Done Adulting Vol. 1 Ch. 33

“How are you feeling,” Amanda asked Jamie.

“Fine, really.”

“You were better at lying when you got here. Or I’m better at seeing through you. It’s okay to be nervous.”

“It really is fine. It’s just for a day. Not even a whole day.”

“But it’s the first time you won’t be with either me or Mom.”

“I know. Would you feel better if I was more upset about it,” Jamie asked. Because I can do that easily, he thought. He was more afraid than he wanted to let on. He didn’t feel safe in this place yet; he felt safe with two of the people in this place.

“Of course not. Let’s get you dressed. Grandma will be here soon.”

“What is her name anyway? She never answered me.”

“Dana. Must be a generational thing; I don’t see what’s such a big deal about you calling her by her name, but maybe don’t if she doesn’t want you to.”

“Will do. Thanks for the bath. I know you need to leave soon.”

“How else would I rather spend my morning than with you? Any preference on what you wear today?”

“Think we’ll go anywhere?”

“No. You’ll probably be in the house for the day.’

“Pajamas then, I guess.”

“I hear ya. Pants suck.”

As she was getting him dressed, he asked her what he’d been wondering since his party. “Why did you tell me I’d like her?”

“Well, I didn’t want to prejudice you; then there’d be no chance of you getting along.” That at least made sense.

“I wish I hadn’t made fun of her that day.”

“Well, you learned a life lesson then.” The doorbell rang. “You just be the charmer you are, and you’ll win her over.” She paused and decided to add, “And if not, it’s only for part of the day. Walk or carry?”

“Walk.” He wanted to appear as mature as he could in his pajamas and crinkly underwear.

They went to the front door together. He put his politest smile on, and Amanda did the same before she opened the door. “Good morning, Grandma!” She stepped aside to let her grandmother in.

“Good morning, Amanda. Jamie.”

“Good morning, ma’am.” She looked at him with an inscrutable expression.

“He’s had his bath and his breakfast and just got changed. The important numbers are on the fridge. Is there anything else you need?”

“No, I think I have everything. We’ll make do.” There was curtness in Dana’s voice.

Amanda knelt down and took Jamie into a full hug. “You be good today. Mom will be home around lunch.” She kissed him on the forehead and lingered, looking at him a moment longer.

“Ahem. Won’t you be late,” Dana reminded her granddaughter.

“Right,” she said standing up. “Thanks again, Grandma. We really appreciate it.”

“You’re welcome.” Dana had a hand on the open door. With a look at Jamie, Amanda took her backpack and left. It was just an orientation day; Amanda was leading freshman sessions all day. Classes were still five days away.

Dana closed the door and looked down at Jamie. He looked back at her, keeping his thin but genuine smile. He wanted nothing so much as a positive relationship with Dana; he didn’t know how much time he’d be spending with her, but he knew moms of moms were de facto babysitters. He anticipated seeing her more with school back in session.

“Well, I see my daughter didn’t bother to dress you today. No surprise.” Jamie’s instinct was to defend Becky, and Amanda, but he didn’t want a nasty, behind-the-back comment to derail things already. He wasn’t sure what to say or do next; he wanted to just walk away and go find something to do, but something about her made him reluctant to. He didn’t wait long until she bent down and picked him up without asking.

Instead of putting him on her hip or shoulder or cradling him, she held him under the armpits and turned him around. No one had done this to Jamie yet; there was nothing gentle about it and plenty undignified. He heard her sniff deeply. “At least you’re clean. We’ll see how long that lasts.” She turned him back around and put him on her hip, carrying him into the kitchen.

Jamie just sat there wondering what her problem was. Amanda had just told her she had bathed and changed him. He felt awkward in the silence. She set her purse on the counter and Jamie in his highchair, buckling him in. He hadn’t been buckled in in weeks.

He watched her cluck around the kitchen, scoffing and wiping at the counter with a sponge. Done cleaning up messes only she could see, she took a bottle and formula from the cabinet.

“Excuse me, ma’am, I already had breakfast.” It didn’t even slow her down. “I appreciate the thought, but I’m actually still full.”

