Done Adulting Vol. 1 Ch. 17 (Patreon)

Jamie found himself back in his crib after lunch. The naps were necessary, just as Cheryl had said they’d be. Jamie couldn’t figure out how many hours were in the day, partly because he slept through so many of them. It was light out when he went to bed and light out when he woke up. It was starting to bother him. A routine had already started to take shape in his few days in his new home, and he knew the order in which the parts of his day happened, but he didn’t know when, and he couldn’t yet guess. It was one more thing that made him feel not in control.

He didn’t know how long he’d slept. He woke up with his bear under his arm. The bed felt good, like those great mornings when you wake up and all you want to do is sink deeper into the mattress, not because you’re not well rested but just because it feels better than anything else will that day. He pressed himself into his crib and let himself snooze. It didn’t bother him that no one came to get him. He wanted to be alone; he wanted to not think. He certainly did not want to see Rebecca.

He dozed until his stomach woke him. Fortunately not in pain like yesterday, but he needed to go. Sighing, he questioned whether it was best to go now and get changed as soon as someone came to get him, or put it off. The first they’ll do is check my diaper, he concluded. He did his business and tried to ignore it. All diapers get changed eventually, he reassured himself.

Certainly this didn’t help his I-don’t-need-diapers argument. They’d never believe it was intentional, and he wasn’t sure it would change their minds if he could get them to believe it. Rebecca’s display at the store suggested diapers were an integral part of having a little for her.

He didn’t have to wait long. Jamie was laying prone in the crib facing the door when it creaked open slowly, and Amanda furtively slipped in, glancing behind her. She closed the door very gently, easing it back into the frame. Why would she do that, he wondered. She saw he was watching her.

“Hey, kiddo,” she whispered. “Ready to get up?”

“Why are we whispering,” he whispered back.

“‘Cause I figured you didn’t want to deal with Mom right now, and if she heard she’d probably come right in.”

It felt good to know that someone was thinking about his feelings after all. He weakly smiled. “Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it.” She lowered the crib rail, pulled back the blanket, and gave Jamie’s diaper a pat. “Let’s take care of that.” Jamie didn’t know which was worse, her checking him or him telling her. She made quick work of the change, and Jamie relaxed from head to toe to have it off him.

“So,” she said in a hushed tone, but no longer a whisper, “how about we put your room together?” Everything they had bought was in bags near the door. They quietly put toys away and books on shelves, and Jamie avoided touching the things that went under the changing table. He let her handle those, a form of what little resistance he could offer. Moving the rocking chair toward a corner and the toy chest over, Amanda put the activity table flush to the wall. The tub of blocks went next to the shelf. Lastly, she put the recliner in the corner between the crib and the wall. It was more than enough space considering his room was the size of a small studio apartment back home.

“Let’s take a look at that stuff.” Amanda indicated what was under the crib. “I’m surprised Mom didn’t notice this.” She pulled the items out to the center of the room. “So what do we have here?”

“Um, gifts from a friend.”

“That was very kind of her. What does each one do?” Jamie was a bit surprised at that. Surely, they had the same things here.

“Um, that’s a pull up bar to exercise my back muscles, and those rubber bands can do lots of different things, and that board strengthens my hands.”

“Interesting gifts,” she mused. She looked at them and then the room and then Jamie. “Ah. Got it now. I’m not sure how Mom will feel about these.” Jamie frowned. “So let’s not tell her or let her find them.”

“We can keep the bar in the bottom of your toy chest,” she said as she hid it. “And she will definitely have a fit if she finds these bands. She’ll be convinced you’ll choke yourself with them.” She didn’t think they’d stay well hidden in the chest. “Let’s try this and see if it works for a while.” She opened the foot rest of the recliner, put the bands under the chair, and closed it.

That left the board. “This has to hang on a wall, right?”

“Yes.”

“Hmm.” She looked it over. It had grooves in different shapes and sizes and irregular patterns, some color coded. “Let’s put it in the chest for now, and I’ll hang it for you later.”

“What about when Rebecca sees?”

“Tell her it’s a puzzle. Or art or something.”

“She’ll believe that?”

“Definitely. She’ll just be delighted to see you playing with a simple toy.” She handed it to Jamie, and he put it in the chest. When he turned around she was seated on the floor cross-legged.

“Let’s play with something,” she said.

“Uh, like what?”

“Like … any of the toys in this room. Here …” she pulled the tub of blocks back from the wall, popped the buckles, and pulled the shrink wrap off.

“C’mon, it’s fun. You start.” She pulled out a rectangular block about a foot long by four inches across and two inches high and held it out to him. He took it.

“Uh, where does it go?”

“Wherever you want.”

He sat down on the floor next to her and put the block on the carpet with the long edge up.

“Here.” She handed him another. He put it across from the other one. As soon as he placed one block, she had another. And then another.

“Want to talk about what happened in the store?” He grimaced and kept placing his blocks.

“Some woman came out of nowhere and got in my face practically yelling, and then she pinched my cheek.”

