Cutting Teeth: A Novel

by Julia Fierro

  Look at me now, Mama. I was one of them. And now I’ve gone and fucked it all up. It’s exhausting, Mama. The never-ending thinking and wondering. Worrying. Did so-and-so really have fun at the playdate? If yes, then why hadn’t they texted to set up another date? Would there be birthday-party invites and a spot at the hoity-toity mommy and me, a step closer to the even hoitier-toitier preschool? Will I be good enough for them, Mama? Will they let me in, Mama? Will they love me?

  She looked away from the star-pocked sky, let her knees fall together, and leaned over to vomit onto the deck floor.

  taking the plunge

  Nicole

  As soon as the rangers had disappeared into the woods—like a legion of warring soldiers with their chained beasts—Nicole slipped out of Josh’s arms and walked to the edge of the path. “Wait!” he had called to her, but she looked back at him and smiled, saying, “Don’t worry. I know these woods,” before stepping into the labyrinth of branches.

  He had let her go, she thought now as she ran, leaping over tree roots. He had believed in her, and this filled her with an adrenaline-like rush, and she ran faster, her hands held out in front of her to bat away twigs and tear through spiderwebs.

  Nothing bad is happening, nothing bad is happening, she chanted between panting, so that her voice bounced off the hulking trees, their branches black against the moon-bright sky. She tried not to think of the fairy tales she’d told Wyatt, the ones he begged for because they were the scariest. His favorites, once her own, were about little children lost in the woods, far from Mommy and Daddy, alone in a test of life or death. Would they choose the house made of candy, where a witch’s bone-melting hot oven awaited? Would they befriend the blood-thirsty wolf on their way to Grandma’s house? Or would they remember what their mothers had taught them, that there was so much to fear in the woods, that you must always be on guard, watching, waiting for danger.

  These were her woods, after all. The woods of her childhood. Her summer playland. She and her brother had spent each dew-filled morning to cooling, firefly-flecked dusk in the state park’s thousand acres. They were explorers searching for treasure, using her father’s rusted machete to hack through the jungle, really a tangle of vines and shrubs, of bramble and bittersweet. They took turns being Indiana Jones (the other his sidekick) in pursuit of the Holy Grail, villains hot on their heels. When the sun was high, they sat in the shade of a flowering dogwood on rocks carpeted with soft green lichens. They ate pimento-and-bologna sandwiches with dirt-streaked fingers and chugged from a thermos of powdered lemonade.

  They cooled off with a quick dip in the Sound, then back to the park, to lie on their stomachs at the lip of the pond and name the spring peepers and bullfrogs; the Eastern painted turtles and blue-gilled sunfish, and to claw through the mud in search of baby dragonflies, sea worms, and leeches. They turned on their backs and watched the Rough-winged swallows feed midair on dragonflies and damselflies.

  At the end of every summer day, when she exited the woods, her sneakers slung over a shoulder, her bare feet sinking into soft, night-cooled sand—her body bug-bitten, thorn-torn, dirt- and sweat-streaked, and sore, Nicole had felt relief, but with relief, a loss. She had trudged up the dunes toward the warm glow of her parents’ house, the scent of roasting chicken and onions in the wind, comforted by the thought that the woods would always be there. Tomorrow and the next day.

  She had felt safe in those woods, she thought now as she ran along the trail. She laughed aloud, so it echoed off the canopy and sounded like the distant giggling of a child. A Great Horned called from above and she responded, just as she and her brother had many times in the gloaming of her childhood, “hoo-hoo, hooooo, hoo-hoo!” She raised her arms so that her fingers grazed the leaves as she ran. Sassafras, red maple, pepperbush, blackgum.

  Nothing bad is happening, she was whispering under her ragged breath when she found Dash curled at the foot of an old elm tree. His arms were wrapped around his knees, his teeth chattering, his face moon-white. When she shined the spotlight on him, he shielded his eyes with a hand and let a keening wail loose, his head thrown back. As if he were begging the trees, the stars—her mother’s angels—for aid.

