Alternative Therapies - Chapter 11

Just a moment after me, Mrs. Weber also returned to the group room, and to my dismay, we continued the game in which it was still my turn. I had to stand in the middle again and guess who the gray slippers belonged to. My guess of Marie was incorrect, and so I unenthusiastically kept guessing until I finally identified the right girl. I didn't care that I had taken by far the most attempts out of everyone. I just wanted to go home and get out of this awful diaper.

The game had barely ended when the first children were already being picked up by their parents. Of course, our mother was not among them; she would likely show up just before closing time, as she did almost every day, since she had so many important things to do in her silly law firm.

In the end, only Melanie, my sister, and I were left in the group room, along with Mrs. Weber. I listlessly scribbled in the coloring book that lay before me when the door opened. I immediately looked up, hoping to see my mother's face, but unfortunately, it was not my mother who had entered. A girl with long, red hair stood in the doorway. She smiled warmly at us as she noticed us, inevitably revealing the metal braces that encircled her teeth. It took me a moment to realize that the teenage girl was Lea. Lea was not only the older sister of Lisa, the girl in our group who had started the Shoe Salad game, but she had also babysat my little sister several times. However, I knew her only briefly, though, and couldn't remember ever having exchanged a single word with her.

"Oh, Lea, what are you doing here? Lisa was picked up by your mother a long time ago. Did she forget something?" Mrs. Weber wondered about Lea's appearance. "I know, but I'm not here for my sister. Sophie and Emily's mother asked me on short notice to pick them up, as she's still busy at her law firm." I froze instantly. This couldn't be true. How could my mother dare to have this teenage girl pick me up? Lea was not only a student, but she was even younger than me. This couldn't be right. I was the older one; if anything, I should have been picking up Lea. I mean, a sheep doesn't lead the shepherd home, after all.

Unlike me, Mrs. Weber didn't seem to have a problem entrusting us to someone younger than me. From Frau Weber's point of view, I was just a kid, no matter what my actual biological age was, and Lea was mature enough to take care of me and my sister. "Oh, I see. Great. Wait a moment, I'll quickly fetch their things," she told Lea and went to the tiled side room. While I sat there, frozen, my sister rushed to the young girl and practically threw her arms around her. "I've missed you so much," Sophie beamed, clinging tightly to the red-haired girl. "I've missed you too, Sophie," Lea replied affectionately. "Will we play something together tonight when you watch over us?" my sister asked with big eyes. "Of course, if we find time for it, we can definitely play something." It was obvious how much Sophie liked the girl, but it wasn't hard to excite my little sister.

Mrs. Weber returned to the room with a plastic bag. My head instantly began to heat up when I realized it contained my soiled clothes. "Oh, did Sophie have an accident today?" Lea asked with a concerned tone as she took the bag. "No, Sophie has been very good about using the potty today. I can't even remember the last time she had an accident. I was actually going to tell her mother that it's no longer necessary for her to wear pull-ups for kindergarten. I think she's ready to wear regular underwear. Would you be so kind as to pass that message on, though I'll still try to reach her mother by phone," said Mrs. Weber. Sophie couldn't stop beaming.

Sophie's development was the polar opposite of my own. While I had been having more and more accidents in recent weeks and barely made it to the potty, she seemed to have turned a corner. Not only was she completely dry during the day, but she also had no more accidents at night. My mother had long since stopped using diapers or pull-ups for her at home, allowing her to wear regular underwear. Only for kindergarten, out of caution and consideration for Mrs. Weber, had she still dressed her in pull-ups. At least until now. Distressed, I realized that I was now the only one in our house who wore diapers and pull-ups.

And as if all that wasn't bad enough already, Mrs. Weber began to recount my accidents from today in great detail and without any embarrassment to Lea. I didn't know where to look, as the whole situation was so mortifying. Why did my mother have to send someone else to pick us up today of all days? After all, there had been days when I had stayed dry. It must surely have been clear to Lea long ago that, since Sophie had not been the culprit, I was responsible for the dirty things in the bag, but that didn't seem to stop Mrs. Weber from going into the subject further. She described my mishaps, mentioned that I had no spare pants available, and that she would therefore still try to reach my mother. Just to be safe, Lea should also remind her about it when she saw her, so I wouldn't find myself without spare clothes again tomorrow. The scene was emblematic of my current life: two adults discussing me as if I were a toddler who couldn't speak or act for itself. After all, Mrs. Weber could have just as well asked me to relay the information to my mother. But in her eyes, I was just a child, a child who did not possess the necessary maturity for such responsible tasks.

