Chapter 5

…woke up with a gasp, sitting straight up and breathing heavily. I was drenched with cold sweat.

“That,” I muttered to the empty room that was slowly filling with early morning light filtering through the blinds, “was fucked up. Very fucked up.”

I scooted out of bed and froze as I stood up, the thickness and subsequent rustling of my pull-up momentarily making me think I was still in the dream. But no, no, it was just my pull-up and not the thick diaper I had worn like a badge of shame, thank god. The pull-up sagged heavily between my legs and was significantly thicker than it had been the night before; it was soaked, of course. The bed, at least, was dry. I felt a strange sort of resignation over the realization that I had wet the bed again, not to mention a weird sense of satisfaction that at least I had not gone through the embarrassment of buying pull-ups for no reason.

It didn’t matter, I told myself, I wasn’t going to get worked up over this. It wasn’t like I had never wet the bed before. Maybe I’d worry about it when my vacation was over, but not now. A part of me knew that wasn’t the most reasonable response to the situation, especially since I had also wet my pants the day before, yet I felt weirdly calm about the whole thing.

Very weirdly calm.

That tugged at something in my brain, but it was fuzzy and I couldn’t quite bring it to the front of my thoughts, like a word just on the tip of the tongue. What could it have been? It felt very important, and yet…

Suddenly, I realize I was just standing in the middle of my room in a pajama shirt and a wet pull-up and couldn’t help but giggle at myself. Whatever it was, it must not have been important. I took the wet pull-up off and deposited in the trash can in the bathroom off the bedroom before moving to the dresser to get some clothes out. I got another pull-up from the bag, this one pastel yellow with butterflies, and-

Wait, what? Why had I gotten a pull-up? Sure, I’d had an accident the day before, but that didn’t mean…

I took a deep breath and put the pull-up back. That dream must have gotten to me really badly. I put on a pair of panties and retrieved my discarded pajama pants from the night before, realizing there was no point in getting dressed before I took a shower.

With that taken care of, I headed downstairs to the kitchen. Some breakfast and a glass of that tea would set me straight and rid me of the last lingering vestiges of that dream.

I put a bagel in the toaster, grabbed a sippy cup from the cupboard, and pulled the pitched of cold brewed tea out, then stopped staring blankly at the vessel in my hand I was about to pour tea into. A sippy cup? Where had this come from? It must have been left by a previous renter, or perhaps Madison and Sabrina made sure they were on hand for families, but I hadn’t noticed it before. And why did I grab it? It had been in front of the other glasses, I told myself, I just grabbed the first thing my hand reached.

This is a very weird morning, I thought as I put the sippy cup back and grabbed a regular glass. By the time I had my glass of tea ready, my bagel was done. Before long, my glass was empty, my plate was clean, and I was, as predicted, feeling a little steadier, more relaxed, and more my normal self.

I grabbed my book from where I had left it the night before and took it and another glass of tea to the back patio to spend the morning reading. A few hours later, as the morning sun turned to early afternoon sun and the heat was becoming a little too much, I headed back inside and took a shower before getting dressed in a pair of denim shorts and a black tank top.

Maybe, I thought, I’ll go see what Sabrina and Madison are up to. They had, after all, encouraged me to come see them if I got bored of being in the house all by myself, and, hot as it was, a walk by the lake sounded pleasant.

There were two paths I could take to get their house, they had told me. The first, the one they had come by the day before, meandered through the trees and had the benefit of being shaded. The second went along the shore of the lake and so had the benefit of a nice view of the lake, not to mention the fact that it was shorter. I set off along the latter.

The lake itself was beautiful, a crystalline blue as far as the eye could see. Once over the course of my walk, which took about fifteen minutes, I saw and heard a speed boat zip across the lake a ways out, but otherwise it was nothing but peace and calm. Despite how much time I had spent lounging in front of the lake over the past couple days, my nose had been buried too deep in a book to really appreciate it. Briefly, I contemplated sitting on the shore and taking it in for a few minutes, but just as I seriously considering it, I suddenly became aware of a pressure in my bladder that warned me hesitation might not be a great idea.

With thoughts of yesterday’s incident floating in the back of my mind, I picked up my pace and tried not to think too hard about how hard that pressure was and what the consequences of delay would be.

