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

[Babypants]

I agree with Bonsai.  By painting the parents in such unrelievedly bleak terms, and making the aunt and uncle out to be their exact opposites, the story is bordering on becoming an "and they lived happily ever after" fairy tale.  It's an obvious trap, and it requires conflict in the present to escape, not conflict in the past.  It will be interesting to see what you offer us as a reversal.

[WBDaddy]

10 minutes ago, Babypants said:

I agree with Bonsai.  By painting the parents in such unrelievedly bleak terms, and making the aunt and uncle out to be their exact opposites, the story is bordering on becoming an "and they lived happily ever after" fairy tale.  It's an obvious trap, and it requires conflict in the present to escape, not conflict in the past.  It will be interesting to see what you offer us as a reversal.

That's a fair point.  But then, the kid having her own issues stemming from her fucked up past is going to provide plenty of conflict even with the most angelic foster parents. 

[Babypants]

5 hours ago, WBDaddy said:

That's a fair point.  But then, the kid having her own issues stemming from her fucked up past is going to provide plenty of conflict even with the most angelic foster parents. 

In structural terms, the problem with situating the main character between competing human stereotypes is that the reader anticipates one of two resolutions-- and they lived happily ever after, or tragedy.  Yanking the rug out from under the reader requires a reversal, which typically relies on foreshadowing and/or an unexpected twist near the end of the story.  Kellerman has written some very good novels in this vein in his Alex Cross series.  It will be interesting to see whether we get something similar here, or whether the author chooses to go down the romance novel path with lots of angst still leading to an anticipated outcome.   

[Jayme]

I for one am glad that MinnesotaWriter has decided to share this with us here, I find the story an absolute breath of fresh air compared to several stories that you can sometimes guess the plot with on other sites. I do like the name Annabelle (hopefully I'm spelling it right as insomnia is a pain in the padding at times) is also a horror story, I'm not sure of the similarities between the two characters but I eagerly anticipate the next chapter to read when it is posted.

Again MinnesotaWriter thank you so much for taking the time to share your stories with us here.

[MinnesotaWriter]

Chapter 4: No One to the Rescue

Six years earlier...

Mommy and daddy were furious when my aunt and uncle left. I made sure to scurry back to my bedroom so they wouldn't discover that I had been eavesdropping on the conversation, but that wasn't sufficient to prevent them from taking out their ire on me.

Spankings were a common occurrence, but if they decided to discipline me twice in one day, the second punishment that was administered would be something different. The only saving grace was that daddy left the diaper on while he gave the spanking. On the other hand, as I got left in the diaper for the rest of the evening without getting changed, it might have actually been better to just have gotten the bare bottom spanking if that meant going back to wearing pull-ups.

After spending the remainder of Thanksgiving Day in diapers, I was back to wearing pull-ups again. I may as well have been wearing diapers as I only managed to get to the toilet on a couple of occasions. If my best efforts at toilet training weren't going to be successful, then what was the point of even trying? I'd even messed my pull-ups twice over the weekend, on purpose, something that I'd have never dared do before, but the vindictiveness of making mommy have to clean up a poopy diaper cheered me up a little.

Mommy had woken Elaine up early on the morning after Thanksgiving for Black Friday shopping. They left me at home. By the time I had gotten out of bed, in a wet diaper of course, they had returned with their prized purchases. They had bought Elaine a pink, electric car that she was driving around the yard at five mph. The reply I got from my younger sister when I asked if I could have a turn was that babies aren't allowed to drive cars.

Mommy hadn't completely forgotten about me while I was out shopping, but given what she had chosen to purchase, I wish she had forgotten all about me. Mommy had bought a portable potty-training toilet, purple and pink, with cartoon characters from a pre-school level children's show. I didn't know what was more embarrassing, that mommy had bought a potty chair for me, or that I was scrawny enough to still fit in it. Anytime I went to a different room in the house, I was supposed to bring it with me so that I could relieve myself quickly enough to avoid any accidents, but that created a situation where wetting my pull-ups was the least embarrassing option between that and using a toilet in front of someone.

Elaine and I did our homeschooling lessons together. Since I had repeated kindergarten back when I had been in a public school, she had caught up to me and we're now both in fourth grade. After getting up on Monday morning, eating breakfast, and doing our chores, our school day begins with our reading lessons. Elaine and I alternated reading each paragraph out loud. We were reading "Black Beauty," and I winced internally as we read through a scene where the horse's owners were thoughtlessly hurting it.

During my turn to read, I stuttered through the word "contemptuously," butchering it into an incomprehensible jumble. Elaine giggled. I responded by shoving my younger sister on the shoulder. Mom grabbed my arm and then smacked me across the face with the palm of her hand.

"Annabelle, stop fighting with your sister. You know better."

I barely had time to register the pain on my face when mom began prompting me to say the word correctly.

"Kuhn-temp-choo-uhs-lee," mommy said slowly, as she emphasized the phonetics of the word. "Say it ten times, but slowly."

My cheeks burned for multiple reasons as I repeated the word. I kept my eyes focused on the book lying in my lap. After several tries, I was finally able to say the word correctly without any stuttering or pauses. I knew how to say it now, but I didn't have a clue as to what it meant, and I didn't ask for fear of a further lecture from mommy.

"Honey, come here!" daddy yelled from the kitchen. He was leaning into the hallway, with his hand covering the receiver on the phone.

"One minute, the girls are wrapping up their reading lesson."

"Now. This can't wait."

Mommy furrowed her brows at the urgency in daddy's voice, stood up stiffly from her chair, and marched over to the kitchen. I held my breath. This sudden escalation in emotion left me unnerved. Life is better when my parents are in a good mood.

"This had better be important," mommy said.

She clasped her hand over her mouth as daddy whispered something into her ear.

"They did what?" mommy said incredulously. "I mean, I know John doesn't get along all that well with us, but for Lydia to try and report us for that."

"I know, right?" daddy said. "No one gets to tell us how to manage our family."

Mommy leaned back into the living room. I couldn't help but notice how wide her eyes had gotten.

"Elaine, Annabelle, put your books away and go work on your math sheets. I need to talk to your father."

My sister and I shared a desk with seats on either side so that we faced each other as we did our schoolwork. We stayed at our desks as mommy and daddy retreated downstairs to talk privately. Elaine had already made it halfway through the math book for the school year while I was only a quarter of the way into it. If we finished our curriculum ahead of schedule in the spring, we could begin our summer break early. I'd never managed to do that yet, and at the pace I was going this year, it would be unlikely that I would be able to pull it off.

I stared blankly at the array of figures and symbols on the page. Long division has me stumped. Instead, I doodled on a piece of scrap paper with my pencil. I didn't really even like drawing. I'm not that good at it, but it was something to keep my mind occupied until mommy returned.

I fidgeted in the wood-backed seat as my bladder began to announce that it was approaching the point of overflowing. I had set the portable toilet in the corner of the room, behind the couch, and out of the line of sight from where our desk was situated. If I went to use the toilet, Elaine wouldn't see me, but the pitter-patter of urine splattering in the plastic basin of the potty chair would create a visual impression as strong as if she was standing right next to me and watching me urinate.

If I wet my pull-up, Elaine wouldn't have a clue, not until I had to ask mom to change me once she was done talking with daddy. Be embarrassed now or be embarrassed later? I chose to push the embarrassment off as long as I could, letting my bladder empty into the pull-up.

Pounding footsteps from the stairwell told me that both mommy and daddy were now coming upstairs, and the rapid pace suggested that they were in a rush.

"Elaine, come to our room, now," daddy said sternly.

Wait. What? My sister is in trouble? Not me? They never use that tone with her. Elaine's eyes went wide as she looked up at me from her math worksheet. I suppressed a grin. This was magnificent.

"Someone's in trouble," I whispered to Elaine as she hesitantly eased herself out of her seat.

The fact that she chose not to respond suggested that she was as apprehensive about the situation as I was. Elaine walked down the hallway and followed mommy and daddy around the corner. The bedroom door slammed shut. And then there was silence.

