Done Adulting Vol. 1 Ch. 14 (Patreon)

“So, what did you want to talk about,” Rebecca asked when the three of them were back in the living room, he on the chair he could barely see them from and they on the sofa.

“So, first off, I wanted to reiterate that I took that diaper off, and then peed it after I woke up this morning,” Jamie said, awaiting some kind of realization on their faces. Nothing.

“Honey, it’s so cute that you want to try to change yourself, but you should always let a big do that for you.”

It was like an insurmountable language barrier. “No, see, it wasn’t a change. I just took it off,” he let that sink in, “and then urinated in it,” and again, “as though urinating in a toilet.”

“Littles say the funniest things, don’t they?” It wasn’t even addressed to Jamie, but to Amanda, who nodded without the big smile Rebecca wore.

Un-fucking-believable, Jamie thought. I’d be making more progress with a tree. But it pays to be patient.

“So,” he said very slowly, “If I were to take off the diaper I’m wearing right now,” using hand gestures to illustrate, “what would happen then?”

“I’d put it back on you, silly. We can’t have you running around with a diapee – you’d make a horrible mess.”

“Okay.” Let’s try that again, he thought. “And, please pay very close attention,” which Rebecca did in the way a person looks at a toddler to humor them and show they are as enthusiastic about whatever silly thing the toddler is excited about. “If after you put the diaper back on me – see where I’m going with this – I took it off again, and, then, peed in the toilet – making more sense now, I hope – what would happen then?” At this point, Jamie felt as if he too was speaking to a toddler.

“Honey,” Rebecca said, finally showing some recognition, “if you don’t like your diapers you should have said so.”

Progress? Jamie felt a wave of relief.

“They have lots of designs to pick from. We can go find some different ones at the store tomorrow. Thicker ones; ones with cartoons; ones with animals; different colors. You’ll be handsome in any diaper you wear.”

“I don’t need diapers.”

She smiled in response.

“I don’t need diapers.”

Now she was chuckling.

“I. Do. Not. Need. Diapers.”

And Rebecca snorted with laughter, which made Amanda laugh too, before she stopped herself, noting Jamie was the only one not smiling.

Jamie felt as though he were talking to a couple of stoners. As frustrating as it was, it was fascinating at the same time. Like they were incapable of understanding such a simple concept as an adult human not needing diapers. Not a rejection of the idea, but a failure to grasp it at all.

Rebecca recovered herself. “You’re too funny! Mmm, I can’t wait to show you off.”

Sighing tightly so as not to swallow his own tongue, Jamie waited. Let the ball be in her court, he thought.

“But speaking of …” Rebecca stood up and crossed the room quickly, and without so much as a ‘how do you do’ put her hand on the front of Jamie’s, then bent him forward and checked his butt through his pajamas. She did it so quickly and so easily, he knew he’d never be able to physically resist her. He could try, maybe slow her down, but he couldn’t win. She was too strong and too fast.

“Let’s hope soon,” she said as she returned to the sofa. “So what else did you want to talk about?”

Jamie pinched the bridge of his nose and roughly rubbed his eyes and forehead. What he wanted to ask for next was a drink, none of that 80-proof stuff either. He had grown-up problems.

“Do you have a headache,” Amanda asked.

“Yes,” he said. It’s named Rebecca, goes by Becky, and is killing me, he wanted to shout.

“I’ll go get you something.” She left.

“Um … what was I going to say … how old are the two of you?”

“Well, time is different here than where you’re from, so I guess by your calendar I’m about forty, and Amanda is about nineteen,” Becky replied as Amanda came back in with a medicine cup.

She approached Jamie and held it up to his lips, keeping her hand under his chin to catch any drips. “Drink up.” Jamie tilted his head back, and Amanda poured it in.

Geez, he thought, even medicine tastes good here. “Thank you.”

Amanda kissed his forehead, which Jamie didn’t mind at all, even blushing momentarily, and sitting back down on the couch told her mom, “He doesn’t feel feverish.”

