Chapter 31 – [March 29-30]
The United Airlines flight had been long. The 10:15pm departure scheduled the trio for their arrival at Dulles International Airport at about 6:45am Eastern Standard Time. Somewhere in between the two cities in a haze of sleepiness, Jordan had awoken with a start in the middle of a vivid nightmare of that very flight going down in a ball of flames. Her heart had been beating a million miles a second.
When the teenage girl had gasped, it had startled Mrs. Johns sitting next to her in the middle seat as well as the young businessman sitting across the aisle from them. She looked concerned. He looked annoyed.
“Are you ok sweetie?” Mrs. Johns had whispered doing all she could to not look down towards Jordan’s skirt and GoodNite underneath (which would’ve almost certainly given away her hidden knowledge of the girl’s medical condition).
Jordan had looked wide-eyed and confused for a moment before gathering her bearings and wits. Immediately she thought she had felt cold wetness on the backs of her legs and feared the worst.
OH NO!! I’ve leaked! She had panicked inwardly trying to think of a contingency plan. Although the GoodNite clad girl had brought an extra juvenile incontinence brief for the flight, she had not packed an extra set of pants or skirt.
“Jordan? You alright?” Mrs. Johns asked again shifting in her seat. While doing so, she discretely glanced down and noticed nothing unusual.
Still trying to think of something to say, Jordan had finally blurted out, “…Um…oh…I…uh…was just having a nightmare… but uh….I uh…think I may have…uh…started my…you know…time of the month…”
“Oh dear.” Said Mrs. Johns genuinely concerned. “Do you have your…supplies?”
“I…in my backpack…” Jordan had replied quickly before giving a nervous smile and then slinking up from her chair trying to keep her backside away from the teacher.
It had been very dark in the plan and the seat covers were dark blue as well – any wetness would have been impossibly to see by anyone. Although the young teacher had been curious about the actual state of the girl’s condition, she wasn’t curious enough to test the seat with her bear hand to decipher if it had been tainted with either urine or blood.
Jordan had assumed that her plan, hatched as it had been coming out of her mouth, was a brilliant move – especially when she discovered in the bathroom that she had not only wet her GoodNite a little, but had also in fact, just barely begun her period.
This’ll probably be the only time in my whole life that getting my period will be a relief!
Another relief had been that her skirt was not at all wet. The feeling of cold apparently had just been the chill of the air conditioner blowing on the backs of her bare legs. She had praised her good luck as she rifled through her backpack for the new GoodNite at the bottom.
But the more she dug, the less she discovered. Where is it? Where’s my extra one? This can’t be happening! No. No. No. NO!
More frantically, Jordan had continued to paw through her small bag to no avail. There had been no second GoodNite to be found.
Knowing the flight was still long from over, and also knowing that she didn’t have any panties in the bag, Jordan had felt she had no choice but to continue to make use of the soiled GoodNite and volleyball shorts she had been wearing over it. She decided to put one of her pads in the soiled disposable pant just to make it feel a little fresher and try to add some absorbency.
And after wiping herself clean with dampened paper towels, she had pulled the dirty GoodNite back up and into place, followed by her stretchy shorts. It wasn’t terrible. But it certainly didn’t feel clean.
I sure hope this holds up; I wonder what’ll happen if I accidently wet again? And I sure hope I’ll be able to find a place to change as soon as we get to Washington D.C.
Nervously, the thirteen year old had made her way back to her chair hoping she wouldn’t smell and hoping even more she wouldn’t be discovered. Her three surrounding seatmates had been sound asleep as she arrived back but she didn’t sleep a wink for the remainder of the flight.
Ted was pacing the full length of the couple’s Belltown apartment, oxford dress shoes still on his feet from work, clicking on the hardwood floors. His tie had long been loosened and his sleeves rolled up. The homeless shelter CEO looked as though he was in the middle of a businessman death-match.
It was actually a battle for his own soul.
“I just don’t understand why this is such a big deal to you Ted. She’s probably not even gonna remember it when she gets older. I mean – kids forget shit from their childhoods all the time.”
“Em,” (he had graduated to the nickname for Melissa), “it would be a HUGE deal to her if she ever found out – and she’s thirteen years old! Babies might forget some details from their pasts but not teenagers for God’s sake!”
And she sure as shit isn’t gonna forget the fact that I stood her up tonight at the airport. He thought to himself with the all too familiar sense of regret. It had become something like a set of fuzzy dice hanging in his rearview mirror of life; always aware that it was there, but almost numb to its persistent effects. His guilt had been a continual companion for the past 2 or 3 years.
The couple had been arguing ever since they left the restaurant after work and at this point, it was 10pm, far too late for Ted to make a frantic run at SeaTac to fulfill his promise to Jordan.
“I mean, what do we stand to gain by throwing Sally under the bus like you’re suggesting? What do we stand to gain by dragging Jordan and her medical problems into all this? What do we get?”
