September Exclusive - "First Chance" - Part 2

While Diane talks to her mother on the phone, she twirls her hair with the fingers of her free hand. The shiny, fluffy hair that she can’t stop touching. She smiles, stroking the skin around her mouth and eyes. What’s her skincare regime now? Just…being alive. Think of the time she’ll save, no more desperate potions and creams. Just more time she can devote to bath time and bedtime stories for her little boy.

“I had one chance to ask for what I wanted,” Diane says. “They asked me, Mum, ‘did I want to be a wife, or did I want to be a mother?’”

Diane takes the phone away from her ear and stares at the bedroom door. Did she hear a creak? A rustle? It was faint, barely perceptible.

It’s nothing. It’s paranoia. And besides, even if Christopher had heard her…Diane smiles. Really, what difference would it make?

She puts the phone back to her ear, and listens to her mother, who unlike Christopher, has always been on her side. Has always wanted her to be happy. Understands the concept of sacrifice.

Diane lies on the bed, one hand behind her head. She smiles. “I had thirty years of being his wife, and you know what? I wanted something else. I wanted the family he kept putting off, finding every reason under the sun, until it was too late and suddenly, we were middle-aged.”

She grins. If Christopher had been listening just now, nothing would have stopped him bursting through the door. Her husband has always resisted being blamed for things that were squarely his fault.

Diane didn’t call her representative at the Parkdale Parenting Association because she didn’t see the need. She had no intention, after all, of having her husband returned to an adult age. She had already made her choice regarding what she wanted her new role to be; mother, not wife. Finally, a child of her own, and without a husband to whine and sulk about it.

Or rather, if Christopher does whine and sulk, she can put him in time-out.

This time, the noise is not a creak or a rustle. It’s a series of rattles. And then a crash.

“What was that?” asks Diane’s mother.

Just Christopher, Diane wants to say. Just the baby.

But it’s not as simple as that. Not yet.

“Call you when we’re on our way,” says Diane. “Love you.” She ends the call.

Another series of rattles, followed by another crash. No, not a crash, more like a thump. And it’s not coming from outside the bedroom door. It’s further down. It’s probably in the nursery.

Diane resents the anxiety that creates a knot in her chest. This shouldn’t feel uncertain, it shouldn’t be scary. It’s just her little boy, making noise, making a mess.

Unless it isn’t. Unless these are the sounds produced by her physically regressed husband who’s decided to tear his new room apart.

Because what happens if he doesn’t adjust?

They always come around, the PPA agent said. But they would say that, wouldn’t they?

Diane gets off the bed and stands up, stretching, taking some pleasure from how she didn’t really need to stretch. Because she’s not 55 years old anymore.

Rattle-rattle-rattle. Thump-thump.

She goes out onto the landing, passes the bathroom and guestroom.

Rattle-rattle-rattle.

As she approaches the nursery door, Diane can hear something new.

Talking? Almost. Babbling, really. And laughter.

And so Diane isn’t surprised by the good news, looking through the open doorway to find Christopher pushing a toy Hoover around the nursery. All smiles. All giggles.

“Look who’s being a big boy,” Diane says softly, nervously, “cleaning up his room.” Because this isn’t the behaviour of a sulking, regressed husband. This is how an adjusted little boy behaves. She looks down at Christopher and smiles.

And Christopher stops pushing the vacuum long enough to smile back. And then he races towards her – rattle-rattle - and it will end with a crash, she will be sent flying.

No. He’s just a little boy. Diane puts out her hands, stops boy and machine with ease.

Christopher chortles. “I doin’ hoovrin!” he announces, with the proudest and pleased of expressions.

Diane feels her entire body relax. “Yes, you are!” And she has to pick him up, she has to hold him close and kiss his cheeks. “Mummy’s big boy!” Because he will put up with that. He’s just a little boy after all, he’s there to be cuddled and smooched and praised.

She sighs with happiness. And sure enough, Christopher seems perfectly comfortable in Diane’s arms. “Gotta hoo-vah,” he says, looking at Diane and then down towards the floor. He points with his little hand.

“You sure do,” says Diane. “Aren’t you lucky.”

Diane called her mother and not the PPA because everything is going according to plan. Maybe Christopher would wake up all smiles, and maybe he wouldn’t. She had been told the next steps for either event. When Christopher woke up angry and very much aware that he wasn’t supposed to be a little boy, Diane was perfectly clear on what she had to do.

Which wasn’t very much, to be honest.

“Let him spend quality time in the nursery”, the agent had said. “Once he’s in there and you’re mothering him, he’ll be on his way. All those toys and stuffed animals. Event the smell of the nursery, the sounds of it. He won’t be able to resist. But keep him a captive audience. Don’t take him outside until you can see that his mind matches his body.”

A good question. An excellent question. And not something she can just ask Christopher and trust the answer. Instead, she puts him back down and crouches in front of him. “Did you do a tinkle, Christopher? Do you need Mummy to change your nappy?”