Right then and there I regretted that I had allowed myself to wet the pull-up. Had I just waited a minute or two longer, which I probably could have, I would have had the toilet all to myself. As the minutes ticked by, the wet pull-up became the least of my fears. I shifted back and forth in my seat, not because of the discomfort of the pull-up, I was well used to that sensation, but in anticipation of what was happening with Elaine. She never got into any trouble with our parents. And if she was in trouble, was I in trouble as well?

After a dozen or so anxious minutes, Elaine sauntered back into the room without a hint of worry on her face.

"Your turn," she said.

"My turn for what?"

"Annabelle, hurry up," mommy called from around the corner.

I got up from my seat at the desk. This didn't make any sense. Mommy and daddy had seemed upset, but they had called Elaine to their room, not me, but my sister was too happy at the moment to have just received any punishment from our parents. I walked quickly to their bedroom.

"Annabelle, close the door behind you," mommy said.

The door shut with a click. Mommy and daddy were both seated on the bed, with some space set aside between them.

"Have a seat," mommy said, tapping her hand on the spot on the bed between herself and daddy.

"A lady from the government is going to come and talk to you," mommy said.

I shrugged, not giving any reaction to the statement. Why would someone from the government want to talk with me?

"Do you know what an institution is?" she asked.

I shook my head.

"It's where they put retarded kids to stay for the rest of their lives. It's like jail for stupid girls who can't potty train."

I felt a chill spread in my chest and spread to my arms and legs until I could feel a tingle in my fingertips and toes, the growing fear accentuated by the current condition of my pull-up.

Daddy lowered his voice to a stern whisper, grabbed my chin firmly with his hand, and pulled my eyes up to meet his.

"The woman is going to ask you a lot of questions," he said. "If you don't tell her how happy you are and show her that you are potty trained, she's going to take you away and lock you up and you'll never ever get out again."

I nodded mutely.

"Now, you're going to need to be wearing panties today when the lady comes later today, and you better dare not have an accident while she is here."

I wasn't sure how I was going to avoid that, given how the past few days – and for that matter, my entire life -- have gone.

"You're going to wear panties for the rest of the day," mommy continued. "But you're going to be sitting on the potty every fifteen minutes and you're not getting anything to drink until she leaves. Is that clear?"

I nodded again. Just being told I wasn't going to be allowed anything to drink was beginning to make my mouth feel dry. I followed mommy back to my bedroom so that I could change into panties.

"Of course," mommy muttered when she noticed the state of my pull-ups.

She made me lay on the bed as she removed the wet pull-up and wiped me clean. Instead of letting me put on the panties myself, mommy pulled them on like she would do while dressing me in a pull-up. Mommy carried off the potty chair into the garage. I was confused at first, since if I was going to be spending most of the day on the toilet, wouldn't they want me to be using that? Then I realized that they wouldn't want the government lady to see that I still needed a potty-training chair.

The rest of the day passed slowly. Mommy made good on her threat to have me seated on the toilet every fifteen minutes, and it actually felt as if she were making the toileting trips happen even more frequently than that. And she was also true to her word about me not getting anything to drink, which was made worse by the fact that she allowed Elaine to have a soda during lunch.

I jerked upright in my chair as the long-awaited ring from the doorbell finally came late into the afternoon. Elaine and I remained in the living room at our school desks. Though I could hear mommy and daddy talking with at least two people near the front door, but I couldn't make out what they were saying.

"Elaine, Annabelle, come over here," daddy called out calmly.

I recognized the first of the two visitors instantly, as his uniform and the handcuffs and handgun on his belt gave him away as a policeman. I didn't know what the woman who was standing next to him was supposed to be. A badge was stitched onto the woman's otherwise nondescript jacket, with the letters "CPS" emblazoned on it.

"And you are homeschooling both your daughters?" the woman asked.

"Yes," mommy said. "And we're fully registered with the state to do so."

"What grade are they in?"

"They are both in fourth grade"

"But I thought they weren't the same age."

"Well, our oldest, Annabelle, had to repeat kindergarten as public school wasn't right for her. That's a large reason for why we chose to homeschool them. And it works better anyways with them both learning the same subjects together."

"They still take the assessment tests every year and pass them better than most public school students," daddy added.

Elaine did get good grades, mine, well, they weren't as good and were usually another source of spankings.

"Well, I'm going to need to speak to each of them separately," the lady said.

"But...," daddy began to say.

"It doesn't work that way," the police officer said, resting his hand on his belt.

"Can I talk to Annabelle in her bedroom?" the lady asked.

"Of course, it's just down that hallway," mommy said, pointing with her finger.

"Why don't you lead the way, Annabelle," the lady said.

Once we were in my bedroom, I took a seat on my bed and the lady joined me. If she noticed the crinkle from the plastic mattress protector, she didn't say a word about it.

"What happened to your cheek?"

I repeated verbatim the answer that mommy had made me rehearse.

"I was wrestling with my sister on her bed. We got too close to the edge and I fell off and hit my face on the floor."

"I see," the lady said, in a tone that suggested she was going to ask my sister to check if our stories matched.

She went through a series of rather boring questions. Asking about what I was learning in school. What I liked to do for fun, and so forth. I answered all the questions honestly, though I didn't understand why she was asking them. It all seemed so unimportant.

"How often are you able to get to the toilet?" the lady asked casually, in the same tone she had used to question me about what my favorite types of food were.

The suddenness of the question left me at a momentary loss for words. I couldn't tell her that I had at minimum, one accident a day, often two or three, and sometimes more. What would she think of me? I didn't want to get locked up in an institution.

"I'm eight," I said, fighting to keep my voice from reaching a higher pitch. "I get to the toilet all the time."

"And you don't ever need to wear pull-ups or diapers?"

"What, no," I replied, trying to sound firm. "I'm wearing panties," I added, crossing my arms over my chest.

"I see," the lady said.

I thought she was going to ask me to show her proof that I was wearing panties, but the lady proceeded to a question that left me unsure of how to answer.

"But what about Thanksgiving, did you have a bladder accident then?"

There was a look in her eye as if she already knew the answer to the question. But how could she have known? And why ask if she already did?

Mommy and daddy had told me to lie about all my accidents, and I wanted to obey them so I wouldn't get sent to an institution, but I had another feeling that this was a lie I wouldn't be able to get away with.

"Yes... I had an accident. But I had just gotten distracted with all my cousins over for Thanksgiving."

"And what happened after the accident? Did your cousins tease you? Were you punished for it?"

I took a brief pause again. I couldn't give the wrong answer, but if mommy, daddy, and my sister were going to also be saying that I didn't have potty accidents, my answer needed to match what they would say.

"They did tease me, but mommy just sent me back to my room to get cleaned up."

"Are you sure that's what happened? You don't have to be embarrassed or afraid."

"That's really what happened," I said with a stammer in my voice.

"Well, I think that is all for now," the lady said, leading me out of the bedroom.

I stood in the front room with the policeman and mommy and daddy as the lady spent about ten minutes talking with my younger sister before returning to the room.

"Is that going to be all," mommy asked.

"Yes, that will be all, I'm sure our getting called here must have been a misunderstanding."

"I'm glad we got things cleared up," daddy said.

"But one more thing, the lady asked, turning back to face my parents. "Why didn't you tell me that she had wet her pants on Thanksgiving," the lady asked mommy.

Mommy took a brief glance at me before regaining her composure.

"I hadn't thought much about it," mommy replied. "Besides, why would I want to embarrass her by telling someone about it."

"That's fair enough," the lady said. "Sorry for troubling you. We'll be on our way."

Mommy and daddy both peered out the window, watching as the car with the lady and the policeman drove off. After about a minute they both turned to face me.

"Annabelle Mary Lee," daddy said, as he took two big steps forward to grab me. "What did I tell you about not telling the lady about any of your accidents."

Without waiting for an answer, and I didn't have a good answer to give anyway, Daddy lifted me off the ground, twisted me around, and laid me across his lap as he took a seat on a chair.

"Elaine, go to the kitchen and grab one of the wooden paddles from that drawer next to the sink."

"Please. No!" I yelled.