“Okay, um, so what do you guys do?”

“I teach science at …” She whispered to Amanda, who whispered back. “I’d guess you’d call it a secondary school.”

“And I’m in college,” Amanda added.

“Oh …” Jamie grimaced. “So ou don’t live here? You’re going back to school?” So far, she was the one Jamie actually liked being around. Amanda picked up on his tone.

“O, no, sweetie, I go to school here and live at home. Trying to save money. I’m not going anywhere.”

He smiled bigger than he meant to and tried to cover it. “Um ... I mean, I’m glad to hear that.” He didn’t want to offend Rebecca, who didn’t appear to take any offense but instead looked happy he was starting to form an attachment to Amanda.

“Can I ask one that may be ... uncomfortable?”

“Of course. Ask us anything. We’re family.”

“Well, that was actually my question. Do you have a husband?”

“I’m divorced,” she said, placing a hand on Amanda’s, “and Amanda’s father is not part of our lives anymore.” Amanda didn’t look bothered by that statement at all.

Maybe a couple easy ones next. “So where do we live again?”

“Tosca, which is a region in the northwest of Itali on the coast. And the town we’re in is San Siena. It’s about two hours from the capital. We don’t actually live in the city but outside it a little. We can drive around town tomorrow.”

“I’d like that. And also, when is it?”

“Summertime.”

“But, I mean, how do I tell time here?”

“O, don’t worry about it.”

She dismissed it oddly casually. Jamie knew he’d need to come back to that.

“Okay … um … I’m not sure how to ask this. I want you to know I’m grateful, and happy here,” he lied, or thought he did. Did he? Or not? “I just want to know, um … why did you want a little?”

The softest look came over Rebecca’s face, that look when your heart swells, and though he’d rather hear this answer from where he was, she stood, scooped him up, and brought him back to the couch, sitting him upright in the crook of her elbow so he could see both of them.

“That’s not an easy question to answer. Sometimes we just know we want things, and that they’ll make us happy, and we aren’t sure why. I guess I just have so much love to give, and who better to give it to?” She leaned down and kissed him on the head.

It wasn’t a wholly satisfying answer, but Jamie thought she was probably right. Sometimes we know what will make us happy, or think we do, but we don’t know why it makes us happy.

“And we saw your picture, and read all about you,” she continued, “and out of all the littles out there, we wanted to give that love to you, because you’re so special.”

Jamie frowned. If that was a compliment, he didn’t like it. He never much liked compliments. What did ‘special’ mean, anyway? Everybody’s unique; does that make them special? And there are so many other people wanting to be adopted; they’re special, too. Why didn’t they get picked? Surely there were more deserving people. People who wanted to leave for good reasons, not just to run away.

“What’s wrong, honey,” Amanda asked.

He didn’t want to tell them the truth. He didn’t know them yet, and he didn’t want to seem ungrateful or unhappy or not glad to be there, even if he was feeling all that to some degree.

“I’m just, so … thank you.” Amanda didn’t look like she accepted that answer, but she didn’t press it.

Rebecca interrupted, “Can we ask you some questions?”

“Sure.”

“Geez, he even says ‘sure’ cute, doesn’t he,” Rebecca remarked excitedly to Amanda. Jamie was beginning to wonder if Rebecca was not very bright or just turned into a dunderhead around littles, knowing many adults back home do the same around babies. Turning back to Jamie, she said “Tell us about your family and what you did and what made you want to come here.”

Jamie didn’t really want to. “Wasn’t all that in my file?”

“Some of it was, but I’d really like it if you told us,” Rebecca replied. She wanted to hear it directly from him, sure his file didn’t tell his entire story

Jamie didn’t think he could get out of this, but maybe he could get away with not telling them much. He looked up at Rebecca, who he had to crane his neck to see, and across at Amanda. On an impulse he didn’t understand, he held his arms out.

