Bella's Accidents

An Unenviable Predicament

The next few weeks passed more or less uneventfully. Day camp proved a welcome distraction from Bella's nightly humiliation. She had begun to get used to her new routine, which consisted of limiting her fluid intake for the hour that preceded her bedtime (although this didn't seem to help much, if at all), putting on a pull-up right before climbing into bed in order to avoid what she viewed as the embarrassment of having to interact with one of her parents while she was actually wearing it, and disposing of it each morning in the special bin which now resided in the upstairs bathroom. Some nights she didn't end up needing her protection, as both she and her parents had euphemistically taken to calling it, but most nights she did.

Her dad had strenuously avoided talking with her about the issue, and her mom steered clear of it as much as possible as well. Bella was relieved not to be asked about it, but no less embarrassed by the fact that the issue itself continued unabated with no signs of improvement. She had already been forced to decline her friends' invitations to four sleepovers, giving a different excuse each time, and had begun to wonder how many more times she could refuse without beginning to arouse suspicion. Until a few weeks ago she had never been one to turn down such an invitation. 

The impending prospect of ten days at sleepaway camp, once a happily exciting one, now loomed larger and larger and more and more foreboding in Bella's mind as the days wore by. Six weeks had seemed an eternity at the start of the summer, but now she was set to leave in just four days. Her near-nightly bedwetting had persisted this long, and there was therefore little reason to suspect that it might vanish in time for her to spend ten nights bunking away from home with two dozen other girls her age who would be sure to realize if one of their number was wearing diapers to bed every night. She yearned to simply call the whole thing off and spend the time at home reading and doing nothing, sleeping in her own bed away from the prying eyes of her peers. Her spot at the camp was reserved and paid for in advance, however, and it was too late to cancel now.

Bella had thought endlessly about ways in which she might conceal her secret at camp. I could keep my Goodnites hidden at the bottom of my backpack, she thought to herself. I could keep my backpack in reach of my bunk and make sure to wait until all of the other girls went to sleep before reaching into my pack, pulling it out, and sliding it on under my sleeping bag. That much seemed straightforward enough, as far as it went. But how to discretely dispose of them in the mornings? That was the part which still eluded her. It seemed nearly impossible without the complicity of one of the camp counselors, but the idea of her mother's calling up the camp in advance to notify them that her daughter wore diapers at night was too mortifying to consider. Even if none of the other campers found out about it, she wanted the counselors to think of her simply as Bella, not as Bella the bedwetter.

***

The last two days of day camp came and went, much of the weekend disappeared in a flurry of packing and preparation, and before Bella knew what had happened, it was the night before she was set to leave for ten days of sleepaway camp. At dinner, her mom was oddly quiet, as though constantly trying to find the right moment at which to broach a difficult topic. Eventually, as they were almost done eating, she seemed to decide that it could wait no longer.

"So, honey, you know how excited we are for you to have this adventure," she began. Bella's dad looked down at his plate, suddenly seeming to find his peas and carrots unusually interesting. "I just wanted to let you know that I called the camp yesterday afternoon to let them know about your situation."

"You did what?" Bella said, aghast.

"Well, I just thought that there should at least be someone there who knows what you're dealing with so that they could help you if you run into any difficulty," her mom said defensively, trying to keep things as vague as possible so as to minimize her daughter's inevitable feeling of humiliation.