"What's the matter, Emily? Don't you want to get up? Lea is here to pick you both up," Mrs. Weber said to me after the conversation between the "adults" had ended and I was still sitting at my spot at the drawing table. Unlike my sister, I hadn't immediately stood up and rushed to my new, temporary supervisor. Why would I? I could listen to the embarrassing conversation about me just as well from my seat at the drawing table, and I wasn't particularly eager to leave the kindergarten with Lea either. Without looking up, I finally got up and approached the three of them grumpily. As soon as I stood up, I was reminded of my current underwear – as if I could ever forget. With every step I took, a loud rustling echoed through the room. A fact that, unfortunately, did not go uncommented. "I think Emily isn't in such a good mood today. To protect her last pair of pants, I put one of her nighttime diapers on her. She wasn't too thrilled about that," Mrs. Weber explained to Lea about my sullen behavior. Lea looked at me sympathetically and gently patted my shoulder.

It didn't help that even Lea was at least a head taller than me. Next to her, I would look just as small and childlike as I did next to all the other adults in my life. "You'll see, Emily, we'll still have lots of fun," Lea finally said warmly, hoping to cheer me up a bit. "Yeah, Emily, it's always really fun with Lea," my little sister confirmed with a big grin.

As nice and warm-hearted as Lea might have been, I could think of many more enjoyable things than being supervised by a teenage girl. I was almost relieved when Melanie suddenly appeared next to us and drew attention to herself. "I have to pee," she shyly revealed. "Is it urgent?" Mrs. Weber instantly inquired. Melanie nodded. "Well, then, let's go!" Mrs. Weber declared and took Melanie by the hand. Briefly, Mrs. Weber said goodbye to us before she scurried into the adjoining room with Melanie in tow.

"How about you two? Does either of you need to use the potty before we leave?" Lea suddenly wanted to know. My sister shook her head, after which Lea turned to me. "What about you, Emily? Should I take you to the potty quickly before we head out?" Even though I was unsure whether I needed to use the toilet again - after all, I hardly noticed when I had to go anymore - I was quite certain that the last thing I wanted was to visit the potty in front of Lea. I hastily shook my head. However, unlike my sister, Lea didn't seem to be satisfied with my head shake. "Are you really sure, Emily, that you don't want to go one more time?" she asked insistently.

It wasn't that I couldn't understand why Lea was more suspicious of my statement than my sister's; after all, she was currently holding the bag of my soiled clothes, a product of my weak bladder, in her hands. But I couldn't help feeling hurt by the fact that she trusted my four-year-old sister more than me in this regard. "We have to take the bus, and it takes much longer than when you ride home with your mommy in the car," she continued her explanation, apparently trying to get me to use the potty one more time.

Great, I hadn't even considered that Lea was too young to have a driver's license, and we would have to walk and take the bus home. Everything was going wrong today. I knew it was unreasonable not to use the toilet one more time before the long journey home, but the last thing I wanted was to use the potty in front of that teenage girl. "No, I just went a little while ago," I lied on the spot, hoping she would stop asking, and to my relief, she seemed satisfied with my answer.

My sister and I put on our shoes, and the three of us left the kindergarten together. As soon as we stepped out the door, I wanted to head straight towards the bus stop with quick steps - after all, I knew the way there. But Lea stopped me as soon as I was just a meter away from her, "Please hold my hand or your sister's hand. I don't feel comfortable with you wandering around on your own!" I gave Lea an incredulous look. She couldn't be serious. She was even worse than my mother. I briefly considered defying her instruction now that Mrs. Weber was no longer present, but then I reached for my sister's hand. A discussion wouldn't have helped anyway and would have only unnecessarily prolonged the journey home.

Along a picturesque forest path leading to the bus stop, we walked hand in hand through the summer evening light. Warm sunbeams shone through the foliage of the trees, wrapping the surroundings in a golden veil. But I couldn't appreciate the beauty of nature around me. My thoughts were solely focused on the diaper tightly wrapped around my hips. I quickly realized that it was one thing to take a few steps at home or in the kindergarten with the thick nighttime diaper, but it was an entirely different matter to cover a longer distance with the darn thing.

The bulky diaper inevitably forced my legs into a slight spread position, making each step more cumbersome than I was used to. And as if that wasn't enough, all of this was accompanied by a constant, loud crinkling sound that even drowned out the rustling of the trees and the whispering of the leaves around us.

I was visibly relieved when we finally reached the bus stop. Although Lea informed us that it would still be about a quarter of an hour before the bus arrived, the bench at the stop offered me a welcome opportunity to sit down and no longer be bothered by my diaper. Sophie and Lea, on the other hand, decided to shorten the waiting time with a round of hopscotch. They found a suitable spot next to the bus stop and drew the necessary squares for the game on the ground with a piece of chalk.