“Hush, baby. I know what you need.” She proceeded to make a full liter-bottle of formula and put it on Jamie’s tray. As much as he liked formula, he had no appetite for it right then. Dana picked up the sponge and proceeded to wipe down the stove top and the fronts of the appliances, then put the sponge in the dishwasher. Only after did she turn her attention back to Jamie.

“You need to eat. You’re too thin.” She nudged the bottle toward him. That she wore a smile the entire time was more off putting than the way she ignored what she’d been told by Amanda and by him. She stared not in expectation but in smiling certainty.

“Again, that’s very sweet of you. I had breakfast, and even when I do have a bottle that’s much more than I can eat at one time.”

“O, I see.” There was a lilt to her voice as she unbuckled him and put him back on her hip, carrying him into the living room.

“O, good. It’s not that I’m not appreciative. I’m actually glad we have this time together. I wanted to whoa!” He was cut off when she sat down and shifted him into the crook of her right arm. The bottle was at his lips. He didn’t open them.

She bounced him uncomfortably to urge him on. “It’ll make you big and strong.” Thinking she might stop if he drank a little, he took the nipple and slowly took some swallows.

After five, he opened his mouth, but she didn’t take the bottle out. He tried to talk around it. “Dank u, weally, dis is vewy good, but I’ve had enuf.”

She very lightly slapped the outside of his right thigh in response to prod him on and said, “Enough of this nonsense. You’re going to drink this whole bottle.”

The slap didn’t hurt Jamie, but it surprised him and hurt his feelings. Any hope he’d had of using the day to start a friendship with her evaporated. Fearing she’d slap him for real, he started drinking again. He could only go so fast.

There was something different about Dana. So far, he’d met inconsiderate bigs, little-crazy bigs, and kind bigs. It was apparent she wasn’t the latter, but neither was she the two former. She didn’t seem blinded to his feelings because he was a little. She just seemed not to care about his feelings because he was a little. Except she did in her own way, or she wouldn’t be insisting on feeding him and complaining about his outfit.

“I know you can drink faster than that.” Was she really serious, or was this some sick game to her? He couldn’t see what she was getting out of this. From the moment she walked in the door, she’d taken an issue with everything she laid eyes on, even Amanda. He’d been more polite with her than with anyone since he arrived, save for that one quip the day of his arrival party. Jamie tried to drink faster, but he was now feeling sick. He pushed the bottle away, trying to catch his breath. She let him, and then she brought the nipple back to his lips.

“Please,” he pleaded, turning his head and pushing her hand away as she tried to maneuver it back into his mouth. With an exasperated sigh, she stopped trying and put the bottle down firmly on the coffee table.

“Fine. I’m only trying to do what’s best for you. Maybe some time in the playpen will adjust your attitude.” She wasn’t exactly raising her voice, but it was elevated, and definitely gruff well beyond reason. So he didn’t finish a bottle. So what?

She lifted him up, holding him under his arm pits. Her hands dug in, reminding Jamie how it felt to have crutches under his arms. She was gripping him too tightly, and he knew it. It wasn’t uncomfortable to be lifted that way by Amanda or Becky at all.

To Jamie, it was a relief to be put down in the playpen, away from her and her attitude. He liked nothing about her. She’s just mean, he concluded. He thought back to the party. She didn’t seem to genuinely enjoy herself; maybe at points, but on the whole, not. Becky seemed to behave differently around her that day; her mood changed when the doorbell rang. Jane was surprised Dana had even come, and when she said so, Becky seemed slightly offended. She seemed to walk on eggshells around her mother. When Jamie and Dana had their little contest of words, it was Amanda, not Becky, who swept in to end it. Jamie had seen enough bad family dynamics to know something was wrong.

Through the mesh, he watched her bring her purse back to the living room, turn on the TV, and pull out a knitting project. Jamie looked around his playpen. He hadn’t left anything in it, even a blanket. With nothing else to do, he tried to sleep.

He wasn’t sure how long he tried. The TV was on. He was cold. He sat up, and once more in his politest tone asked, “Excuse me, ma’am, may I have a blanket please.” She only glanced over.

“You have your pajamas on. You’re fine.” Once again, neither kind nor angry, just firmly dismissive as though he didn’t know when he was hungry or full, comfortable or cold, and she did and was confident of it.

Might as well be asking Bumble for more gruel, he lamented. He sighed loudly, trying to breathe through his anger. That, unfortunately, got her attention. “Don’t you cop that attitude with me. I’ll win, and you’ll lose,” she declared.