I tried to squirm away, but daddy's hand pressed against my back was more than enough to ensure that I wasn't going anywhere. He pulled my skirt up with his other hand but didn't bother with lowering my panties. The only warning I got about the impending spanking was the sound of my sister's footsteps as she returned from the kitchen with a wooden spoon presumably in her hand.

As daddy repeatedly smacked the utensil against my bottom, I strained my ears, hoping to hear the car with the policeman and the lady turn around and pull into the driveway, but it never came back.

[YourFNF]

22 hours ago, MinnesotaWriter said:

They did what?” mommy said incredulously. “I mean, I know John doesn’t get along all that well with us, but for Lydia to try and report us for that.”

“I know, right?” daddy said. “No one gets to tell us how to manage our family.”

Oh you don't like consequences shit bird?

22 hours ago, MinnesotaWriter said:

“The woman is going to ask you a lot of questions,” he said. “If you don’t tell her how happy you and show her that you are potty-trained, she’s going to take you away and lock you up and you’ll never ever get out again.”

I nodded mutely.

Fucking gaslighters....

[Baby Billy]

The thing that really breaks my heart in that last chapter is that there are real parents that abuse the children they were given to love.  Kids are a gift form God that many would love to have but never get the chance.

[Jayme]

Sadly this is why we have to have places like CPS, DCS or whatever alphabet soup letters they decide to use. Ignorant arsehat parents exist and stuff like this or worse happens.

I'm hoping that this is not part autobiographical in any way, cause nobody deserves treatment like this.

I really enjoyed the update. Hopefully the gaslighting ignorant waste of parents get what they deserve.

[Guilend]

After catching up on this story, I don't think I'll read any further. It's a great story, and one that should be told. I just can't read it, my emotions can't handle it. By the time I got to the last update I was not sure if i wanted to curl up in a ball and cry or start throwing and punching things. 

[MinnesotaWriter]

On 11/25/2020 at 4:30 PM, YourFNF said:

Oh you don't like consequences shit bird?

Fucking gaslighters....

That about sums it up.

On 11/25/2020 at 8:16 PM, Baby Billy said:

The thing that really breaks my heart in that last chapter is that there are real parents that abuse the children they were given to love.  Kids are a gift form God that many would love to have but never get the chance.

That's really where a lot of inspiration/ideas for this story comes from. There's sadly no shortage of news articles about situations like or worse than this one.

19 hours ago, Jayme said:

Sadly this is why we have to have places like CPS, DCS or whatever alphabet soup letters they decide to use. Ignorant arsehat parents exist and stuff like this or worse happens.

I'm hoping that this is not part autobiographical in any way, cause nobody deserves treatment like this.

I really enjoyed the update. Hopefully the gaslighting ignorant waste of parents get what they deserve.

Not autobiographical in the least bit, just my own, strange mind.

3 hours ago, Guilend said:

After catching up on this story, I don't think I'll read any further. It's a great story, and one that should be told. I just can't read it, my emotions can't handle it. By the time I got to the last update I was not sure if i wanted to curl up in a ball and cry or start throwing and punching things. 

I'll take that as a compliment, kind of, I guess? I guess I'm glad the story is impactful, but sorry it's been that much for you.

There's almost certainly going to be a total of five flashbacks, so if the first two were too much already, skipping the next three is probably a good move.

[MinnesotaWriter]

Chapter 5: I’m (Not) a Big Kid Now

Present time...

I remained in the awkward position on the yoga mat for as long as I could manage. I had no idea how these Kegel exercises were supposed to help my bladder, but it's what the doctor said to do so I've been following his instructions down to the letter without any positive results so far.

This current pose had me resting on my shoulders with my arms stretched forward. I had my knees lifted in the air so that I was holding my body at a forty-five-degree angle. My back ached. I could only manage to hold the post for about twenty seconds at a time, so I had to rest frequently between attempts. I wasn't even certain that I was doing it correctly.

With my head resting on the mat and facing the ceiling, I couldn't directly see the TV, but from the opening jingle, I could guess that an episode of The Price is Right was just getting ready to begin. I collapsed back onto the mat with a sigh and a soft thud. That was enough exercise for this morning. I rotated my head to take a look at the living room TV. Having been living with my aunt and uncle for about three weeks now, they have let me have the house to myself while they are off to work.

I'd watched more TV in the past few days than I had in quite a while. I had mostly stuck with the game shows: Jeopardy, The Price is Right, and Who Wants to be a Millionaire. I couldn't stand the soap dramas, too crazy and emotionally exaggerated.

Diapers, baby formula, car seats, and other infant paraphernalia, that's what the vast majority of the commercials were for during those shows. I guess it made sense that stay-at-home moms with young children would be a large part of the target audience during daytime TV.

The ads that annoyed me the most were the ones for the pull-ups. You know, the ones with the smiling kid off on her wait to the toilet. And that annoying jingle – "I'm a big kid now" -- I could hardly get it out of my head.

I hated the simplicity of it. Just put these pull-ups on and you can be potty trained in no time. I never quite understood why a company would market a product designed specifically to get a person to stop using their products. Just seems so counterproductive.

It hadn't taken me long to discover that the pull-ups Aunt Lydia had left in my bedroom were completely insufficient for my needs. They fit me perfectly fine, but after a series of leaks the next day, I'd gone back to wearing the diapers the hospital had sent with me. I didn't like that I had been stuck using them, but it was my only option at the moment. Aunt Lydia, bless her, had searched online and found some adult-sized pull-ups that worked much better. They were plain white, and though I would have preferred something cute, they did what they needed to do.

My new pull-ups had finally arrived the other day. I felt way prouder of myself as I pulled them on than a teenage girl should feel, but it was a freedom I hadn't experienced for a couple of years. After I had outgrown the usefulness of store-brand pull-ups, my mother had often forced me to wear diapers when my bladder problems were at their worst, which, really was most of the time.

With the house to myself, I hadn't bothered to put on anything other than a pull-up or a t-shirt. I'd only gotten out of bed half an hour ago and had made sure to go to the toilet even though I'd woken up in a soaked diaper, but the pull-up already was slightly wet. I hadn't noticed, but it must have happened while I was doing the exercises. So much for that helping with my bladder.

As much as I wanted to change into a dry pull-up right away, it had only been a small accident and the pull-up nearly had as much of that absorbent padding as my diapers did, so it would be wasteful to toss it in the trash. I decided to forgo putting on any additional clothing for now. Shaving off even a few seconds from the time it took for me to get seated on the toilet could make the difference in whether or not I was able to avoid having an accident.

I don't know how well the doctors had described my medical issues to my aunt and uncle, but I got the impression that they were both a bit surprised and concerned when several weeks had passed and it had become apparent that I wasn't just going to become magically toilet-trained overnight.

Aunt Lydia was by far the most understanding of the two. I had always hated it when my parents or my sister changed my diapers, but Aunt Lydia managed to do it in a way that didn't make me humiliated, embarrassed, or ashamed of myself. So, while I could change myself without issue, and preferred to do so, I could selfishly admit that I took advantage of her willingness to change me on more than one occasion.

Uncle John never had anything bad to say about diapers. He basically ignored them for the most part. I mean, it wasn't as if he was going to be changing them. The only time he'd said anything was when he caught me lounging on the couch with just a diaper and a t-shirt on and he told me to cover it up. I'd get the odd look occasionally from him as well if I mentioned that I needed to step away to change myself, but he never teased me or said anything derogatory.

This was the third morning my aunt and uncle had left me alone in the house, and I still hadn't gotten over the strangeness of it. I've never been left alone before like this, at least, in the physical sense, with the freedom to indulge in whatever I desired to do without someone constantly looking over my shoulder.

For breakfast, I would really have liked something warm, like scrambled eggs, perhaps, but I hadn't been able to work up the courage to ask Aunt Lydia to show me how to use the stovetop, being too embarrassed to admit that Mother had never allowed me to operate that. But the cupboard was stocked with a half-dozen brands of children's cereal. I poured a bowl of Captain Crunch and topped it off with some skim milk. A good choice and one that I hadn't had in several years. That cereal had been one of my sister Elaine's favorites, and she had always picked it out when choosing breakfasts, again, something that Mother didn't let me do.

