✅ My Cousin's Keeper [NaNoWriMo 2021]

61. My Scientific Method

I didn't need to completely understand hypnosis to use the triggers, and I didn't need to be a scientist analysing what might or might not be possible. But I knew that I needed a better understanding of what kind of suggestions worked for Tess. She was my little, and she should have deferred to me enough to give me a clear explanation afterwards. That was a part of aftercare; I needed to know what was working, so I could improve. But right now she was reluctant to talk about it, and her descriptions were less likely to be helpful because she didn't know what I was trying to do to her.

I wanted to know more, and that was why I was doing a little experiment today, rather than simply forbidding her from seeing Spike. Plus, of course, I needed her to know that I was on her side, so that she would confide in me when she started to have problems.

Ffrances was up earlier than ever, rushing to get dressed without waking me. She had to leave early because she had farther to travel for work. From her home it wouldn't have been too hard, but from here it wasn't exactly the easiest journey to get to the State Assessment Centre. I woke anyway, and we kissed deeply before she ran outside. Her breakfast today was a little bundle of pastry treats wrapped in foil; the kind of thing that she would have no trouble consuming on the road. And then I could probably go back to bed for half an hour before I had to be up; but I had a better idea for today. I dressed quickly and quietly, paced down two flights of stairs without a sound, and set up everything in the kitchen ready to start preparing breakfast. Today I was going for something called a Florida Omelette, which I'd been taught by one of my flatmates in college. I didn't think it actually came from Florida, or that Gabriela would have heard of it if it did, but it was still an easy choice.

Once everything was ready I returned upstairs; or half way upstairs. There I waited two or three minutes until I heard the faint chirp-chirp of Tess's alarm clock. The first one; I thought that meant I would have five or ten minutes before the alarm on her phone sounded. Of course, she was sure to be awake to hear it even if I didn't interfere; but my intention today was to find out whether my more adventurous triggers were actually affecting her like I hoped. So halfway back to the kitchen, when I heard the faintest creak of bed springs and the alarm faded into silence, I counted to three and shouted up to her. I wanted to give the impression I'd heard movement while I was cooking, so I shouted up asking if she was awake now. I told her that I had to be at work early, so she could choose between coming for breakfast now, and preparing it herself a little closer to her normal time. I knew she wouldn't give up on fried food just to lie in bed for an extra ten minutes, not when I was frying something that would smell so much like the irresistible lure of bacon.

I was right. She arrived less than a minute later, too soon to have used the bathroom first. She was wearing her pyjamas, which weren't nearly cute enough for such an adorable little girl, and the pink-purple dressing gown I had left on the door for her. I was sure she would only have worn something like that under protest when she first moved in, but simply having something be the first robe that comes to hand for eight weeks can make a remarkable impact on a child's psyche. Anything sufficiently normalised becomes normal.

I tried talking a little over breakfast, and didn't comment at all about Tess squirming. She snapped at me for calling her a baby, and then didn't say much when I asked about the day ahead. When she only gave short responses I didn't push it, and the only important thing I said was a reminder that she would have an accident if either of the boys on tonight's double date tried to kiss or grope her. I could have said Spike; I knew he was the troublemaker from a broken home. But I didn't want to discriminate, and I wasn't one hundred percent sure that the other one wasn't cut from the same cloth. He might be closer to her own age, but he was still a boy, and could not be trusted. I watched as she bent closer over her omelette, wolfing it down at an impossible speed. Was my cooking really that good? Or was she desperate to leave; her subconscious mind letting her know that her bladder was bursting, but giving her contrived excuses not to leave the table so that when her accident came it would feel natural to her? I knew things like that could happen to some people, if they were really good subjects. But I'd never found myself trying to guess what was going on in their head before.

When she had about a dozen forkfuls of egg, chorizo, cheese, and peppers remaining, her phone vibrated on the table. She had brought it down in her hand and left it beside her, which wasn't quite her normal routine. She jumped up like she'd been shot, yelped, but then immediately seemed to relax. Once the sound was muted I imagined I could almost hear the sigh as she gave up on the feeling of urgency. She stopped desperately crossing and uncrossing her legs, and stopped attacking the food as if she were scared it would run away.

"Something wrong, baby?"

"No, no. Just my alarm startled me,"

I listened for the sound of pee dripping on the tiled floor, and wondered if there was any way she would be able to hide a damp patch on her clothes. With only pyjamas and that dressing gown, I was sure that there was no way she would be able to conceal an accident. Even if she'd been to the bathroom in the night, even just before Ffrances had woken up, I was sure she would be peeing enough to leave a puddle on the chair, if not the floor too. But I didn't hear anything. No dripping, no splashing, no torrent. Had she just waited until the time when I'd told her to have an accident, and then dismissed it because she wasn't in bed? I didn't want to believe it, but I knew it could be true. Hypnosis could be a fickle friend at times, especially when I didn't have experience of how her mind in particular would interpret a suggestion.

I didn't want to believe it. I wanted there to be some other explanation, but it took me more than a couple of minutes to realise what it was. She hadn't gotten dressed yet this morning. She was still wearing pyjamas, which probably meant she was still wearing Goodnites underneath them. That was something I'd overlooked; it was possible that she'd left a damp patch on the pyjamas, those things might not absorb enough for a girl her size. But with the robe giving her an extra layer, if she was lucky she might be able to hide it so I didn't see.

If so, she had a world champion poker face. But I tried calling her 'baby' again, and there was no perfunctory grumble, no sarcastically snappy comeback. And I thought that when she answered a simple question about the alarm, and claimed that she wasn't getting stressed by anything, her language sounded just a little more simplistic. Whether her bladder had reacted or not, it seemed she was feeling a little more childish.

I chose my words carefully, and started to speak. And as soon as the first word was out of my mouth I forgot them all. I babbled. I told her that if she was stressed or anxious some days, modern science had all kinds of ways to deal with that. Not drugs, but better ways to relax. Like some muscle movements were relaxing. And I reminded her that doing something childish seemed to make her act a little more childish, so she might be able to use that to fight against stress. She was blushing like a firefighter's car now, and she must think I'd recognised her little accident, whether real or imagined. So I tried to calm her down, asking if she'd played with some of the toys in her room to help her relax this morning. And as much as she wanted to deny it, she ran with that excuse. Clearly it was less embarrassing than the truth. And I said I could suggest something that could help people to relax anyway; so it wasn't embarrassing or childish. But that if she chose to associate it with her headspace, she would be able to use it as a way to decide when the childishness wore off.

I wasn't sure how believable I was, but she seemed to buy it. I walked around to the drawer behind her chair and opened it slightly. And then when she turned and opened her mouth to ask what I was talking about, I saw the perfect moment to slip the pacifier in.

She didn't get angry right away, which I thought had to be a win. Of course, she was already programmed to be more tolerant of being treated like a child. So I just advised her to give it a try, and keep sucking for as long as it was comfortable. And then I made my excuses and left, off to an early start at work.

I wasn't really in early today. I just wanted to let Tess know that nobody was watching her. To see if the pacifier helped her to relax, and to feel childish. I wanted to know if she would take longer to spit it out if she didn't feel anyone's eyes on her. So twenty minutes later I was sitting in my car, staring at my phone screen as it showed the webcam footage from a call with my laptop that I had left running. I couldn't see much; there were few enough places I could have left the computer open so that it would look to have been carelessly put down. But I did see clearly, fifteen minutes later, Tess sucking absent-mindedly on the pacifier as she opened the door and jogged out to catch the school bus.