Becoming April

Chapter Three

I resisted for almost an hour, but I'd already lost. They were right; the way I looked now, establishing a new adult identity would be next to impossible. I could buy myself a whole new identity, but nobody would believe I wasn't a minor unless I had someone to vouch for me. And how could I move to Tahiti if I obviously wasn't old enough to be on my own?

And as low as it made me feel, I didn't think I could be on my own right now. My emotions were swinging between determined and hopeless, far worse than what I'd gone through last year with my life on the line. One moment I knew I'd make it through this like I'd made it through last year, the next I'd think of everything I had to face and had to do to reclaim even a semblance of an adult life and when I did it felt like hitting a wall and splattering off it like an egg, nothing to put back together. I sat and hugged myself, trying not to fly apart.

"Okay," I finally said. "What do you want me to do?"

"Come with us if you want to live," Carl joked, forcing a laugh out of me. May rolled her eyes and stood, taking my hand and pulling me up and into a hug. I'd gotten a few of those last year, but this felt different. Then I'd been taller, much bigger even after my weight loss, but now I was smaller than her by at least a few inches and she enveloped me.

"You're going to be fine, sweety," she whispered in my ear with all the confidence I didn't have and an extra hard squeeze before turning me to the door. "You come on over right now, you can babysit Steph while I run some errands. There's already a mattress and frame upstairs for a guest room, we just never put it together and Carl can work on that while you make the baby smile."

I relaxed, just a little bit. That I could do.

We trooped across our backyards, away from eyes on the street. Their home—the middle house of the four-floor townhouse triplex that was the Ross, Seever, and Thompson homes—was the same layout as mine, and just as old. I'd grown up on this townhouse street before moving out and then moving back in along with a nurse for my parents in their last couple of years. Carl and May had been doing some remodeling of their own place, but the ground floor rooms hadn't changed and I crashed in the living room while May went upstairs to get Steph and bring her down to put in her downstairs crib. The little flesh-lump, almost a year old now, barely woke from her nap in the move, only fussing a little before settling back down again where I could watch her.

With no siblings and never marrying, I'd had zero experience with children let alone infants before Steph came along, and in the beginning I'd handled her like glass. With May's experience with much younger cousins, she'd just laughed at both Carl and me; now Carl just satisfied himself that Steph was back asleep and then trooped upstairs himself. "You're going to be okay?" May asked, car keys in hand.

"Yeah," I nodded, feeling like I could use a nap myself. Repeatedly panicking for two hours straight had taken a lot out of me. Then I felt something south of my stomach and panicked again. "Wait!"

"What is it, hun?"

Oh, God. Wide eyed and blushing hotly, I squeezed my legs together. "I've got to pee!"

May blinked and laughed. "And? A lot's changed but you use the same muscles for that." Then she got a thoughtful look. "Wait, there is something more. Come on, let's get you potty-trained." Taking my hand again, she led me back down the hall to the ground floor half-bath, a tiny room off the hall with just a toilet and sink that smelled of floral potpourri. Pushed me in, she said "You know what to do but stay on the pot and call out when you're done," before shutting the door.

I stared at the toilet like it had become my personal enemy. Okay. Okay. You can do this. Breathing deep and exhaling, I turned around and dropped my sweats to my ankles, pulled up my t-shirt, and sat without looking down. Not having to adjust anything felt deeply strange and I fixed my eyes on the door and tried to relax and relax until eventually it came, filling the little room with a tinkling sound. Even this felt weird, the release of pressure somehow different. Finally feeling empty, I cleared my throat. "I'm done," I squeaked.