They took turns enthusiastically hopping on one leg through the fields, extending the game board with an additional square after each round. While I sat in a corner, still weighed down by the events of the day, they seemed to be enjoying life to the fullest.

As the bus, an older model in green paint, finally rounded the corner and came to a stop in front of us with a soft squeaking of the brakes, Lea and Sophie ended their game, sweaty and happy. We boarded the bus at the front, near the driver, a friendly middle-aged man with gray hair and crooked glasses. I was the only one among us who needed a ticket. Lea had a monthly pass, and my sister was young enough to ride for free.

The times when I took care of things like buying a ticket myself were long gone. By now, I was used to others speaking, acting, or deciding for me in such situations, and so Lea naturally took over the purchase of the ticket for me as we entered the bus. Admittedly, I wasn't exactly unhappy about being able to stay in the background, as this reduced the likelihood of the bus driver noticing the diaper under my overalls, at least a little. "We just need a ticket for the young lady," Lea told the bus driver, pointing at me. "A child's ticket, that'll be 1.80€," he said kindly while tapping the appropriate symbol on his ticket machine.

Embarrassed, I looked at the sign hanging in front of his driver's cabin, which listed the ticket prices. "Infants <=5, Children <=12, Juniors <= 17" were the age limits for the ticket rates clearly stated. The damn bus driver had not only assumed I wasn't an adult, but he was so sure that I couldn't be older than twelve that he didn't even consider asking for my age.

I didn't know whether to be glad that Lea didn't find it necessary to point out his mistake - after all, she surely knew I was older than twelve - and instead rummaged for the required amount from her wallet and handed it to him. At that moment, I became painfully aware that I hadn't held money in my hands for weeks. Not that I needed it, as there was always a companion who could pay for me, but it symbolized yet another level of my disempowerment since the beginning of my dreadful therapy.

Lea took my ticket, and we headed to one of the four-seater spots in the front area. I was careful to keep the rustling of my undergarments as quiet as possible with every movement, and fortunately, the bus engine was loud enough to drown out the sound my diaper made when I moved. I sat by the window facing forward, my sister beside me, and Lea directly across from us. To my relief, the bus we had boarded was only moderately filled. Since it was school vacation, there were just a few elderly passengers on board who were quietly chatting or looking out the window, and fortunately, they didn't seem to pay us much attention.

I hated the bus ride home. The few times I had picked up my sister from her new kindergarten were enough to know that the journey home felt like an eternity. A trip that took only 15 minutes by car lasted over an hour by bus. The bus stopped at every tiny village, no matter how big the detour was. That's what the so-called great life in the countryside looked like. Life here was bearable only with a car, and the only people who used public transportation were retirees. No wonder - who else had the time to aimlessly cruise around the area?

While Sophie told Lea about her experiences at kindergarten today, I contented myself with looking out the window and observing the passing landscape. Rolling hills, lush meadows and isolated farmsteads passed by my window as the bus drove along the winding country roads. Again and again we stopped at the stops of the small villages. Sometimes people got on and off, but sometimes nothing happened at all, which meant nothing more than that we had visited the village completely in vain. While all this was happening, we remained seated and waited for us to finally reach our destination.

We had just a little more than half of the bus ride behind us when I already began to regret my lie to Lea. Out of nowhere, my bladder announced itself to me and once again urgently signaled that it was high time to empty it as quickly as possible. Although I was pretty sure that the bus didn't have a toilet, I furtively glanced to the back, hoping that I was wrong in my assumption. But of course, I wasn't wrong. A public bus had no toilets, so I had no chance to follow the signal from my bladder.

Another half an hour would likely pass before we arrived home. In the past, it wouldn't have been a problem for me to ignore the pressure in my bladder for such a short timeframe, but those times were long gone. Now, I was lucky if I lasted five minutes before my bladder discharged its contents on its own. If only I had listened to Lea and gone to my potty one last time at the kindergarten, I wouldn't be in this mess now.

And so it happened that, before I could even consider asking Lea to get off at the next stop with us so I could quickly find a place to relieve myself - not that it would have been a practical option at all, considering the next bus wouldn't come for another hour - my urine had already spilled into my diaper. Even my desperate attempt to stop the flow by pressing my legs together hastily couldn't change anything. At least my nighttime diaper proved to be absorbent enough to contain the contents of my full bladder. So, the stupid diaper served some purpose after all. Because worse than having a full diaper was having a urine-soaked pair of pants in public.

Unfortunately, Lea was probably already experienced enough in herding children to be able to correctly interpret the subtle signals I was sending out during my accident - even though I had done everything I could to avoid attracting attention. I had continued to look out of the window as if nothing had happened and had tried to avoid any eye contact with my supervisor, but none of this had fooled Lea.

