"Thanks, Mom," Adi smiled nervously as Garfield left the room. The first confrontation had gone a lot more smoothly than she could have dared to hope. She hadn't even got into too much trouble for swearing at her brother, and she hoped that she wasn't next in the firing line.
"You're welcome, Adi. Some squabbling among siblings is normal. You wouldn't believe the arguments I used to get into with your uncle Berenstein. But you've got enough problems in your life right now, and you don't need any extra difficulty just because he wants to rebel. And I felt that his behaviour in this case had crossed a line where it could have been a cause of real anxiety for you."
"Thanks," Adi repeated. It was the only thing she could think of to say. A long couple of seconds passed, and then knowledge came flooding back into Adi's mind. The realisation that she'd just wet herself while having a row with her little brother, and all the shame that came with it. Her embarrassment had been suppressed by the hypnosis when Garfield said her name, but that never lasted more than five minutes, and now the blushes made her feel like her face was on fire. "Wait... you knew..."
"I still take the trash out, dear. I still tidy your room if you let it get into too much of a state. That's why you haven't been locking the door while your brother's away, remember? And I found your little music player gizmo repeating a recording to itself. I have to look into these things, you understand? Because I need my children to be safe and comfortable."
"You... didn't say anything?"
"You didn't want to discuss it with me. I can understand it's embarrassing. Do you enjoy it?"
"It was a joke. A dare." Adi was improvising, but she really hoped the excuse would pass muster. "I just listened to it once. I didn't expect it to work. You have to believe me, I didn't want any of this. But I can't help it!"
"I know, dear," Mom nodded with a faint smile. "You wouldn't have chosen this, but now it's happened to you it's too hard to make it stop. Is that how it is?"
"Yeah," Adi whispered under her breath. She'd never imagined Mom could possibly be so understanding.
"I don't know if I can help, but if I can I'd like to try. Okay? But maybe you're a little embarrassed. It's hard to ask, and it's hard to even admit how you feel. I found some stories about people in your situation, some of them more realistic than others. But a lot of them seem to feel the same way."
"Something like that," Adi answered, barely making a sound. She was fighting against her urge to deny it all, to say that hypnosis was all fake, or a joke. But now she knew she had to come clean.
"I don't want to push you to talk about it if it's hard. Would it be easier if I... If when I can see a way to help you, I just do it? So you don't need to accept my help if it's embarrassing, you can argue or fight, or protest that you're too old to need my support, and I'll just do it anyway?"
Adi thought for a second. She thought about the diapers, and wipes, and baby powder, and all the other things she didn't even know if she needed. She thought about the logistical challenge of making sure she didn't run out of anything. If Mom had a super power, it would be making sure that shopping was always done before it was needed. Just like Britney's genius in research, and Toni's uncanny ability to find a practical solution, they were all good at different things. And it would be a lot easier on Adi if Mom could take care of that shopping without ever needing to ask what she was short of. So she could pretend to herself that those things just showed up, and nobody else knew.
"Yeah," she answered eventually, nodding as her voice cracked. "Yeah, do that. Thanks, Mom."