“Aww, you want me?” Amanda lifted him from her mother’s lap and set him down in her own. She smiled from ear to ear. Jamie understood that smile; though he had no family, a few times over the years he’d be on the job or at an event with colleagues and their families, and a baby or toddler would want him. It felt like a million bucks every time, like he was the best thing in the world because this little person thought he was, and their opinion was good enough. And if he had to sit on someone’s lap, he did want Amanda.

“It’s just easier to see both of you this way,” he said in a transparent fib as he was now seated facing entirely away from Amanda, who had her arms around him.

“So … I don’t have a family. I never did. I grew up in foster care.”

“Yeah, I remember that from your file, but I didn’t understand itvery well. What is that,” Rebecca asked.

Figuring they just called it something different here, he answered, “You know, when a kid doesn’t have parents, or isn’t safe with their parents, they go to live in foster care.”

“Like being adopted?”

“Um, well, sometimes kids in foster care get adopted, but a lot of them, like me, we live in foster care until we grow up.”

“Why?” It was a very honest question, he could tell. Maybe they didn’t just call it something else here.

“Because there aren’t enough people who want to adopt all the kids that need to be adopted.” He felt Amanda squeeze him a little, and Rebecca looked shocked. “What? What happens to kids no one wants to adopt here,” Jamie asked.

Rebecca’s voice turned very soft, as though she were reassuring someone their nightmare was only a bad dream. “Honey, that doesn’t happen here.”

“Ever?”

“Never.”

“But … how is that possible?”

“When a child needs a home here, they always get one.”

“Exactly,” Jamie said, thinking he’d figured out the confusion, “like a foster a home.”

“No, they get adopted.”

Jamie was skeptical. How could there be enough people so generous that every child who needed a home was adopted? It just didn’t add up. “Every single one?”

“Yes.”

He looked at her, still not fully believing her. How could that be? “Um, alright.”

“So you were never adopted?”

“No. I aged out,” he said and saw they were confused again, “Um, I became old enough to go live on my own.”

“Do you still keep in touch with your foster parents,” Amanda asked.

“Uh, well, I went through a lot of homes. I was never with anybody that long. And my last few years, I was in a group home.”

“What’s a ‘group home?’”

It’s what we used to call an orphanage, except worse, Jamie thought. “It’s where foster kids live if there aren’t enough foster parents who want them and can take them in.” Jamie didn’t want to answer more questions about group homes. “So, then, when I was almost old enough to be on my own, I got lucky because my school counselor helped me get into college with a full scholarship.”

“Wait, what was the lucky part?”

“Well, most foster kids who age out don’t go to college.”

“What do they do instead?”

How to answer that? “Well, some go straight to work, and others … struggle more … to find their path.”

“Oh. And what’s a scholarship?”

“That’s when a school gives you a discount so you don’t have to pay as much to take classed. I was really fortunate to not have to pay anything at all because I also worked there.”

“You have to pay to go to college,” Rebecca asked.

“Um, yeah. You don’t here?”

“No. Our taxes pay for it, just like for primary and secondary school.”

“Wait,” Amanda asked, “So some kids go to college, and some go to work. And what do the other ones do again?”

The cultural disconnect was much greater than Jamie imagined. He was feeling defensive, like he was inadvertently making his home out to be some kind of dystopia.

“Well, some are homeless,” he said, provoking another look of shock from Rebecca. “You don’t have homelessness here?”

“We do a little, but almost never someone that young.” She looked at her daughter and could hardly fathom a person her age being on the street or in a shelter. It was almost unheard of in Italia, especially away from the capital. Society had mostly solved the problem through social work, mental health care, and a social safety blanket.

“Oh,” Jamie responded, feel embarrassed for being from a place that tolerated so much homelessness. He hesitated to say the next part. “And some people get in trouble with the law when they leave foster care,” he said sheepishly.

“Well, there are always a few bad apples.”

“No!” he countered more sharply than he meant to. “I mean, a few, yeah, but most are just kids trying to survive … in a world that doesn’t care very much about them.” He looked around at Amanda and back to Rebecca. “That could’ve been me if a few of the right people weren’t in my life.”