For most people, it feels like their bladder must be practically yelling at them once it has filled up and needs to be released. For me, the messages from my bladder tend to come as the faintest of whispers, noticeable only if I pay close attention to all the tiny signals coming from my body.

Having the patience to pay attention was the biggest challenge for me. With the Nintendo Switch I'd been given on the drive here from the hospital, I had a ready source of distraction right on hand. My aunt and uncle had let me play as much as I wanted, until that time when I had been up nearly all night and had been too groggy to do anything the following day. I now had to relinquish the gaming system before going to bed.

The point is that I have a hard time paying attention to anything else when I'm playing video games. I get so absorbed in the world that I don't even hear Aunt Lydia when she is calling my name, much less noticing the urine that is soaking into my diaper or pull-up. That wasn't as much of a problem the first two weeks here, as I had been stuck with the diapers and hadn't bothered much with trying to use the toilet except when I needed to go number two.

I was torn. I'm close to beating that Zelda game, and I want to know how the story ends, but I've got to eventually make some progress on getting truly potty trained for once. I gave in and picked up the controller, I can deal with toilet training after I've finished the game.

Beating the game took longer than I expected. It was already well past noon when I finally defeated Ganon once and for all. And my pull-up was soaked. I didn't even have to check it to know what had happened. Even though the pull-up was absorbent enough that the wetness had been wicked away from my skin, just the fact that I hadn't gone to the toilet in several hours told me that I had likely wet the pull-up two or three times. And I hadn't even once given a second thought to the idea that it might be good to take a break from gaming and try and use the toilet.

The result was disappointing, but not at all surprising. I made myself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich after getting changed into a fresh pull-up, determined to not repeat the mistake of ignoring my bladder this afternoon.

I had always thought that the best way to avoid accidents was to drink as little water as possible, but the doctor had told me that being dehydrated irritates the bladder and can make it more likely to have accidents. With that advice in mind, I drank a whole glass of lemonade along with my lunch, despite my worries that this much liquid would overwhelm my bladder.

I thought back to the times mother had made me sit on the toilet for hours on end. Sure, it had resulted in the eventual tinkle into the toilet, but usually only after a lengthy wait, and rarely was the result of me intending to go. It was just the blind luck of being on the toilet rather than elsewhere in the house at the exact moment my bladder decided to release.

Still, it wouldn't hurt to try and sit on the toilet for ten minutes or so after lunch and give it my best shot. I went back to my bedroom to the attached bathroom that was only for me. The feel of the cold, porcelain surface against the bare skin on my bottom wasn't something I had ever gotten used to. I squeezed every muscle I could think of, mentally strained as long as I could, and fidgeted back and forth. Nothing came out, not so much as a drop splashing down into the toilet bowl.

I returned to my bed and turned on the small TV that was sitting on the dresser on the opposite side of the room. Video games were a no-go. This morning confirmed that to be the case beyond any doubt. Television isn't as distracting, especially if the show isn't one that I'm interested in, and otherwise, there wasn't much to do to pass the time until my aunt and uncle returned from work later this afternoon. There were several dozen books on a bookshelf off to the side of the room, but reading wasn't something I had ever done outside of being forced to for school, and it had rarely been a pleasant experience for me.

I flipped over to the right channel again and sat cautiously on the bed. It was simply a waiting game at this point. I had to be able to muster the patience to not get so distracted that I would forget to pay attention to my bladder.

The time passed slowly. I twiddled my thumbs. Counted to five hundred. Twice. I listened as carefully as I could to any signs that might be coming from my bladder. Nothing. No tingle. No sudden urge to pee. Didn't even feel any warmth or wetness from any accidents. Nearly an hour had passed, as I'd finished an entire episode of Who Wants to be a Millionaire. Still nothing. Then, I reached down and pressed my hand on the bottom of my pull-up near my crotch.

The material was slightly squishy to the touch, and warm as well. How? That couldn't be. I was paying attention. I should have noticed. I raced out of bed and into the bathroom and slid the pull-up down to my ankles to the unmistakable sight of the small yellow spot where my pee had been absorbed.

The truth was unmistakable. Diapers never lie. I rolled up the wet pull-up into a ball and chucked it angrily in the trash can.

"Why does this have to be so fucking hard!"

I didn't mean to yell, but I just couldn't keep it inside either.

I sat down on the floor in the corner of my bedroom without bothering to put on another pull-up, rubbing my hands at eyes which were beginning to tear up. Why did this have to be so difficult? Everything was supposed to be better now. I was free, living with people that cared about me. I had pull-ups again and access to the toilet whenever I needed to go.

I had always blamed my bladder problems on mother, how she had made me wear diapers, limited my toilet access, and shamed and belittled me over every accident and mistake. Could it be that it is really my fault after all? With her no longer around to blame, and my bladder issues staying just as bad as before, that left me with a conundrum that I didn't want to face.

But I couldn't admit that it was my fault. I didn't want to. I didn't want to accept that there was something inherently wrong with me, rather than being broken because of something that had been done to me. Being the victim of circumstances beyond your control is easier than accepting that something is your issue alone to face.

"Annabelle, what are you doing undressed like that?" Aunt Lydia said.

Shit. My head spun up abruptly. How had I not even noticed that she had gotten home from work early? I looked back down but didn't do anything to cover myself up.

"What was all that yelling about, anyways?" she asked as she took a seat on the floor next to me. "And what happened to the pull-ups you were going to be wearing today?"

I began to say that I had wet them, but the words just couldn't quite make it out of my mouth and past my lips. Aunt Lydia seemed to surmise what had happened even without getting any response from me.

"Did you have some issues getting to the toilet on time today?" she asked.

I nodded in response. Aunt Lydia placed her arm around my back and gently squeezed my shoulder. She just sat there without saying a single word for several minutes. Finally, the silence demanded a response from me, and I gave in. I told her about the accidents I had today. How I thought the stupid Kegel exercises were pointless. How I was so discouraged about the difficulty in getting to the toilet. How the whole situation was really all my fault after all.

"You know what?" Aunt Lydia said. "Would you be OK with taking a break from potty training, just for this evening? You can take a fresh start at it again in the morning."

Diapers didn't sound so bad when she phrased it like that. At least it would be my choice. That's what mattered the most. I could live with wearing diapers in a scenario like that. I remained on the floor as Aunt Lydia grabbed diaper powder from the dresser and got them set out on a towel on the bed. She diapered me with an amazing efficiency, and I slipped on a knee-length dress after she was done. I didn't care for wearing an outfit that would show off any sign of the diaper for the rest of today.

A ringing phone caused Aunt Lydia to make a sudden exit from the room. I laid back down on the bed, carefully positioning my dress so that the diaper was completely covered. Not that it mattered with only Aunt Lydia around, but it still made me feel better. I couldn't help but admit that watching TV was so much less stressful now that I knew I didn't have to pay attention to my bladder.

Aunt Lydia returned to the bedroom and peered around the corner with a deep concern engraved on her face. I got the premonition that I didn't want to know what the phone call had been about.

"The charges against your mother have been dropped," my aunt said, with a slight shakiness in her voice. "She just filed a lawsuit to try and regain custody of you."

[Bonsai]

I like how you describe her frustration about the lack of results in potty training: she apparently is in the perfect condition to train herself back to continence, so there is no one else to blame for lack of progress, so the lack of progress becomes even more frustrating ?. 

You managed to write your story from an angle that is very rarely explored.

[MinnesotaWriter]

On 11/29/2020 at 2:33 AM, Bonsai said:

I like how you describe her frustration about the lack of results in potty training: she apparently is in the perfect condition to train herself back to continence, so there is no one else to blame for lack of progress, so the lack of progress becomes even more frustrating ?. 

You managed to write your story from an angle that is very rarely explored.

Thanks! I had a lot of fun with that last chapter. I don't think there are that many stories about the struggle for an initially diapered character to regain continence. 

[Arendeth]

Thanks for the story so far.

[YourFNF]

On 11/29/2020 at 2:12 AM, MinnesotaWriter said:

Note about some edits: There were some discrepancies with the name of Annabelle's uncle. I had it as both John and James. I corrected it to always be James.