“Seriously?” She handed him a triangle.

“Yes! She just did it.” He used the triangle as a corner.

“I hope Mom read her the riot act.”

“No! She said I just arrived and started making small talk.”

“What?” She handed him another triangle.

“Yeah. And then that woman pinched my cheek.” He made another corner.

“And Mom didn’t say anything?” A cylinder.

“No, but I did. I said ‘What do you think you’re doing?’”

“And?” Another cylinder.

“She did it again!”

“And Mom just stood there?” He started picking out his own blocks from the tub.

“Yeah, so I said, ‘You should fucking ask permission,’ and then the lady laughed and mom apologized and said I was cranky. Then when the woman walked away, Rebecca told me not to use bad language.” He was working on the second story.

Amanda was surprised, to say the least. That didn’t seem like her mom, but then her mom had been acting differently since the adoption became official.

“You don’t care much for Mom yet, huh?” Jamie didn’t look up from his building.

“It’s not … I … I don’t want to hurt her feelings. It’s just that … it’s like she sees through me. Or thinks I don’t have opinions.”

“Uh-huh …” Amanda replied, coaxing him on.

“Like with that lady. Rebecca only said something about my behavior. Didn’t say anything about that stranger.” It was getting tall, and he was concentrating to keep the pieces aligned and stable.

“And how did that make you feel?”

“Like she ignored me when I told that lady not to touch me. Or she heard me and didn’t care, or didn’t think what I wanted mattered.”

“And that’s when I got back,” she recalled. ‘A little tantrum,’ her mom called it. More like defending himself.

“Is it okay with you if I talk to her about it?”

“I guess,” he sighed. So far talking to her didn’t seem to make a lot of difference with Rebecca.

“So what did you make?”

“Uh, a structure, I think.” He looked at. “It doesn’t looked very good.”

“So? Did you like making it?”

“Yeah.”

“Then it doesn’t matter what it looks like.” This was another way Amanda was different from her mother. Her mother would have protested, insisted it looked marvelous, taken a picture. It didn’t look marvelous; it looked like a haphazard pile of blocks. And Amanda didn’t insist otherwise. It was okay that it didn’t look good; the point was he enjoyed himself, and that was the lesson Amanda wanted to teach.

“I almost forgot,” she lied. “We need to put your pictures in the frames we got.” It was only three pictures and three frames. “Do you want to do the honors?”

Without answering, Jamie walked under his crib and picked up the envelope he had put the pictures back into while Amanda unwrapped the frames. She took the back off the first one and handed it to him. Carefully so as not leave fingerprints on the photo, he dropped it onto the glass.

“Here,” Amanda said, handing him the next frame and closing the back on the first. They did it one more time.

“That’s your friend?”

Holding the last picture in its new frame, he nodded without looking up. It was a picture of her laughing. They’d gone for a walk one evening after work, in the weeks between leaving his job and leaving the dimension. He didn’t remember what she was laughing at. It wasn’t like him to take pictures of people. Why did he even have his phone out? But he had taken it and texted it to her, and she must have liked the way she looked in it because she had it printed and put it in the box with his bear.

“Do you want to talk about her?”

He shook his head. “Not right now.”

“Okay.” It was obvious to her it wasn’t just missing a friend. Amanda was a young woman. She had a couple boyfriends before. She knew a woman doesn’t send a picture like that to just any friend.

“If you ever want to, just tell me.” He nodded, and looked up. “Here,” she said, holding out her hand. Jamie put the frame in her palm, and she stood up. “How about these two on your table … and this one on the top of your shelf. You’ll be able to see her from your crib.”

He nodded again vigorously. He wasn’t sure if it was his longing for Cheryl or the gentler heartache of knowing that Amanda cared for him and showed it. He hadn’t had much of that in his life, not ever enough. He swallowed the lump in his throat. “Thank you.”

Amanda hurt a little too, for him. She wanted to pick him up and hug him, whisper it would be alright and kiss him on the cheek. Does he need that, she wondered. Does he want that? She knew he needed to feel loved and safe, but he also needed to feel some normalcy, to not have every day have some moment of drama, and she worried if she treated every hurt feeling like a catastrophe, he would as well, like a child that falls down and looks at her mom before deciding whether to cry.

She wasn’t sure she was making the right choice in the moment. It was only his third day. Maybe that was exactly what he needed now, to be smothered in affection and tenderness. But maybe not.

“I think it’s time to go see what Mom is up to. I’m surprised she hasn’t come to see what we were doing. She’s gotta figure you’re awake by now. Do you want to come?”

“Actually,” Jamie said as he went back under his crib and got the stationary box, “I want to write a letter.”

“Okay. When it’s ready I’ll make sure it’s sent. Holler if you need anything. You thirsty?”

“Yes, actually.”

“I’ll bring you some water in a bit.” She left and didn’t close the door.

“Mom,” Amanda said when she found her mom in the kitchen.

“Hi, sweetie. How’s Jamie doing?”