  “Don’t worry,” Nicole lied, “there’s nothing to be afraid of.”

  * * *

  Nicole stood on the seawall in her underwear and bra, her clothes in a tangled pile on the deck. The wind pinpricked her naked skin. She slipped the rubber band off her wrist, pulled it tight between two fingers, and let go, shooting it into the dark night.

  She dove and the icy water stole her breath and she turned upside down and around, her arms reaching, fingers clawing, the pebbles and sand churning, stinging her skin, and she couldn’t tell if she was swimming up or down.

  She opened her eyes.

  The blue-green light crawled along her arms. She looked up and found the surface and dug into the water above her head, following the glow that sparked at her reaching fingertips.

  * * *

  It’s 12:00. We made it Web bot.

  Posted 9/5/2010 12:01am

  (7 replies)

  * * *

  —Welcome back to reality, sister. 12:04am

  —Whatcha gonna do with all that duct tape now? 12:07am

  —she’ll save it for Dec 21, 2012 (; 12:08am

  —I’ll say one thing for Webbot. It made a 500-point dow drop seem not so bad. 12:09am

  —you are an idiot 12:11am

  —Just promise not to believe in shit like that anymore, okay? & that includes astrology. 12:12am

  —I bought bottled water because of you!! Gawdamnit! 12:20am

  Part 3

  Sunday

  to die for

  Allie

  Allie woke chilled, the cool sea air tickling her bare legs. She reached for the blanket and felt a rumpled sheet instead of Susanna’s warm body. She bolted upright, and her head swam.

  The boys were a tangle of browned skin, cartoon-covered underwear, and sleep-puffy lips. One, two little boy heads, Allie counted as Levi snored. Dash sucked his thumb. As if her manic race through the woods had been her own private nightmare. Then she looked at her legs, running her fingers over the scratches that crisscrossed her shins and calves, remembering the fierce tug of the thorny branches.

  Where the hell was Susanna? Allie listened for the familiar retching. Susanna had wept so violently after Dash returned with Nicole that the postnasal drip had made her puke twice in the night. Now, Allie remembered standing in the front doorway, her legs torn and bleeding, her pants soaked with her own piss, and although she’d been breathless with relief at seeing Dash in Susanna’s arms, she’d also felt a throb of defeat. Hadn’t she been the one meant to find him, to save him? To right her wrong?

  She pulled on her jeans, wincing as they slipped over her right hip, bruised from her fall in the woods.

  She tiptoed down the creaking stairs, her boots in her hand.

  No Susanna on the couch. No Susanna in the downstairs bathroom. No Susanna on the deck or in the garage, and Allie began to wonder, with a wave of nauseating panic, if Susanna had left her, and instead of being terrified for her partner (your wife), who, in that vulnerable end stage of pregnancy might be lying somewhere, even hemorrhaging, Allie realized that she was most terrified for herself.

  Then she saw the white flutter on the front lawn, a ghostly movement. She walked to the picture window. Susanna, her big white tee shirt glowing an icy blue in the predawn light, stood in the middle of the lawn, her arms open, her head lifted, the bump of their child (your child) hidden. The rectangular window was a most perfect frame, for what Allie knew would make an exquisite shot, but then Susanna dropped to her knees as if she had fainted.

  Allie was out the door. Running. The damp grass was cold under her feet, and she was slipping, falling, sliding on her side, a hot sting where her elbow dug into the pebble-dotted lawn.

  “Are you okay? What’s wrong?” Allie felt as if she were screaming. She crawled the
few feet to Susanna, her hands and legs slick with mud and moisture. She gripped Susanna’s shoulders, lifting her upper body off the grass, and shook her so her loose brown hair whipped away from her face.

  Susanna wore an expression Allie had never seen before, as if she was stuck between tears and laughter. Between despair and joy.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” Allie asked in a strangled whisper, and her voice sounded cruel. Like a voice that belonged to someone a child would run from, she thought.