Chapter 5: I’m (Not) a Big Kid Now

 

“The charges against your mother have been dropped,” my aunt said, with a slight shakiness to her voice. “She just filed a lawsuit to try and regain custody of you.”

Ohhhh fuck

 

[MinnesotaWriter]

NOTE: I've always found it helpful when reading a book to have a sense of where I am in the story. You don't quite get that reading online, though. Right now, the plan is for 11 chapters and a brief epilogue, meaning that with this chapter, we are right at the half-way point of the story.
 

Chapter 6: My Sister’s Keeper

Four years earlier...

Under no circumstances was I stepping out of the car with the way I was dressed.

I was seated directly in the middle of the back seat of the car, knees, and legs pulled up snugly to my chest with my arms wrapped firmly around them. I had darted back into the vehicle after Mommy had made me remove my shorts. She had said it was so that she could be thorough with the sunscreen, but as soon as I had gotten the shorts off she had tossed them in the trunk, telling me that I wasn't going to need them since it was a warm summer day at the beach.

Having removed my shorts and t-shirt, I now had on only a one-piece swimsuit -- purple with pink polka-dots -- with a diaper underneath it. The swimsuit held the diaper snugly against my bottom and did absolutely nothing to conceal it. The leg cuffs of the diaper stuck out past the swimsuit, and the outline of the diaper was surely unmistakable. It felt as if I was a baby wearing a onesie.

I could make out the beach in the distance from the rear window of the car. A sea of umbrellas and beach chairs led right up to the Gulf of Mexico. The crowds hugged the beach in either direction as far as I could see. The idea of one stranger seeing me in a diaper, let alone hundreds or thousands, was terrifying, but Mommy and Daddy didn't seem to mind, as they both tried to coax me to get out of the car.

"Mommy, do I have to wear a diaper?"

"Yes," she replied curtly. "We went over this already at the hotel. There aren't any bathrooms close by, and you won't be able to hold it long enough to reach them."

"But if I have an accident, I can get washed off in the ocean."

"Young lady, you can't swim. You aren't going to be going any deeper in the water than to your ankles."

I didn't understand why I had to wear this stupid one-piece swimming suit if I wasn't going to be getting in the water in the first place. Granted, I had never been given swim lessons, much to my gratitude given how mommy would probably interrupt the rules requiring swim diapers for children who aren't potty trained.

"Could I wear a pull-up instead?"

"We didn't bring any to the beach."

"But mommy."

"No buts. You're going to wear the diaper, and if you need to go, you're going to use it."

I was too busy arguing with Mommy to notice that Daddy had opened the door on the other side of the car. By the time he had reached in and grabbed me it was too late. I couldn't break free from the grip of his hands on my upper arms as he dragged me from the car and set me in a standing position in the parking lot as Mommy hustled over to this side of the car and shut the door before I could even think of trying to run back on.

I held up my arms over my head as mommy rubbed sunscreen all over my body until I was glistening in the sun. Daddy gave Elaine and me each a beach bag to carry. My younger sister had been allowed to wear a two-piece swimsuit. I would have been jealous, except for the fact that it was an outfit that would have left my diaper even more exposed than it already was. If only I could have been given a pair of boys' swim trunks to wear over this swimsuit instead.

A sandy trail that passed through a grassy dune connected the parking lot to the beach. I did my best to walk behind mommy as closely as I could manage, trying to keep out of sight for as long as possible, even though I knew I was only delaying the inevitable. Sand caught between my toes as my flimsy flip-flops did little to protect my feet from the elements. I decided that I hated the beach.

I couldn't bring myself to look anyone in the eye as we neared the crowds huddled on towels and portable chairs under the umbrellas. While some people are unobservant, indifferent, or at least kind enough to mind their own business, plenty are not. A ten-year-old wearing a diaper is such a strange sight that it can't help but catch people's attention. The unmistakable stares in your direction, but not at your face but down toward your waist. The quick grab to get the attention of the person next to them, followed by a whisper and a finger pointing in your direction. The comments were made loudly enough that you can't help but overhear.

I kept my focus directly ahead of me on mommy's sandals as I followed in each of her footsteps. Once we had arrived at the beach, we had to zig and zag through the crowd as we searched for a spot to set up our umbrella and blankets. Nearly every available inch of the beach was taken already. Despite trying to keep my focus on Mommy, I couldn't help, but notice the babies and toddlers we passed, as if my gaze was magnetically drawn to them. Many of them were running around wearing nothing other than a diaper or pull-up, I suppose my situation could have been worse, after all. Others carried the tell-tale signs of a diaper sticking out of their swim trunks or bulging through the bottom of a swimsuit, in a mirror image of how I must look.

After walking for what seemed like forever, we at last came to a small clearing between a pair of families where we had just enough room to stake out a spot in the sand for ourselves. Daddy laid out two beach towels side-by-side on either of side of the umbrella, enough for each of us to have our own. I instantly claimed one of the towels in the middle for myself.

After they had set their stuff down, Elaine and Daddy ran off to jump in the waves. My younger sister had been given swim lessons earlier in the summer. Mommy was already lying on the beach towel to the right of me, flipping through the first few pages of a paperback book she had brought along in her bag.

Laying on the beach wasn't all that it was made out to be. I couldn't get into a comfortable position, with the unevenness of the sand beneath the towel causing my back to ache, and I already seemed to have some sand in my hair, and I wasn't even sure how that had managed to happen already. The umbrella directly overhead shielded my eyes from the sun as I rested the back of my head on the towel, but the view it created was uninspiring. To my relief, it didn't appear that any of the neighboring beachgoers had noticed my diaper, or, if they had, they hadn't seemed to react to it at all.

I few minutes of laying on my back pointlessly was all I could take. I sat upright and looked down at the ocean, just in time to see a large wave sweep Elaine off of her feet and send her face-first into the water. I chuckled slightly at that sight. Maybe being out of the water wasn't so bad after all.

"What's so funny?" Mommy asked without taking her eyes off the book.

"Nothing."

Daddy yanked Elaine upright out of the water. Her shoulder-length hair was now drenched. She jogged back toward us with wide eyes on her face.

"Done swimming already?" Mommy asked, still too engrossed in her book to bother to look away from it

"For now, the waves are a bit too rough," Daddy said, not mentioning that Elaine had been pushed over by a wave.

"Yeah, this massive wave knocked Elaine over," I added, getting a glare from my younger sister for my effort to tattle on her.

"She what!? mommy said, this time slamming the book shut and tossing it down to the side. The book missed the towel and landed in the sand.

"It's nothing," daddy said. "It's just a bit windy, so the waves are bigger than normal. That's all."

But Mommy was already off of her towel and inspecting Elaine.

"Look at your hair. Are you sure you are OK? Does it hurt anywhere?"

"Mom, I'm fine," Elaine said, brushing mommy's hands away.

"I don't care. You and your sister on not going back in the water. You can play in the sand after lunch."

I could barely suppress a grin at what I had accomplished. While it was a bummer that I wasn't even going to get a chance to get my feet wet in the ocean, I'd managed to make things equal with my younger sister after all. Elaine took a seat on her towel, which was to my left, on the other side of the umbrella stand. She knew as well that continuing an argument with Mommy wasn't going to get you anywhere.

We made short work of our lunch. Mommy had packed ham sandwiches, potato chips, and juice pouches. Elaine wanted to build a sandcastle. I didn't care to join her, but I also didn't envision laying on the towel for several hours as being a good alternative, so I helped my sister carry a bag of beach toys – buckets, miniature shovels, and other tools for constructing a sandcastle – a couple dozen yards ahead until we reached a spot a few feet above wave-line.

It wasn't until I waddled a little as I stood up that I again remembered that I had the diaper on. It had almost slipped my mind once I had gotten settled into our spot on the beach. I sat down as soon as we reached the spot where we were going to build the sandcastle. Keeping my bottom on the ground was my only defense to prevent anyone with a wandering eye from spotting the diaper.

