back and forth.

Mother took another tentative step toward me. I pressed my finger against the trigger. It wouldn't budge. Nothing happened. Mother took another step. I placed a second finger on the trigger, closed my eyes, and squeezed as hard as I could.

The blast from the gunshot knocked me backward onto the floor. I landed on my bottom at first, with my head slamming back against the carpet. I had expected the kick from the gun and had made sure to steady it against my shoulder before firing, but the strength of it still left me stunned.

The sound is what I hadn't been prepared for. Not the sound of the gunshot, which had left my ears ringing. The sound of mom's anguished cries filled the trailer, a ghoulish mix of sobbing and screaming. Death wasn't supposed to be this noisy.

After several seconds I opened my eyes to see her sprawled out on the floor, her limbs twitching. And so much blood. A dark red puddle was spreading out onto the floor next to her. Crimson specks spread across the room behind her. This wasn't what I had pictured happening when I had grabbed the shotgun. I don't know what I had naively thought would happen, but it wasn't this.

There was so much blood, that I couldn't tell where the shot had hit her and whether the wound was fatal or if she had only been temporarily disabled. An onslaught of emotion broke through the shock of the moment. Regret. Panic. A sudden urge to run. To where? I didn't know. Just not here.

I skirted around mother's body on my way to the front door. The main door remained open, leaving only the screen door clattering as it opened and shut in the wind. Two steps out onto the tiny wood porch changed my mind about running away outside. The blistering cold would be the death of me. I turned back to go inside, shutting the door behind me and flipping both of the locks. Though why those would be needed, I didn't know.

I ran back into my bedroom, averting my eyes from mother as I passed by the living room. She had gone silent.

I stood confused in my bedroom. I didn't know why I had gone there. Instinct? Habit? Something was out of place, and not being able to place it was creating a growing anxiety. Then I remembered what was missing. My entrance to the bedroom was almost always followed by the slam of the door closing shut behind me and the click of the lock going into place. A routine so familiar that its absence left me unnerved.

I paced back and forth inside the bedroom, as I was prone to do during times I was locked inside the room and unable to sleep. Hours passed. I didn't leave the bedroom. I couldn't leave the bedroom. The mental lock was as strong as any of the physical one's mother had installed, and I would need something stronger than a bobby pin to break through it.

The diaper remained on me. Another habit I couldn't bring myself to break. There was nothing to stop me from changing myself, and yet, I couldn't bring myself to do it.

I hoped she was dead. Then I hoped that she wasn't dead. Then I hoped she wasn't dead so I could shoot her again to make sure she was dead. I couldn't make up my damn mind. I had no idea about what I should do next. Was she really dead? If so, how would I hide the body? And how long would I have until anyone noticed, given how recluse our lives were? Each question spawned a dozen more, none of which I had satisfactory answers for, and all of which depended on a question I remained unwilling to discover.

My feet ached. I sank down to my knees, exhausted. My life was over. I couldn't do this. It didn't matter whether mother was alive or dead. I was screwed either way. A sense of peace filled me at that moment, as the need to be concerned about anything further away than the next five minutes disappeared. I found that I had the strength to step up from the floor and walk to the bathroom. I didn't check on mother.

I closed the bathroom door behind me and locked it just in case. I reached my hand to touch the back of my diaper. That was a mistake. Shit had smeared up my back, probably from when I had been knocked to the ground after I had fired the shotgun. I washed my hands clean with ice-cold water from the sink.

The mirror doubled as a medicine cabinet, I tried to avoid looking directly at my reflection as I swung it open, to reveal several small shelves littered with bottles and tubes.

I didn't stop to even read the labels on the bottles. I'd seen them enough before to be familiar with the dire warnings of taking more than the prescribed dose. I grabbed the first bottle of pills, pressed my hand firmly against the lid, and twisted to get it open. It wouldn't budge. Fucking child safety caps. I got it open on the second try, but to my display, on a dozen or so pills remained.

The ease at which I was able to swallow all of them was disconcerting. But would a dozen be enough? I didn't want to leave it to chance. I opened several more bottles, taking a dozen pills from each. It had only taken a few minutes to do so, and I didn't feel anything yet. Maybe it had been foolish to expect the results to be instantaneous.

I waited. The need to pee came and went as I urinated in the diaper, toilet training another desire now rendered pointless. The effects of the medication came on so gradually that I didn't realize them until they had reached their full force. My legs began to feel weary as if the weight they were needing to hold up had tripled. A sudden clamminess overtook my arms, which were now hanging onto the counter to brace me. I could literally hear my heart pounding.

I couldn't hold myself up any longer. My hands slipped from the counter and I hit the tile floor with a thud. I tried, and failed, to lean up against the wall so I could sit in an upright position. I thought belatedly about my funeral. There would have to be one, right? But who would come? What songs would they sing? What would they say about me from the pulpit?

Each breath became harder to pull in than the last, yet my body fought for each breath, strained for life, even as every breath became more painful than the previous one. I wanted the end. I welcomed it, but my body said no. But what I wanted didn't matter. What my body wanted didn't matter. What mattered was the pills I had swallowed minutes ago and the irrevocable path they had set me on.

My eyes closed and then opened, then closed and opened again, staying shut for longer and longer at a time as the cycle continued until they at last closed and didn't open.

[Jennynappy]

Lunatic parents. But love the story!

[Arendeth]

Thanks for the chapter, hopefully the shotgun blast made her mother loss all control of her bladder and bowels :P.

[kerry]

A very powerful chapter of a very powerful story. Given all of this, though, I'm even more confused about how this mother could imagine getting Annabelle back...

[MinnesotaWriter]

On 1/17/2021 at 10:29 PM, Jennynappy said:

Lunatic parents. But love the story!

Thanks!

On 1/18/2021 at 12:27 AM, Arendeth said:

Thanks for the chapter, hopefully the shotgun blast made her mother loss all control of her bladder and bowels :P.

We'll have to see about that. Would be a bit of karma.

On 1/18/2021 at 12:36 AM, kerry said:

A very powerful chapter of a very powerful story. Given all of this, though, I'm even more confused about how this mother could imagine getting Annabelle back...

There will be an answer for the mother's motivations. Only one chapter and an epilogue left.