“I’m never going to get anyone in half an hour,” Miranda said (much to her elder daughters’ relief.) That sense of safety vanished in the space of a breath as they watched her walk into the kitchen and scroll though the contacts list on her phone. “I hope Shining Time has three seats today.”
The two-foot-seven eighteen-year-old and the two-foot-ten twenty-one-year-old looked at each other with eyes wide open and mouths hanging open in horror.
“Daycare?” Rebecca squeaked. “She’s going to put us in daycare?” The recent high school graduate trembled, a lock of blonde hair falling loose into her face.
“Just keep breathing Becca,” Heather whispered while leaning to return a hug from Delilah.
“But daycare!” Becca said, crossing her legs and gesturing like she was sitting with her sister at a coffee shop over a mocha and not at a plastic child’s table over small plastic cups with mouthpieces on their lids.
“It’ll be okay. What are the odds a daycare will have room for three kids on short notice?” Heather replied, letting Delilah go as the toddler lost interest in their “big girl” talk and wandered off to play with her toys.
“Girls, get dressed. You’re going to Shining Time with Delilah.” Their mother announced when she strode back into the living room from the kitchen.
But for the sound of Delilah playing with some blocks on the other side of the room, the St. Vincents’ living room was silent. That quiet was broken when Miranda walked over to the table and began clearing away the girls’ empty plates.
“Mom!” came a pair of squeals from Heather and Rebecca.
“I’m not hearing it!” Miranda said over the tiny voices. “I’m not letting you try and babysit a baby bigger than you. And if something is wrong with Heather, I’m want full-size help nearby. Now go get dressed. You have ten minutes. There’ll be new toothbrushes for you in the bathroom.” Their mother pronounced.
The shrunken women got up from the table without further protest and made their way back upstairs. They went up the stairs on all fours, much the way Delilah would, making climbing the knee-high steps easier.
“Please tell me you have a few outfits shrunk down,” Rebecca said as the girls walked to Delilah’s room.
Heather grimaced, “No. I have a few things I keep in my dollhouse, but I don’t plan on being this size. Not in a situation like this anyway.”
“What are we going to do?” Rebecca whined as she reached up over head to turn the doorknob to Delilah’s room.
The young women walked into their kid sister’s room. Delilah’s was a testament to the tase and love of her parents: The room was painted with a light green, trimmed with white and white-painted furniture. A spacious crib sat between the two windows with a changing station and Delilah’s dresser a few feet away. More wood shelves packed with colorful plastic bins for Delila’s toys lined the other walls. Heather and Rebecca walked around the little end table with a nightlight shaped like a little Rapunzel statue and picked their way carefully through a minefield of toys on the floor to the dresser.
“We need to get Delilah to pick up more,” Rebecca said as she and Heather pushed toys out of their way.
“Let’s just pick something out,” Heather said, unbuttoning her pajama top and pushing down the matching shorts.
“Do you have to just strip right in front of me?” Rebecca demanded while straining to pull open the bottom dresser drawer.
“Your hang-up, not mine,” Heather replied while bending to help Rebecca pull on the drawer.
The girls were strong enough to pull the full dresser drawer open easily enough and reveal the neatly folded garments within. “Short sleeves, and shorts, dresses, or skirts,” Heather said as she picked though their options and pulled out for a few things for herself.
“Huh?” Rebecca asked while discarding anything with a cartoon character printed on it.
“Well, long sleeves and pants fit well enough when I borrow Delilah’s clothes for an afternoon or something, but they fit weird for a whole day. Our legs and arms are a bit longer than an actual child’s. So short sleeves, shorts, dresses, or skirts,” Heather explained while Rebecca kept looking.
Rebecca settled on a pair of orange shorts with an elastic waist and a dark pink polo shirt. She heard Heather getting dressed behind her and turned just in time to see her older sister pulling on a red t-shirt over her head. As Heather slid her top in place down over her breasts, Rebecca noticed that her underwear had changed from pair of blue panties to a white garment covered with multicolored polka dots…and there were tapes on the sides…and the garment was a little puffy.
“Heather, what are you doing?” Rebecca said when her brain finally admitted that her twenty-one-year-old sister had put on a diaper for the day.
“Becca, why are you being like this? We’ve borrowed Delilah’s clothes—including diapers—many times. We don’t actually use them, and they help our clothes fit.” Heather said patiently as she stepped into a light brown jumper dress and tugged the shoulders into place. True to her prediction, Rebecca saw that the dress, which usually fell just below Delilah's knees, just brushed the tops of Heather's.
Rebecca was about to reply when their mother’s insistent voice came from down the hall, “Girls! The clock is ticking!”
Rebecca snatched a diaper from the cabinet under the changing table and dressed quickly. The sisters shared a stepstool in the bathroom to brush their teeth and made their way downstairs to where Miranda was helping Delilah put her shoes on. Their mother looked up at the sound of little feet approaching her.
“So cute,” Miranda breathed at the sight of her tiny elder daughters in their half-sister’s clothes. “Come on girls, shoes on and into the van,” she said aloud.
Heather and Rebecca obeyed their mother and followed her out to the family car, letting her help them in and taking a seat on the floor of the van while Delilah was buckled into her car seat. Miranda took her time driving, being extra careful for her two daughters she didn’t have car seats for. A few minutes brought them to the Shining Time Child Development Center, the daycare center attached to Heather and Rebecca’s former high school.
“Okay girls! Let’s get you checked in,” Miranda said with a smile and cheerfulness all three daughters saw she didn’t feel. She brought them up to the receptionist’s desk and…
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