I barely even thought about diapers in the years that followed. Britney and Kaylee were eventually potty trained, but they continued to wet the bed at night. In fact, I have vivid memories of a giant box of pink pull-ups sitting on top of their dresser. Their mom always stuck it there when she got back from the store, and they never bothered to put it away.
This might seem odd to you at first. You might think, wouldn't they be embarrassed about their bedwetting? Well, Britney and Kaylee were homeschooled, and I was one of their few friends that came over. Their cousins were all much older, and their parents never shamed them for wetting the bed. With all that in mind, they had no reason to be embarrassed.
Even I never thought much of it until one fateful day.
The sun was low on the horizon, and all three of us splashe in the pool. I was eight at the time. I know this because Britney and Kaylee moved away around my ninth birthday, so they weren't at the party.
We were al having the time of our lives. Normally, my mom and I never stayed this late when we visited. But tonight was special. Tonight, I was sleeping over.
We hadn't even planned this. Sandy just happened to be watching me while my parents were having a date night. They were supposed to come back and pick me up, but the girls and I conspired to turn the day into a sleepover. Sandy called my parents to ask permission, one thing led to another, and there we were.
Kaylee fell off her raft, pulling my thoughts back to the present moment. She let out a scream that echoed throughout half the neighborhood.
"Quiet!" Britney chastised her younger sister. "You want mom to hear?"
It was obviously getting close to bedtime. In our minds, we could play all night if their mom forgot about us. The night grew darker, and we hid our heads between the tubes and the rafts, letting our long hair float over the water's surface. Crickets started to chirp, and fireflies danced around us against the black of the night.
We never wanted this moment to end, but eventually it did. Sandy called us inside, and we climbed out of the pool, dripping wet all over the patio. The air had seemed unbearably hot when we'd first jumped in. Now, it felt cool on our skin, and we hurried to wrap up in our towels.
Sandy's house had a walkout basement, and one of the guest bedroom's had a slider door that led out to the backyard. This had become our designated changing room over the years.
Sandy was waiting for us when we stepped inside. She'd already picked up our clothes from the ground, and through them in the washing machine. She'd also laid out some pajamas and pull-ups for Britney and Kaylee.
Like I said, I wasn't particularly surprised to see my friends step out of their bikini bottoms and into their pull-ups for the night. I'd never stayed overnight before, but I'd been here often enough to know about their bedwetting.
However, that didn't prepare me for what came next.
Sandy approached me with a third bundle that looked like pajamas. That made sense; I hadn't planned on staying the night at first, so I hadn't packed any pajamas of my own.
"Here you go, Taylor," she said as she handed me the bundle. "I also grabbed a pull-up for you."
Now, I'll be honest. I don't remember all the details of this day. I don't remember climbing out of the pool, or what color our swimsuits were. I couldn't even describe the walls, the bed, or the carpet. But this one line has stayed with me over the years. It filled my stomach with butterflies when I heard it, and it still does to this day.
"A pull-up for you," Sandy had said.
A pull-up... for me?
But why?
I knew what pull-ups were, in theory. They were a type of diaper that older kids wore. But I'd never worn them myself. Unlike Britney and Kaylee, I'd potty trained in a few days, and never had any accidents after that
Still struggling to process the words, I stared down at the offered bundle, reaching out my hands to accept it. The pajamas themselves were a simple, sleeveless nightdress, mostly pink, with yellow and violet mixed in a sort of tie-dye pattern.
And sure enough, a pink pull-up sat on top of the night dress.
To this day, I have no idea why Sandy gave me a pull-up to wear. I mean, I was eight, not two. And I hadn't wet the bed in at least five years. Maybe she thought I was a bedwetter like her daughters? Maybe she just thought I'd need something clean to wear to bed?
What if I'd said, "I don't wear pull-ups"? Would Sandy have apologized and found me something else to wear? Or would she have insisted that I wear one anyway? Maybe she didn't trust me to stay dry?
I don't know. But here's the thing about Sandy: she's always been a very blunt, matter-of-fact woman, and her house had a lot of strict rules. For example, we were never allowed to wear our wet swimsuits around the house; we always had to change right here in this room. We weren't allowed to eat food anywhere but the dining room or the back porch, and we couldn't ride bikes too close to the cars. The list went on.
I think that in Sandy's house, kids wore pull-ups to bed, and things were that simple. Both her daughters needed them, after all, and I was close to their age. I doubt she gave it much thought beyond that.
In hindsight, though, I'm ninety-nine percent sure that Sandy would have let me wear something else if I'd just spoken up. But at the time, I thought she would make me wear it. You know... just in case. So of course I stayed quiet, because being forced to wear a pull-up was a hundred times more embarrassing than being handed one without comment.
My cheeks burned as I opened the pull-up, and the butterflies danced faster in my stomach. I hadn't thought about diapers in years, but now those older memories all came bubbling back to the surface. Feelings I was too young to describe or comprehend.
I put the nightdress on quickly. The more I delayed, the more I risked drawing attention to myself. Then again, Britney and Kaylee didn't seem particularly interested in what I was wearing. Maybe they just assumed I needed them too, the same way their mother had?
Finally, I sat down on the edge of the bed, lifting my trembling knees, and stepped into the pull-up.