We must have been at the start of the trend, because no sooner had we begun plotting out how the sandcastle was going to be built than a young girl and her mother arrived and began working on a sandcastle of their own a short ways away from ours. Elaine and I didn't pay much attention to them. I was using the shovel to carve out a future moat around the castle walls. When I needed to move, I scooted as discreetly as I could, keeping my bottom as close to the ground as possible. Those efforts proved futile.

"Mommy? Why is that girl wearing a diaper," said the young girl, pointing her finger in my direction.

The lack of a diaper or pull-up beneath the girl's yellow-and-white two-piece swimsuit made it clear that the toddler had already mastered the art of potty training. I turned my head away to avoid making eye contact with the girl's mother, who I assumed was now looking in my direction as well. I stared intently at my sandcastle, using both of my hands to straighten a wall that was connecting two of the towers.

"Lily, it isn't nice to point at strangers," the girl's mother said, speaking in a hushed tone that was barely audible over the din of the crowd.

I flipped over the bucket to add another tower to the sandcastle. I tried not to fidget too much, but I was beginning to feel some of the sand that had gotten trapped in my diaper. It was just now that I noticed that the diaper was wet. Having not gotten close enough to the water, that was probably my fault. The combination of the gritty pebbles of sand and the moisture of the diaper made it hard to sit still.

"But why isn't she potty trained," the girl asked, her curiosity stronger than her mother's admonitions about not being rude to strangers.

To my left, Elaine was barely able to keep a smile off of her face. She enjoyed how my inability to potty train impacted our relationship. She would much rather play the role of an older sister, and she gladly lorded her ability to properly use the toilet over me. And since my younger sister was already nearly my height, even though I had about a year on her, strangers just tended to assume that she must be the older sister. While I couldn't hear the mother's sigh of exasperation in response to her toddler's tenacity, I certainly could at least imagine it.

"Some kids are different," the woman said. "They have a harder time learning how to grow up. She problem has some special needs and isn't able to learn how to use the toilet, but it isn't nice to point at her like that."

I knew the woman meant well by what she was saying. She was at least trying to teach her daughter to have good manners and not be rude to people who are different, but the words stung, nonetheless. The conclusion she drew was the first conclusion everyone always came to when they saw me wearing diapers or pull-ups.

If they were polite, strangers would ask if I was developmentally delayed, or special needs, if being more discreet. Strangers who were a bit more forward might ask if I have Down Syndrome, Autism, or some other specific disability. The worst ones were those whose minds skipped directly past that and right to the insults. Stupid. Retard. Baby. The idea that an otherwise completely normal girl might not have the ability to control when she uses the toilet was a foreign concept to them. Once they caught sight of the diapers, they had to assume that something else must be wrong with me as well.

Despite my experience with these situations, I couldn't help but begin to cry. I think the woman noticed because afterward she lowered her voice and whispered to her daughter, who went running back up the beach. Petrified, I remained seated on the sand. I wanted nothing more than to get away from the beach, but to stand up would mean providing those strangers an even better view of my diaper than they had already gotten. Elaine didn't say anything in the next couple of minutes. That was unusual for her. She didn't normally pass up an opportunity to rub in the fact that I had these toileting problems. I hoped that the woman might leave to follow her daughter, and at least give me my privacy and a tiny amount of my dignity back. That wasn't to be.

The toddler returned, holding the hand of a taller girl, who appeared to be closer to my age. The way the older girl walked was slightly uneven as if she somehow weren't able to quite control her balance. Strange. Then I noticed something about the girl that piqued my attention. She had a diaper on underneath her swimsuit just like I did.

Not wanting to get caught staring at that other family as the new girl arrived at the sandcastle the toddler and her mother had been building, I once again went back to working on our sandcastle, only to be interrupted a minute later when the woman and the mystery diapered girl walked over to Elaine and me.

The woman greeted us, but the lady didn't address me, instead choosing to speak to Elaine.

"I'm sorry that my daughter, Lily, was being rude to your sister," the woman said. "She really should know better, since her older sister has similar disabilities as your sister."

"Yeah, Annabelle can't figure out the whole potty-training thing, either," Elaine said casually, having also made note of the diaper this other girl was wearing, as if talking about my issues with a total stranger was not a big deal at all.

"This is my other daughter, Patricia. She has multiple sclerosis, which is a disability that causes her to have some difficulty controlling her body and movements."

Multiple what? I didn't have any idea about what that meant. The girl gave me a meek, disjointed wave at me. I wanted nothing to do with her.

"I thought they might like to play with each other," the woman continued.

"Of course," Elaine, said, as if she somehow had the right to decide what I was and wasn't going to do.

"That's so nice," the woman said. "It's such a pleasant surprise for Patricia to be able to meet someone like her."

I wasn't anything like her. Just having a diaper on didn't mean there were any other similarities. Why did the fact that I wore diapers have to be the defining aspect of me?

"I'm not a retard like her!"

I knew right away that I shouldn't have said it. The girl began to cry almost instantaneously. I hated how people judged me for my toileting issues, but it was hypocritical to behave that way toward others dealing with problems outside of their own control.

My outburst of anger wasn't at the girl or her mother. I wanted to be normal, to go to the beach without people pointing or staring at me. Without people talking down to me or trying to stereotype me as someone who was only compatible with other children who weren't normal.

I couldn't think of any good way to extract myself from the situation. So, I instead made it worse. I picked up a bucket that was halfway full of sand, chucked it at my sister, stood up, and ran back to where Mommy and Daddy were seated under the umbrella. I practically tossed myself face-first onto the towel.

Mommy and Daddy didn't say anything upon my arrival. Mommy remained trapped in her book, and Daddy was lying on his stomach, his beach towel a few feet away from the umbrella so that it would be out in the sun. He had headphones in both ears and may even have been asleep. I peeked up from the towel to look back down at the beach. Elaine hadn't followed me back and was still talking with that other family, probably still telling them how much of a baby she thought that I was.

I didn't dare tell bother mommy that I had wet the diaper. I wasn't sure that she had brought any diapers to change me in the first place. I also wasn't sure that she wouldn't just change me right here and now on the beach towel. I rolled over onto my back. The diaper was less visible from the front than from behind. I didn't dare get up from the towel for the next hour, partly because I didn't want to deal with any other strangers pointing out my diaper, but also because I felt bad about calling that girl a retard, and I didn't want to run into her again.

The need to poop had begun to grow shortly after the incident at the sandcastle. Mommy had indicated that I was supposed to use the diaper, and she hadn't given an exception for doing number two. Normally, even when I was wearing a diaper and was expected to wet it if I needed to pee, Mommy still wanted me to let her know when I needed to do number two so that I could do that on a toilet. But maybe being at the beach was different. And maybe I'd be able to hold it in until we got to the hotel anyway.

We didn't start packing to leave the beach until Elaine started whining to Mommy and Daddy about how bored she was. I would never have gotten away with that, but sure enough, a few minutes later we had packed up all the beach toys, folded the towels, and taken apart the umbrella.

It didn't seem possible, but the beach felt even more crowded than before as we hiked across the sand on the walk back to the car. In the past hour, the urge from my bowels to relieve myself had only strengthened, and it was at the point where if I didn't give the situation my full, undivided attention, I was likely to end up with a messy diaper as well as a wet one.

As we continued walking, I was sure that if I paused and stood still, if only for a handful of seconds, I would lose the last grip of control that I had over my bowels. We were about halfway back to the car, so maybe another ten minutes before we got there, and the drive from the hotel to the beach had only been another ten minutes or so. If I could just hold out that long, I'd be fine.

My attention had been so focused on making sure I had kept moving forward as I trailed behind Mommy that I didn't register the fact that she had come to a complete stop. I bumped into her back and then fell backward, landing on my bottom in the sand with a soft thud. As I hurried to stand up, the inevitable happened. I could feel the poop squeeze out into the diaper, the stickiness of it against my skin exacerbated with every step I took.

Mommy, Daddy, and Elaine were all ahead of me and had turned to continue walking so they didn't notice that I had messed myself. I hoped that the view from behind me wasn't too obvious to anyone watching us walk along the beach. When we arrived back at the car, Mommy finally caught a glimpse of my bottom as I leaned down to pull on my shorts.