Ever since the board vote (and Tyler Johns’ bewildering and inexplicable change of heart that had turned the tide), Ted had been thrown into a trough of self-evaluation and self-critique. In fact, he had found himself strangely grateful for what he understood to be the genuine act of compassion on Mr. Johns’ part. Nothing else (from Ted’s perspective) could possibly explain such a switch. The teacher had gone from being absolutely outraged about his affair (and building a strong coalition to oust him), to being grace-oriented, supportive, and big-picture in his leadership. Mr. Johns had even made a speech about how the church needs to model letting people make mistakes and especially in organizations like Hope Seattle, which serves people everyday who have made mistakes. The whole experience had been surreal for Ted, he could hardly wrap his mind around it.
Melissa did not have the same reaction to the vote. Hers was, of course, one better described as ‘entitlement’; on the lines of, “they had no right to even hold a vote in the first place, Ted.”
“Do you have any idea how much they’re gonna charge us for child support? It’ll be for the next 20 years or more!” She responded, pulling on her hair in astonishment.
“Melissa. Child support is part of the equation no matter what. I want to support my kids. But if the court gets convinced that Sally’s a bad mother – and I’m not sure that would even happen – we would also stand to end up with full custody of the girls. For God’s sake Melissa – you don’t want that! We don’t want that!” He paused to let it sink in. “Part of what brought us together is the lack of time I’ve had for my family. I’ve felt so conflicted over the last couple years because of the pull they’ve had against my career with Hope. Why would I want to divorce my wife just so I could steal the kids away and continue that stress? It makes no sense…”
“UM”, she took on a valley girl tone and glared at him, “BECAUSE IT’S ME YOU’RE IN LOVE WITH and not that bland, granola eating, numbers pushing, wet blanket of a woman.”
Ted felt more than a little annoyed by Melissa’s comment and even a little unnerved. It brought conflict up in his mind that he hadn’t been able to face regarding Melissa’s immaturity and egotism. Sally could be a drag from time to time, but she wasn’t so easily carried away by this kind of adolescent selfishness.
“Look Em. I do love you. But I think you’re allowing your anger to drive your decisions here. You need to cool off. Having three girls in our house isn’t how we planned this thing. How’re we supposed to travel? How’re we supposed to serve all over the world? There’s no reason to throw that away over proving a point.”
Melissa sunk back into the leather couch and sulked.
“I just don’t think I can do it Em, it’s just not right. I want to support my girls even if I’m not gonna be there in person.” He thought for a moment. “ESPECIALLY If I’m not gonna be there in person.”
“Wha’d’ya mean it’s not right?! Since when do you care about what’s right?” she barked and then immediately caught herself; yet continuing to stare at Ted.
“Melissa! What the hell?!”
“You need to take back your balls Ted! This is bullshit! That woman has got ahold of yours so tight that you can’t even make a decision for yourself!”
Ted thought for a moment. Well you’re right about one thing Melissa. Someone’s got my balls – but I’m not sure it’s Sally.
“I’m not telling the lawyer about this. I don’t want CPS or any crazy investigation taking place. I don’t want unreasonable suspicions raised. Sally putting Jordan in diapers is no big deal. She’s a damn-near perfect mother.” He said firmly. “I’m not pushing for custody. Sally is a good mother. We’re going to pay the child support. I want to be a better dad. If you can’t handle that, then….”
He shook his head and walked out of the apartment.
Doing her best to remain awake while cruising along at 30,000 feet, the thirteen-year-old bedwetting (and award winning) author began thinking about her writing over the past several months. Back in the summer, when she had first began work on the short story that had earned her the spot on the airplane, writing had been her primary coping mechanism for dealing with the stress of life and home.
She reflected back on how she used to bar herself in her room and drown out her parents’ fighting with music while drumming away on her keyboard for hours on end; mercilessly writing and re-writing dialogue to get the language perfect. It had been therapeutic for the young girl. The boy and his dad in her story were able to say things to each other that she herself felt unable to say to people in her own life. The teen found she could express herself in real situations through the words on the flickering monitor screen.
She recalled how, when first faced with the suggestion by Mr. Johns of entering writing competitions, she had dismissed it as fanciful. She had reasoned to herself that the things she was putting down digitally were only for her own enjoyment and emotional health – not for others to consume.
Jordan hadn’t noticed it as she had experienced it – but looking back now, it was a little clearer. As her bedwetting had entered her life, so had her writing departed (as a tool for coping anyways). At the time, it had seemed like a whim to enter the story in the competition, but now – Jordan felt as though she knew intuitively that diapers and her mother’s gentle care were going to take the place of the former creative outlet. It hadn’t been abrupt – and clearly she was still writing – but it had clearly happened.
Writing for her now, was much less emotionally driven; much less of a necessity and more of a joy to be savored instead of a vice to fall into. Diapers on the other hand were something she felt as though she was beginning to need in some ways – something akin to what her writing had been through the summer. On some days, she could hardly wait for bedtime because the stress inside her built up so high and the only thing she knew that could release it was her Mom’s sweet caress and voice – and the touch of plastic on her body.
What if I had never started wetting the bed? She wondered to herself in the dark. Would I even be here right now? Would it even be possible for me to have won this competition if it weren’t for my diapers? Could I have even shared my writing had I not learned to cope in this new way?
She continued to feel questions circle in her mind.[I] I wonder if this shift will end up making me a better writer than I would’ve been before? All the greats had secret habits and weird stuff in their lives. Maybe I’ll become a strange eccentric hermit with a golden touch with words?
How weird is my own story as it unfolds… [/I]She thought, still in the dark.