His lips quivered. “Some of those kids … some of them don’t ever get to really be kids.” Many of his didn’t. “And … some of them don’t ever get to grow up. A couple of mine didn’t.” He wiped at his eyes and nose, struggling to keep himself together and not wanting to cry again in front of them.

None of that was in the file. They hadn’t known and couldn’t know, could hardly even understand, literally and conceptually foreign to them. Amanda felt him shaking and held him closer, lowering her head to rest it on his and gently rocking. Rebecca reached over and rubbed his shoulder.

“Why don’t we finish this some other time,” Rebecca said.

“No,” Jamie said, once more louder than he intended. He didn’t want to have this talk again; he’d rather get it over with. “I’m okay. What else do you want to know?” He pulled himself together, and Amanda sat up straight.

“If you’re sure …” Rebecca replied, pausing, and when Jamie nodded she went on, “What do you mean ‘not all yours did?’”

“I was a social worker.” There was still some authority, pride, in saying that, but also vulnerability, as if they might see him as complicit in the failures he’d just described. Exactly as he saw himself. “I mostly worked with foster kids, or kids who were at risk or who had been hurt before.”

Newborns and infants. Toddlers and first graders. Tweens and teens. The youngest were usually happy, but not always; some were too listless to be happy, never having gotten the love and attention they needed to not just be happy, but even to develop and thrive as humans do given the right love and attention. They never would catch up, not without a miracle. Still, the babies and toddlers were easiest, because it was easier to find them homes.

Some of the kids were happy, but not all of them. The ones who came into the system after age two were lost, dislocated, bewildered. The ones who grew up in the system, eventually they figured out that if someone had wanted to adopt them, they would have been adopted by then. So they figured there must be something wrong with them. Those childhood years were the crucial ones, when you could get to a kid and get them out of that thinking. But there were so many kids, and so many other forces out there, and only so many adults who took an interest.

A few of the teens were happy. They had outlets, groups they could find some belonging in, like a team or just a group of friends. But some found the wrong groups of friends. Some never did get happy. Some lived in places where to be happy, to show it, invited trouble from people who wanted to take away that happiness just so they wouldn’t feel alone in their own unhappiness. Places like group homes.

“Ya know,” Jamie said, feeling too weary to be guarded, “In a lot of the places I worked, the kids I worked with, they didn’t use the words ‘home’ or ‘family.’ It was ‘where I stay’ or ‘my people.’ A lot of them didn’t have families or homes. And … I couldn’t save them all.”

“Is that why you wanted to come here,” Rebecca asked.

“Yes. Because it hurt too much to keep trying, and I couldn’t … I couldn’t stop either …” Jamie’s body rocked with the effort to keep the sob back. “…and I couldn’t just keep watching it happen.”

Rebecca’s eyes were wet. She didn’t have anything to say to that, nothing she wanted to anyway, because she didn’t want to set off his tears again. She only reached out and caressed his cheek, wanting to scoop him off Amanda’s lap and hold him tight. “Ya know what? It’s time for somebody’s morning nap,” she said, holding out her arms.

Amanda didn’t let him go. “Actually, I wouldn’t mind a nap myself. You wanna snuggle in my bed?” Jamie nodded.

“Okay,” Rebecca said, “but make sure he’s between you and the wall so he doesn’t fall out.”

Resting on the massive bed with Amanda, Jamie felt exhausted. He was facing her, and she played with his hair, sweeping it gently behind his ear.

“Jamie, can I ask you one more question?”

“Mhmm.”

“Did you want to come here, or did you want to leave there?”

Seeing him suck in a halting breath as though about to sob, Amanda pulled him closer. As he cried into her chest for the second time in as many days, she continued to stroke his hair and didn’t shush him, but just let him get it out. “That’s what I thought,” she said, “You’re gonna ruin all my shirts.” She kissed his hair, and wrapped in her arms, he fell asleep.