Unfortunately she reacted as if an ordinary toddler were sitting in front of her. "Did you just pee, Emily?" she asked me unabashedly, loud enough for the elderly lady sitting on the other side of the four-seater to look up from her book and glance over at us. The elderly lady's gaze instinctively shifted to Sophie, expecting the question to be directed at her. She appeared slightly taken aback when she realized that Lea was looking at me, not Sophie.

I was consumed with embarrassment. At first, I wanted to ignore the question, pretend I hadn't heard it, hoping that Lea wouldn't press any further if I just kept desperately gazing out the window. But Lea persisted. "Emily!? Did you just pee?" she asked again, her gaze fixed on me. Shyly, my face beet red, tears already welling up in my eyes, I turned my gaze towards her and gave a slight nod. "It's okay, Emily," she reassured me, gently patting my left leg. "I'll change your diaper as soon as we get home."

To make matters worse, my little sister suddenly started blurting out my accidents to the old lady as if it were the most natural thing in the world. "Emily has peed her pants three times today!" she shamelessly declared. Couldn't that little brat keep her mouth shut? "I, on the other hand, always use the potty like a good girl. Mrs. Weber said today that I'm doing so well that I don't need to wear pull-ups in kindergarten anymore!"

The old lady smiled at Sophie. "Oh, that's wonderful! You're really mature for your age! I'm sure you're a great role model for your sister." With a mix of shame and anger, I clenched my hands in my lap and continued to stare stubbornly out the window, while the old lady took this as an opportunity to strike up a conversation with our caregiver. "Are you the older sister of the two?" the old lady inquired curiously to Lea. Lea shook her head with a smile. "No, I'm just their babysitter. I look after the girls occasionally when their mother is at work." The stupid cow was acting as if she had taken care of me dozens of times before.

The old lady nodded in understanding. "Oh, taking care of children is such a nice job. When I was young, I often took care of children to earn extra money. I often had so much fun doing it that I almost felt like a fraud, charging money for it." Lea laughed and said, "Yes, that's true. It can be really fulfilling. But sometimes the little ones can keep you pretty busy, too."

The old lady nodded with a smile. "Oh, I know exactly what you mean. Once, when I was about your age, I was babysitting three children for a neighbor. While I was in the kitchen preparing dinner, they decided to add some color to the plain, sterile design of the living room. When I finished cooking and checked on them, the walls, the table, and even the floor were adorned with their colorful artwork! I desperately tried to clean everything up before the parents returned, but it was hopeless. I'll never forget the expressions on the parents' faces when they came back that evening. I was rarely so embarrassed in my life, but thankfully, in the end, the parents took it all in good humor and weren't upset with me."

Lea laughed and shook her head in amusement. "Children are always good for a surprise. Luckily, that hasn't happened to me yet, but I think I'll be careful not to leave children alone with crayons in the future," Lea giggled.

The hiss of the bus doors opening interrupted the lively conversation between the two women. "Oh, we're already at our stop! I didn't even realize we had to get off because of all the chatting. Sophie, Emily, we need to get out. Let's go." Lea quickly grabbed our hands and led us toward the exit. "It was really nice talking to you," she said to the old lady.

"I also enjoyed our conversation. Take care and goodbye, Sophie and Emily," the lady bid farewell with a smile. "Bye!" Lea and Sophie cheerfully replied. However, I wasn't in the mood for pleasantries. I just wanted to get off the bus, and I quickly made my way to the door without saying a word.

Lea, holding my hand, stopped me. "Emily, don't you want to say goodbye to the nice lady?" Reluctantly, I muttered a brief "Goodbye." "I'm sorry, she's not having her best day today," Lea apologized to the old lady for my aloofness. "Take care," Lea said before we finally exited the bus.

The journey from the bus stop to our home reminded me once again of the downsides of our new house. As idyllic as it was to live secluded on a hill, it was equally challenging to reach it without a car. Others might have enjoyed the path through the picturesque little village with its pastel-colored houses, winding streets, and flower-adorned front gardens, but I was annoyed by everything around me. Perhaps my soaked diaper played a significant role in evaluating my surroundings. But could you really blame me? It hung cold and heavy on my hips, making the steep ascent even more difficult than it already was. And the longer we walked, the more it began to uncomfortably chafe against my legs. I couldn't wait to finally get out of this unpleasant thing and wear my pull-ups again.

After what felt like an eternity, we finally reached our little cottage. It was strange to see Lea pulling out the key for it. She wasn't even a part of our family, yet she had the key to our house, while I didn't even have a key to my own room anymore.