No matter what happens, Jess, your father, Elizabeth, and I all love you very much, and we want you to be happy. Honestly, Jess, I would much rather have you walking around the house in panties one minute and crawling in diapers the next than wanting something and suppressing it. So please, go to this conference and enjoy yourself. Enjoy the opportunity to relax, to regress to an age where you hadn’t a care in the world. The opportunity doesn’t come around every day. When it knocks you need to open the door.
“Mommy,” Jess said, her eyes welling up with fresh tears, “I don’t even know what to say. I can’t tell you what a relief it is to not have to hide from everyone. I thought I was good at it and it was such a blow when I found out you all knew and I flipped out at Liz and I feel so bad about it.