“Actually, he’s kind of upset.”

“Oh,” Rebecca said as she looked up from her task. Her forehead creased in concern. “What’s wrong?”

“He’s upset about this morning, that woman at the store.”

“Oh, I thought he knew I’m not upset with him,” Rebecca replied. Amanda felt relieved for a moment before her mom added, “He probably thinks I’m mad at him. I told him I wasn’t. I’ll go talk to him.” She started to get up and Amanda stepped forward.

“That’s not it.”

“Then what is it?”

Amanda rubbed her temple. How could she say this without hurting her mom or throwing Jamie under the bus or both? “Let’s sit.” Rebecca sat back down, and Amanda took the chair next to hers, leaning in.

“Have you noticed that … uh … that Jamie wants me a lot?”

“I have. I’m so glad you two are getting so close to each other so quickly.”

“I am, too. I really am. He’s such a sweet boy, and he needs a lot of love.” Rebecca nodded along, smiling proudly at her empathetic and caring daughter. “Do you think, maybe, he …” Amanda very nearly said ‘prefers’ next, but thought better of it.

Starting over, Amanda deliberately paced out her words. “I really want him to feel very close to both of us.” She let the statement hang there, to see if her mom would pick up on the subtext.

Keeping her smile but sounding defensive, Rebecca asked, “What do you mean?”

“I guess … I don’t think you’re acting like yourself.”

“Of course I am.”

“Mom,” Amanda said more plainly as she sat back, “would you have ever let a stranger touch me without permission?”

“Well …” She paused. “No.”

“So why did you let her?”

“I guess I was proud someone thought he was so cute, and I didn’t think he’d mind.”

“Mom,” Amanda said, managing not to roll her eyes but unable to keep the frustration from her voice. “He’s not a newborn or an infant. And he’s not regressed. And even if he were, it still wouldn’t be okay. He’s not something to show off. He is fully aware of everything that’s happening, and he’s terrified.”

“I know he’s scared…”

“It’s more than scared. And I know you know he’s at least scared because you said so before we left.” Rebecca looked uncomfortable.

Amanda waited a few beats until it was clear she wasn’t going to reply. “But then in the moment you didn’t do anything.” The more Amanda talked, the more indignant she felt, but she didn’t want to be angry. That wouldn’t help. She wanted to make this right, and also what she said she wanted: for him to feel close to both of them.

“You didn’t protect him or think about what he wanted or what he felt.”

Rebecca wasn’t accustomed to being rebuked by her daughter, or by anyone. She wasn’t sure what she was supposed to say.

“He’s not a child. He’s a little. He won’t just turn into a happy little. We have to help him do it.”

In so many other countries, it would be culturally normal for a big to not think of a little as a person with their own mind and agency, and even among older people in Itali that attitude could still be found. Rebecca didn’t share that attitude. She was so wrapped up in the little she envisioned having that she forgot he envisioned being his own kind of little.

“I love you, Mom, and he will too. That’s our job, to make him feel loved and happy. That’s why he left, because he couldn’t do it on his own. We’ll get him there; but we can’t force it. We have to help him along.”

Amanda was repeating herself and stopped her unexpected lecture. She knew her mother. She knew her behavior wasn’t intentional. Bigs get weird around littles. Amanda wasn’t typical in not gushing over littles. Maybe for that reason she had a better perspective. Or maybe she just liked Jamie for who he had been, who he was, and whoever he would come to be in time. She didn’t know everything about him, but she suspected there was more to his past than he had told them.

When she had read his file that day at the agency, she didn’t hand her mom the file because she suddenly changed her mind about having a little. It was because she wanted him; not any other little. Him. And now that Jamie had arrived, there was no part of taking care of him that didn’t make her love him even more. Life without him could never be whole, and she wouldn’t ever be the Amanda she was now were it not for the things he taught her about herself just by his presence those last three days. But she didn’t know any of that was going to happen that day in the agency. She just read the file and wanted to help this one little boy.

Rebecca felt ashamed. She had not only disregarded his feelings, or even thought to pay more than passing attention to them, she had failed to protect him. It didn’t matter that no lasting harm was done to Jamie. His feelings alone mattered enough. And lasting harm may well have been done to the relationship between Jamie and Rebecca.

“Do I go apologize,” Rebecca finally said.

“I think he wants some alone time. He’s writing to his friend who gave him his bear.” She saw her mom looked more upset. “But later, spend a little time alone with him. I’ll stay in my room. And ask him about the party; he deserves a say.”

Amanda hugged her mom just as tightly as she hugged Jamie, and Rebecca hugged her back. “Thank you for telling me, baby. I know that took courage.”

“Anything for him.”

“That’s the thing I love about you most. Didn’t I tell you?”

______________________________________________

My Forever Friend, Cheryl,

I’m Jamie now.

That page was on the table, and that was all that was on the page. Jamie sat in his new chair holding his bear, wondering what to say and how to say it. It had never been hard to talk to Cheryl before.