When a house came into view through the tree lines, I breathed a sigh of relief and restrained myself from running the last little bit of distance to the house. Although it was substantially larger than the house I was renting, Madison and Sabrina’s house was done in much the same Victorian style. As I walked up to the house, I noticed there was only one car in the gravel driveway and wondered if one of them was out. Or maybe they just only had one car, they probably didn’t need two in this town if neither had a regular job. I rang the doorbell and waited, keenly aware of distant alarm bells in my head.

“Claire!” Sabrina exclaimed as she swung the door wide open. “It’s so good to see you I was hoping you’d come by how is everything out your way? Are you having a good vacation?”

“Everything’s great, Sabrina,” I smiled and held my arms rigidly at my sides to keep myself from doing a potty dance. “I just thought I’d come by and maybe chat a little?” I laughed, partly out of nervousness over my need to pee and partly over realizing I sounded a little silly. “I guess maybe I’m getting a little lonely by myself over there after all!”

“Oh well of course of course come on in,” she moved out of the doorway and gestured for me to enter, “we’re always up for visitors! I was just doing some crafts you know keeping myself busy but I’d love to spend some time with you can I make you a glass of tea maybe iced this time you certainly look like you could use a cold drink sweetheart.”

“That would be lovely,” I said, grinning perhaps a little to rigidly, “but, uh, could I use your restroom really quick?”

“Oh of course it’s just down that hallway,” she pointed one way as she began to walk in a different direction, presumably headed toward the kitchen, “it’s the first door-”

I thought there was more, but it was lost as was already dashing down the hallway as quickly as I could manage while still maintaining any dignity. My body was warning me that soon there wouldn’t be a measure of dignity left in my body if I didn’t get to the bathroom.

Quickly, however, I came to a dilemma. There were two doors directly across from each other and I cursed myself for not waiting to hear the rest of Sabrina’s sentence. It didn’t matter, I threw open the door on the left and…

It was a nursery. That was certainly weird. Did they have an adopted child? They hadn’t mentioned it, but maybe it had just never come up. There was something familiar about the nursery though, but I wasn’t entirely sure what. It was right there somewhere in my mind just out of reach and if I just tried hard enough I could dredge it up, I was sure. It was…yes, of course, it was-

Thought fled my mind, replaced by sheer panic as a dribble of pee hit my panties and I leapt across the hall, throwing the door open to discover, much to my joy, a bathroom. I all but slammed the door shut behind me, barely making it to the toilet before the flood gates shattered.

Another close call. Too close.

Fortunately, the damage was contained to just a little bit of dampness in my panties. Still, too close.

When I found my way to the kitchen, Sabrina was there with too big, plastic cups of ice tea, beads of condensation already forming on the outside of the glass. I thanked her as I sat down and took a big gulp, I was rather parched from the heat and the walk here.

“I hope you don’t think I’m being rude or nosey,” I started to say as I put my glass down, “but I got the wrong door and couldn’t help but notice you have a nursery. Do you had Madison have a kid?”

I couldn’t help but notice Sabrina’s usually cheerful smile falter a little bit at the question and I immediately felt bad for asking, realizing I must have been digging at a sore spot.

“Well,” she said with hesitance that was, so far as I knew her, very out of character, “well no…not exactly…we’ve been hoping to adopt but so far…”

“Oh,” I said, my heart breaking for the poor woman, “I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have asked.” Of course that was the answer, and of course I knew it could be hard for two women to adopt. I felt like an insensitive ass.

“That’s okay,” Sabrina gave me a reassuring smile and immediately seemed more herself, “that’s quite okay I can understand your curiosity and we haven’t had much luck yet, but you know I really think our luck is turning around and I’m very hopeful that we’ll have that new addition to our family very soon.”

“I’m sure you will,” I lightly touched Sabrina’s arm in a way that I hoped was reassuring. “Where is Madison anyway?” I asked, trying to change the subject.

“Oh she’s out puttering around in her garden,” she laughed and took a drink of her tea, seeming to have forgotten the momentary sadness that had taken her, “I told her it’s too hot out there today for that but she insisted she can be very stubborn like that sometimes but her garden means a lot to her and she’ll keep it maintained even if it’s a thousand degrees!”

It was late afternoon by the time I left their house. Sabrina and I had spent hours talking about books and TV shows we both loved and a thousand other things. She sent me home with another tin of tea once I told her how much I had been enjoying it, which I thought was very nice of her. As I was leaving, I noticed the garden I had been too preoccupied with my need to pee to notice on my way in and, sure enough, there was Madison, trimming a plant. I raised my hand to wave and she waved back.