Leah’s still sleeping, thankfully. Tina knows that Leah wouldn’t be happy to have to continue to pretend to be a two-year-old. She takes her stepdaughter from the crib and checks her diaper.
“Wet,” Tina says quietly. She sighs. “That’s not a good sign, sweetie.” The diaper isn’t just slightly damp. It’s soaked. At her age, Leah shouldn’t be having this sort of accident, even while asleep. Tina brings Leah over to a nearby changing table. Thankfully, no one else is in the room to watch Tina change her teenaged stepdaughter out of her wet diaper and into a clean one.
Leah wakes up halfway through the change. Her bare butt on the changing table, Leah opens her mouth to say something. Tina hurriedly puts a pacifier in her mouth to silence her.
“I’ll tell you when we’re in the car,” Tina whispers. “Just be quiet until then, okay?” Suckling on the pacifier, Leah nods. The rest of the change goes by quickly. Leah doesn’t try fighting Tina whatsoever. She just accepts everything and sucks on her new binky.
Promptly, Leah is in a fresh diaper and dressed up like a little boy again. Tina picks her up.
“All right, time to go.” Tina exits the room. Betsy swoops in to coo over Leah again.
“Aspen, you were such a little angel, I hope we see you again!” Betsy gushes. Leah merely sucks on her pacifier in response. Betsy chuckles. “Such a cutie.”
“I’ll see you at work tomorrow,” Tina says. Betsy nods. Tina leaves the daycare and brings Leah to the car, where she buckles Leah into the carseat again. Leah takes the pacifier out.
“Okay, what happened?” she demands.
“I had to stop by work and got dragged into doing more than just dropping off the supplies.”
“And I slept the entire time?”
“Yes. But you also wet yourself while you were sleeping.”
“…Oh.”
“And it wasn’t a dribble, sweetie. You were soaked,” Tina says. Leah goes quiet. “Honey, I think you’re gonna need to wear some sort of protection for a while. You’ve had multiple accidents today.”
“What kind of protection are we talking?” Leah asks softly.
“Diapers while you’re sleeping, for sure. While you’re awake, we can try with training pants. If that winds up being not enough, we’ll move you to diapers during the day, too.” Leah is silent. “Leah? Say something, please.”
“I don’t want to wear diapers or training pants!” Leah bursts out suddenly. “I’m not some sort of baby, stop pretending I am! I know you want to be my mom, but this is too far! How do I know you weren’t lying about me wetting myself?”
“You really think I’d lie about that?” Tina asks.
“I don’t know. Today you’ve been capable of a lot of things I didn’t think you’d do before,” Leah snaps. She holds the pacifier up. “Like this!” She throws the pacifier at Tina. Tina puts her hands on her hips.
“If you don’t stop this temper tantrum right now, you’re in big trouble,” she warns. Leah blows a raspberry at her. “This is your last warning.”
“Screw you!” Leah screams. Tina’s eyes narrow.
“That’s enough! For talking to me like that…”