Christopher shakes his head with enthusiasm, and points back the toy vacuum, as if he has better things to worry about than his bladder control.

“I know,” says Diane, her tone sugary-sweet and condescending, “You’ve got work to do with your Hoover. Just let Mummy check you’re still dry, okay?”

Christopher doesn’t respond. He just stands there, docile and obedient, while Diane unfastens the poppers in the crotch of his overalls, and checks inside. Diane smiles, because she has been rewarded with a heavy warmth that tells her the truth.

“You’re all wet, sweetie,” she says tenderly. “You gotta soggy bum!”

Christopher looks down at himself and blinks, his face filled with vague understanding. “Dun a oopsy.”

Diane nods. “You did. You’re all soggy. Let’s get you all clean and dry again.”

Again, there’s no fight from Christopher as Diane pulls down his overalls and lies him down on the changing mat. Diane hums tunelessly as she removes the plastic pants and wet nappy. “You were all full of squash, weren’t you! And you used your nappy like Mummy’s sweet little boy.”

Christopher doesn’t reply, his eyes roving around the nursery walls and ceiling, which strikes Diane as fair enough; the nursery is brand new after all, with plenty to occupy a toddler’s mind.

How long has she waited, to change her baby like this? To wipe him clean, to pin him snugly and securely into a fluffy, clean nappy?

She’s waited her entire adult life. And even though she knows that she will tired of such chores, a part of her wants this stage of her son’s development to freeze like this forever. She smiles, realizing that the Parkdale Parenting Association could probably make that happen.

She pats the front of Christopher’s diaper gently and then pulls up a fresh pair of plastic pants. “There you go!” she says brightly. “That didn’t take long at all, did it.” And she means the adjustment, not the nappy. “I could have guessed. They said some people fight the mental regression, but you’ve never been much of a fighter, honey. And now you’d don’t have to be, because Mummy’s here to take care of you!”

She beams down at her nappied son and can’t help giggling as Christopher smiles back innocently, waving his arms and legs.

Diane groans with delight. “All your silly big boy thoughts went bye-byes! Now you’re my sweet little boy! You’re mummy’s precious angel! What a handsome boy,” she says, giving him the compliments she has always wanted to shower on him. “What a perfect little thing” She kisses his stomach, earning a wriggling giggle for her trouble.

Is there really any doubt? There’s no chance Christopher would put up with treatment like this. No way he could hold his tongue.

Instead of an angry little husband, Diane has won herself an adorable little boy. She will dress him up every day in the cutest outfits, she will take him to the park and play groups and she will show him off to the other mothers, and they will be jealous, because none of them will have a child as perfect as this one!

“Time to take you home,” says Diane, “so we can start our new life. We’ve been given a second chance, it’s like a perfect miracle.” She continues to look down at her boy. She beams at him. “And to be honest, sweetheart, you look good enough to eat.” She picks him, twirls him around, and proceeds to pretend all kinds of seasonings and toppings on him.

“Mummy’s gonna eat the jelly on your cheeks,” she says, making gobbling and smacking sounds as she kisses his face. And all Christopher does is laugh.

“Mummy’s gonna eat the jellybeans between your toes,” she says, slurping and nibbling as she kisses his toes. All Christopher does is squeal and squirm with apparent delight.

Diane lays him back down. “Mmm, you’re like Mummy’s toddler buffet!” She pats his belly and sighs. “Maybe Mummy should keep you like this forever? What do you think?”

It’s the most provocative of questions. And it’s right here that Diane sees a flash of something different across Christopher’s face. It’s the merest flicker, but Diane is sure that she saw it. Indignation. Horror. Fury.

And then it’s gone, replaced by a squirmy, giggly little boy who reaches for his mother’s shiny hair.

She had asked, before signing the papers, before transferring the payment, how she would know if Christopher had mentally regressed. “Because what if he pretends? What if he tries to trick me?”

“You’ll know,” the agent had said smoothly. “A mother always knows. It’s in their eyes, when those adult thoughts fade away. That and a wet nappy.”

“Let’s get you back in your overalls,” says Diane conversationally. “They’re the perfect overalls, because we’re going on a choo-choo!” She pokes the train on the front of Christopher’s outfit playfully. “We’re taking a choo-choo all the way to London so we can see Granny!”

She keeps her eyes firmly on Christopher’s face as she says this, looking for another of those flickers.

Nothing. Not a hint. Just an open-mouthed smile, before Christopher fills it with his fingers.

“But what if I’m just not sure,” Diane had asked the agent, her fingers poised on the keypad. “He’s always been sneaky, I wouldn’t put it past him. What if I get back home and then he tells someone what I’ve done, first chance he gets?”

Either they fix me, or I ruin them.

The agent had nodded. “We understand your concern. But we’ve been in this business a long time. We have…contingencies. So, if you have any doubts at all, text the special number and we’ll check in.”

Diane finds a pair of socks for Christopher that match his overalls. “Handsome boy,” she says, her voice oozing with sweetness. And then she reaches for her phone.

To be completed...