Her mother intercepted her as soon as she got home and handed her a stack of papers. “You got to confirm your acceptance with one college or another by next Friday. That means you need to mail it out Monday morning. I don’t care which school you pick.”
“Alright.” Deborah spread the mess on the kitchen table and spent some time sorting it. She had scholarships to both Idaho schools and the Washington State University in Pulman. She also had an acceptance letter to MIT, but she wouldn’t be given scholarship money and out of state tuition there was expensive. She picked the Washington State University. Not only did it have a Electronics Engineering major, but it was where the vegetarian girl Flower lived. Maybe she could use Flower to get to her uncle the terrorist and–she still needed to think through the and part.
Deborah was a sophomore when she dropped out of college because she ran out of money. This time she would finish. She filled out the forms she needed and put them in an envelope. She wrote thank you notes to the rest of the schools and got the envelopes ready.
“Did you decide, Alison,” her mother asked.
“Yes,” she said. “Washington State University.”
“That’s a good school too. At least it’s not too far away. You can come home for Thanksgiving and Christmas.” Her mother looked disappointed that she didn’t pick something closer. Deborah realized that Alison was Mrs Murphy’s youngest child–the baby of her family. She felt bad for Alison’s mother, but she had to leave Idaho and go to Washington to solve her problems. It would be the only way to get closure and end her wetting problem.
She handed her new mother the envelopes and scooped the rest of her paperwork mess and took it up stairs. She went to bed feeling complete. Even thought she knew she would wake up dry, she put on a diaper before going to bed. The accident in the mall did not count. The pull-up hid it from everyone in view and she only had accidents during the day when she saw the terrorist.
She fell asleep and began to dream. The tanker truck crashed into the school in her sleep again. The terrorist was more vivid and real than ever. She saw everything about him: his eyes, his face, his rough hands, the barrel of his gun, and she felt the heat of the fire before she woke up screaming. She was safe in her room. Light drifted in from her curtains. She felt the dry bed and smiled. She was dry, but she remembered her diaper and felt inside. She had wet the bed again.
Deborah sighed. “Not again, it was supposed to stop when I had a plan.” She supposed she would have to bring down the terrorist to have any peace at all.
“Alison, hurry or you will be late for church,” her mother called as she knocked on Deborah’s door.
“Oh yes, church,” she said. She got up, wrapped a robe around her, and took a shower. After putting on makeup and brushing her hair, she returned to her bedroom to dress.
It had been a while since she had been to church. In prison, she couldn’t go to the chapel with the other prisoners. They kept the death row inmates separate. Instead, a priest would visit her each week, but it wasn’t the same. She wasn’t even Catholic.
From seeing Alison’s clothes, she would have never thought the Murphy family went to church. She always remembered having to wear a dress to church. Her father had told her that only harlots wear pants to church. She never had the guts to tell her father that harlots probably didn’t go to church, but all her friends had worn dresses. She dug through the closet until she found a dress that didn’t look like an evening gown or didn’t look too casual. She finally settled on the one cotton dress she could find. After putting on a pull-up and pulling on the stockings, she pulled the dress on over her head. She looked in the mirror and twirled around. The only visible indication that she was well padded would be hidden when her mother zipped up the back of her dress.