Jamie was disgusted with her. He had empathy for a lot of people; it was necessary in the work he’d done. People did things out of ignorance or misguided belief. Rarely did he meet someone who was just plain mean. He could forgive a lot; he was willing to give almost anybody a second chance. Not people who hurt the defenseless just because they could. He had no room in his heart to forgive people who hurt the defenseless. He didn’t consciously think it, but a part of him realized that’s what he was: defenseless. He laid back down.

With two breakfasts in him, now his bladder was keeping him from getting comfortable no matter how many times he emptied it into this diaper. Over the past few weeks, he’d stopped trying to time that for specific times when he was home; he never had to wait long for a change, and anyway, wet diapers don’t feel wet, he’d learned. They even feel nice, but only sometimes, he assured himself. Away from home was a different matter. Not having left the house much still, he managed to avoid public changes by holding it.

Trying to warm himself up, Jamie turned onto his side and brought his knees closer to his chest. Once more, he let his bladder drain. The side of him exposed to the room was cold, so he rolled over. When he did, he felt cooler air on the outside of the thigh he’d been resting on. Reaching over to rub some warmth into it, his hand came away wet. Now he had to interact with her, and in the most humiliating way he could think of, other than if he had done the other thing. He stood up and put his head over the top of the playpen.

“Excuse me,” he closed his eyes and opened them again, forcing himself to say the next part. “I’m very wet. Could you please change me?” It was all he could do not to spit the words out, not because he had to ask for a change, though that wasn’t something he was okay with, but because he had to ask her. If after he was dry he never needed to ask her for anything again, he’d be content.

“After the show is over.”

Perhaps she didn’t understand how wet. “I, um, leaked. My pajamas are wet too.”

“James, sometimes you have to wait until it’s convenient for a big. We don’t exist just to take care of littles. Just sit down, and I’ll change your diaper when I’m ready.”

Embarrassment gave way to anger, and his ineffectualness to do anything about that anger gave way to dejection. He sat down, which caused a little more to leak. He was disgusted. At least a wet diaper didn’t usually feel wet; it was warm and briefly wet, then warm and dry against his skin. But soaked to the point of leaking, he was cold and wet and disgusted with his situation and especially with her. He wasn’t responsible for the state of his pajamas; she was, and she seemed to be doing nothing about it purely to make the point that she decided what he needed and when, not him.

He waited another twenty minutes, into the closing credits of one show and the opening of the next, and she didn’t look up from her knitting. He swallowed that down.

But then he had to pee again. He stood back up. “Excuse me, but this is getting urgent.” She looked from her knitting to the TV. “Mrs. Dana?”

She dropped her knitting and made heavy footfalls to the playpen. Jamie backed up as far as he could, afraid of what she was going to do. “You do not call bigs by their first names! That is disrespectful, James! Naughty! If you can’t behave, you can spend the rest of the morning in your crib until Rebecca gets home.” She picked him up again, a little harder under the armpits than before, and carried him at half-arms’ length to his room. Jamie feared worse if he said or did anything, so he tried to just be limp. She put him in his crib.

“You know what the problem is, is you think you’re back wherever you came from. But you’re not. You’re just a little here.” With a quick glance of the room, Dana zeroed in on his few possessions from home. “You need to understand that, so to help you figure that out …” She picked up each of the pictures of Cheryl, and worse, she snatched Jamie’s bear from out of his crib. “You’re not from there anymore. If you can behave yourself, we’ll find you a new bear from here.” She left the room and closed the door behind her.

Jamie hadn’t felt such a tangled mess of negative emotions in a long time. Fear, anger, impotence, grievance, sadness, hurt. He wasn’t even sure when he started crying. He threw himself down on the mattress and put his face in a pillow.

As he lay there stewing, he thought on Dana’s words, and suddenly he realized she may be doing something to his bear. Tearing it apart, cutting it to pieces, throwing it out with the garbage. The more he thought on it, the surer he was that’s what she was doing. It was just the kind of thing someone like Dana would do, probably convinced she was doing it to help him, whether she knew how cruel it was and did it anyway, or if her cruelty was so much a part of her she didn’t even realize what she was doing to him.