"Annabelle, did you really do that in your diaper?"

I knew better than to lie, especially when mommy would be able to discover the truth easily enough. Even though mommy didn't exactly specify what she was wondering that I had really done in my diaper, I knew what she meant.

"Yes," I muttered, looking down at my feet.

"Elaine," Mommy said. "Look in the trunk to see if we brought your sister's diaper bag."

"I don't see it," my sister called back.

As uncomfortable as I was becoming, I didn't mind that the diaper change would have to wait until we had reached the privacy of the hotel. With the shorts back on as well, I didn't have to worry about anyone seeing my diaper in the hotel lobby.

Getting me into a clean diaper didn't seem to be a priority once we arrived back at the hotel. The hotel suite was large, with two separate bedrooms and bathrooms. Mommy and Elaine each grabbed one of the showers right away to get the sand and salt from the beach washed off. Daddy had stopped changing my diapers, so that left me standing alone awkwardly in my room, as sitting down was no longer comfortable given the condition of my diaper. Elaine emerged from the bathroom before Mommy did, and Daddy got his turn to take a shower, but no way was I going to ask my sister to change me.

I walked over to the bathroom mommy was in. I didn't hear the sound of the shower from the other side, so she had to be close to getting finished with cleaning herself up.

"Mommy, can you please hurry, I really need to get changed," I whined at her.

"Go get your changing stuff out and lay on the bed," Mommy said from behind the door. "And tell your sister to come see me if she is out of the bathroom already."

I sent Elaine off to talk to Mommy and then grabbed the changing pad from my diaper bag along with a pull-up, wipes, and baby powder. I wasn't normally this cooperative with getting changed, but I wanted nothing more than to just get this diaper off of my bottom. After removing my swimsuit, I eased myself onto the bed in an attempt not to smear the poop across my bottom any more than I already had. I could hear Elaine arguing with Mommy from the other room.

"Mom, why do I have to change her diaper? It's so gross."

"Because I told you so."

"But she pooped in it!"

"Exactly. That's why it needs to be changed. Now go."

Elaine returned from the other room a few moments later with a couple of paper tissues in her hand. She wadded them up and stuck them in each of her nostrils. Since I wasn't allowed to change myself, Mommy had begun to teach Elaine how to change my diapers. Both of us hated it. Messy diapers were a rarity, and Elaine hadn't ever had to change one of those before.

"Ewe!," my younger sister exclaimed as she pulled back the front of the diaper after undoing all four of the tapes.

I couldn't see the state of the diaper, but the nauseating smell wafting toward my nostrils made me wish I had some tissue paper stuffed into my nose as well.

"You're so gross," Elaine said, as she began to gingerly wipe away at my bottom.

I wished she would hurry up and get it over with. That's what you have to do with a messy diaper, just take a wipe and bravely go right down the middle with it. Elaine was too squeamish. She practically went through half of the fifty-pack of baby wipes before she pulled the diaper away and wrapped it up snuggly.

Elaine carried the diaper away to the trash can, which I was thankful for because wrapping it up wasn't nearly enough to eliminate that awful stench. I remained still on the bed. For half a second, I considered grabbing the pull-up and putting it on myself, but I knew Mommy wouldn't be happy with me doing that, and the odds of Elaine not tattling on me were non-existent.

When Elaine returned from disposing of the diaper, she was holding a diaper in her hand.

"Come on, you need to lift your butt up for me."

"What! No! I'm not wearing a diaper."

I kicked the diaper out of my young sister's hand, rolled off the bed, and ran naked into the other room, where mommy was in the middle of getting dressed.

"Mommy, Elaine was trying to put a diaper on me."

"I know. I told her to."

"That's not fair."

"You know the rules about having a messy accident in your diaper. Why didn't you ask to be taken to the toilet?"

"You said the toilets were too far away."

"I never told you it was OK to take a shit in your diaper. Now go back to the other room and let your sister help you get the diaper on. You're wearing them for the rest of the day."

Dejected, I returned to where Elaine was standing at the foot of the bed.

"Baby," she whispered in a drawn-out snicker.

I chose not to respond. It was hard to get into an argument that I wasn't a baby when all the evidence at the moment stood to the contrary. Elaine did a better job putting the clean diaper on me than she did with removing the messy one.

"Much cuter," Elaine commented as she pressed the final diaper tape into place.

She gave my bottom a firm smack as I stood up from the bed. The teasing had finally gotten too much for me to ignore. I turned around and yelled at my sister as all my pent-up frustration from the day came to a head.

"I hate you. I hope you die."

[Arendeth]

Thanks for the chapter.

[MinnesotaWriter]

On 12/4/2020 at 9:39 PM, Arendeth said:

Thanks for the chapter.

Thanks, I'm glad you're enjoying it.

[MinnesotaWriter]

Chapter 7: Group Therapy

Present time

I must have misheard what Aunt Lydia had said. They'd let Mom out of jail? She was trying to regain custody of me? That couldn't possibly be right. No. No. No.

"Wait. Really?"

"Yes, that was the lady from the Child Protective Services office."

I felt a chill rush through me as if the temperature had dropped to below freezing.

"But how could she do that? That's not right."

"I'm not sure, but since the charges against her were dropped, she is allowed to make a petition to get custody of you again."

That still didn't make any bit of sense, but the legalese of the situation was beyond my understanding anyway. "How" wasn't even the most important question. That was just the procedural part of it. What left me most puzzled was why Mom would even consider trying to regain custody of me in the first place.

Set aside for a moment the fact that I had tried to kill her. She had never wanted me. My younger sister had always been the favored child and for reasons beyond simply my inability to consistently make proper use of the toilet. Elaine had been smarter, better-looking, better behaved, better, well, at anything and everything compared to me, not that doing so had been much of a challenge. I was an afterthought, the unseemly first attempt that hadn't quite turned out as expected.

Sure, I was all she had left, but over the past two years, that scarcity hadn't resulted in an increased demand that she care for me. The whole deal made no sense at all. Mother had no reason to want me, and she had given me no reason to want her.

Aunt Lydia intruded upon my silent reflection to try and reassure me that everything was going to be alright.

"Annabelle, you don't need to worry that anything is going to change right away," my aunt said. "It takes a long time for things to go through the court system. I'm going to make some more phone calls, why don't you stay in here and keep watching TV."

I left the TV on, but I had gotten bored of watching game shows, so I instead sat at the desk to fiddle with the computer.

I had never been allowed unsupervised access to a computer before and had no idea where to begin after turning it on. This one was so much fancier. The keys on the keyboard lit up in a stream of rainbow colors and gave a satisfying click every time I pressed them. The mouse was large and fit perfectly into my hand. It had a bunch of buttons on the side, but nothing happened when I pressed them, so I didn't have a clue as to what they were supposed to be used for.

Minesweeper and Solitaire were the only games I had been allowed to play on the computer. They were apparently educational enough that my parents hadn't thrown a fuss over them. I tried to look for Minesweeper, but it wasn't anywhere to be found. I would have to ask my uncle to help with that when he came home from work later today.

The urge to pee came briefly and disappeared as I relaxed my bladder almost instinctively. Aunt Lydia's idea about taking a short break from toilet training sounded like a good idea while I had been sitting on the floor crying about the previous accident, but a wet diaper was still a wet diaper. I wished fervently that I would soon begin to see some results from the exercises I was doing. The doctor had hinted at the possibility of some medications if that didn't work. At this point, I'd be willing to give any idea a shot.

Aunt Lydia was on the phone talking to someone in an urgent, hushed tone as I walked over to the living room to retrieve the Switch. I couldn't make out what she was saying, as she appeared to have lowered her voice after noticing I had stepped out of the bedroom. I tried to keep my mind clear of thoughts about what the custody battle would mean for me, as I laid back down on the bed to play with the gaming system and enjoy the temporary distraction it provided.

---

My first foray into public wasn't going as well as I had hoped it would. The hospital stay didn't count. And I'd hardly ever left home in the year preceding it.

Being homeschooled hadn't been high on the list of my sources of angst but finding myself seated amongst a half-dozen other girls my age left me at a complete loss as to what I should say or do. The last time I had been around this many kids my age had been at the funeral. Outside of gatherings with our extended family, which had become more and more infrequent, my social life had been basically nonexistent.

We were seated in a full circle, in an oddball collection of mismatched plastic chairs in the center of a large room that could have held ten times as many people. I was seated to the right of the therapist, Amanda, whom I had met with while I was at the hospital. These group therapy sessions hadn't been required as part of the agreement with the court, but apparently, Amanda had suggested the idea to my aunt and uncle, saying it would be good for me to be around girls my age.

I had arrived only a few minutes before the therapy session was to begin. I had panicked when I had gone out to the car with Aunt Lydia, and it had taken a while for her to help me calm down.

The other girls had already divided into a couple of groups when I arrived and were casually chatting amongst themselves, their voices echoing across the mostly empty room. I later learned that all but one of them had been to this therapy group before. None of them paid me any attention when I grabbed one of the two remaining seats.

I stood out like a sore thumb. None of them were dressed nearly as conservatively as I was. Five of the girls were wearing jeans or leggings. Another was wearing mini shorts. There was one girl who was wearing a skirt, but it didn't even reach all the way to her knees, and her shirt was tied up in the front so that her midriff was showing. Mother would never have let me dress like that in public, not that I would have wanted to. A diaper underneath one of those outfits would stand no chance of going undiscovered.

I didn't attempt to join in on any of the conversations. What would I say? I didn't have a single clue as to how I should introduce myself or what I should say. I resorted to half-heartedly picking at my fingernails and staring at the floor and my ankle-length dress. I really suppose I could get away with something at least a few inches shorter.

The attempts at toilet training had been put on an indefinite hiatus in the several days since I had found out that mother was attempting to regain custody of me. Not a single night had gone by without one dream or another about all the humiliations and embarrassments I had endured. More than once I had woken up without immediately realizing that I was now free from that woman's grasp.

I didn't want to admit that this additional stress had made concentrating on my bladder a much more difficult proposition, but that was the truth, and so I had basically stuck to diapers since then. Seeing how normal kids dressed made me want to redouble my efforts. I had never worn leggings before, and they looked so comfortable.

When the therapy session began, Amanda made everyone take turns saying their names and doing something fun they did in the past week. She started with the girl seated to her left and they went around in a clockwise fashion until it was my turn to speak.

"I'm Annabelle, and something fun I did in the last week was beat the Breathe of the Wild game."

Amanda spent some time talking about the importance of being able to express ourselves and not bottle up all our thoughts and emotions inside. We were supposed to share our feelings and speak our truth, whatever the hell that was supposed to mean.

The first time Amanda called on me to speak, my mind went as blank as an Etch A Sketch tablet that had just been shaken. I kind of shook my head until she called on someone else and said I could have more time to think about what I wanted to say. I tried to pay attention to the other girls as they talked. I didn't understand why they were in a therapy group. They all seemed so normal.

'Can I be excused to go to the restroom?" I asked Amanda, anticipating that she was likely to call on me again soon.

I had no compunction about using my bladder problems as an excuse to get myself a break from a conversation that I had zero interest in. Plus, it was a tactic I'd already used successfully with Amanda before.

"Of course," Amanda said.

That response didn't sit well with the other girls, who apparently hadn't been given the same luxury of being able to step away from the therapy session whenever they asked. A few of them grumbled about how that wasn't fair.

"Well, Annabelle can, so let's just continue," Amanda said as I shifted my mini backpack onto my shoulder and went in search of the restrooms.

I remained in the bathroom for as long as I felt I could get away with it. I had gone into one of the family restrooms so that I could have a little more privacy, but this one came with a full-length mirror on one of the walls. I wanted to pace back and forth so I could concentrate and think, but every time I turned around to face that wall, I had to see myself and this ugly dress in the mirror once again.

Amanda didn't ask me any more questions during the remainder of the therapy session once I had returned to the circle. I appreciated not being put on the spot again, and I guessed that Amanda must have figured that was how I was feeling. I left the room as soon as the session came to an end, not bothering to stick around and try to talk with the other girls.

"I have some good news for you," Aunt Lydia said, asa I sat down in the passenger seat of the car.

"It better be that I don't have to go to this stupid therapy session ever again."

"Why would you say that? What happened?"

"No one wanted to talk to me."

"Anyways," Aunt Lydia said, clearly intending to press on with the good news she had planned to deliver. "We hired a lawyer who is going to help make sure that you don't have to go back to living with your mom. There's going to be a court hearing in a month or so, but the attorney we hired is going to file a countersuit."

[spark]

How old is Annabelle?  It sounds like she is still a minor, but an older teen- maybe 16.  I don't know the legality of family law, but at that age- I would think her personal preference would hold a lot of sway over a family court.  Especially since there is an obvious documented history of abuse in her mother's home, so even if the charges were dropped- the mom would have a difficult time getting custody if Annabelle didn't want to go.

I know that the standard of evidence in family court is far lower than criminal court.  The charges could be dropped because there was reasonable doubt, but if the preponderance of the evidence shows that her mom participated in the abuse- she wouldn't get custody..

[MinnesotaWriter]

On 12/13/2020 at 1:33 PM, spark said:

How old is Annabelle?  It sounds like she is still a minor, but an older teen- maybe 16.  I don't know the legality of family law, but at that age- I would think her personal preference would hold a lot of sway over a family court.  Especially since there is an obvious documented history of abuse in her mother's home, so even if the charges were dropped- the mom would have a difficult time getting custody if Annabelle didn't want to go.

I know that the standard of evidence in family court is far lower than criminal court.  The charges could be dropped because there was reasonable doubt, but if the preponderance of the evidence shows that her mom participated in the abuse- she wouldn't get custody..

She's fourteen in the current timeline. The first two flashbacks have had her at 8 years old, and the most recent one had her as 10.

I'll admit that most of my legal knowledge comes from binge reading a dozen or so John Grisham books several years back. I'll do my best to make that realistic when it gets fleshed out in chapter 9, but kind of hoping there aren't any actual lawyers reading.

[Babyqtboy]

2 hours ago, MinnesotaWriter said:

She's fourteen in the current timeline. The first two flashbacks have had her at 8 years old, and the most recent one had her as 10.

I'll admit that most of my legal knowledge comes from binge reading a dozen or so John Grisham books several years back. I'll do my best to make that realistic when it gets fleshed out in chapter 9, but kind of hoping there aren't any actual lawyers reading.

You are doing fine, at 14 the court would take the child’s desires into consideration but depending on where they are, geographically, it is possible that a conservative family court judge would view family reunification as the highest priority. I was raised in the foster care system, and every year or two my mother would convince the court she was a fit parent. The courts don’t always make the best decisions 

[Arendeth]

Thanks for the chapter.

[Bonsai]

From outside, it appears that you poured much more mastery in writing this story than in writing the other one you’re currently doing here.

To get this flowing in the right way, the challenge is clearly much higher, but so far, as a reader who tends to emphasize with the writer, I would say you have managed to navigate through an apparently impassable maze of cliffs and have now some clear water ahead.

[MinnesotaWriter]

On 12/14/2020 at 6:34 PM, Babyqtboy said:

You are doing fine, at 14 the court would take the child’s desires into consideration but depending on where they are, geographically, it is possible that a conservative family court judge would view family reunification as the highest priority. I was raised in the foster care system, and every year or two my mother would convince the court she was a fit parent. The courts don’t always make the best decisions 

That last sentence sums things up about right.

18 hours ago, Arendeth said:

Thanks for the chapter.

You're welcome!

16 hours ago, Bonsai said:

From outside, it appears that you poured much more mastery in writing this story than in writing the other one you’re currently doing here.

To get this flowing in the right way, the challenge is clearly much higher, but so far, as a reader who tends to emphasize with the writer, I would say you have managed to navigate through an apparently impassable maze of cliffs and have now some clear water ahead.

Thanks! I'd like to perhaps think I'm getting a tiny bit better as a writer. We'll see how this goes. I still need to stick the ending and there isn't much time to do it.