  Susanna flung her head back and laughed, and Allie watched her swollen belly bob, her loose breasts jiggle under the thin cotton. Susanna rolled to her back and spread her arms and legs out across the wet grass, out and in, out and in. Like a child making a snow angel, Allie thought, but Susanna looked more like one of those obscenely mad women in some period film. A woman accused of witchcraft, a peasant woman gone cuckoo after all her children perish in the bubonic plague. Oh my God, Allie thought, can things just return to normal?

  “Susanna.” Allie tried to stop her arms. “Baby, please. What is it?”

  “What is it?” Susanna asked, as if Allie had asked a ridiculous question. Susanna pushed herself to a seated position with a groan. The front of Susanna’s tee shirt, where the globe of her belly had pressed into the earth, was grass-stained and soaked.

  “It’s dew!” Susanna shouted.

  Allie shushed her. “The others are sleeping.”

  “Don’t you see it? And smell it?” Susanna asked, closing her eyes and pressing the tips of her fingers to her nose. “It’s dew. So fresh and clean.”

  “So?” said Allie.

  “It’s all I want,” Susanna said, moving into Allie’s arms. “To have dew like this, all the time.”

  “You’re crying over dew?” Allie said, into Susanna’s hair.

  “Please,” Susanna said. “Let me have it. Our lives”—she clung tighter to Allie—“they’re so … dewless.”

  do-over

  Tenzin

  “I want coffee!” Harper yelled. “I want coffee!”

  Tenzin watched as all the mommies and daddies at the breakfast table did their best to ignore the little girl.

  She had heard the other mommies talk, when Tiffany was not in the room, about how Harper was allowed sips of her mother’s coffee. What’s wrong with that woman? Nicole had said once. I mean, she won’t let her kid touch anything not organic, but she’s fine with getting her hooked on caffeine?

  The mommies and daddies were doing good behavior that morning. As if they had forgiven one another for the messy hurtful things said the night before. They had just been overtired, Tenzin thought, oversunned, away from the comfort and routine of their homes for too long. Which is exactly when she had seen the children act out. Now, seated around the dining table, sharing breakfast, they were using their pleases and thank-yous. Exchanging pleasantries on the beautiful weather, about how hard it was to leave and go back to the hot and stinky city. They talked about which child’s birthday was coming up and about the new school year and how the summer had flown by. Tiffany mentioned the new session of Tiff’s Riffs classes starting soon and invited all to attend the free drop-in classes that coming week. Tenzin was so proud of Leigh, of the way her good employer smiled and nodded, although Tenzin was quite sure there would be no songs about trains flying to the moon in Chase’s and Charlotte’s future.

  Tenzin could see how, despite the cheerful tone, the mommies and daddies avoided each other’s eyes. Many, like Susanna’s, were swollen from tears.

  But they were doing their best.

  She thought of the song from Chase’s favorite television show, the one set in a world populated by robots and fuzzy green creatures that she couldn’t quite name. Keep trying! Keep trying! Don’t give up, never give up.

  “Hey, man, can you pass the Half and Half?” Michael asked Rip, who, Tenzin was pleased to see, answered with his own smile, moving quickly to hand him the white, porcelain pitcher shaped like a cow, from whose mouth the cream flowed.

  “Thanks,” Michael said to Rip. “I love me some cow milk.”

  “You haven’t gone dairy-free yet, man?” Rip asked. “And you call yourself a Brooklynite?”

  Everyone at the table laughed, so Tenzin did, too, though she had not heard anything funny. No matter, Tenzin thought, at least they were laughing today. She said a quick prayer to Buddha in gratitude for the ever-powerful hand of forgiveness.

  “Oh please,” said Tiffany. “Michael’d drink the milk from the cow’s own T-I-T-S if he could!”

  The mommies and daddies laughed harder this time, even pale Susanna joining.

  “Okay!” Tiffany called as she stood and clapped her hands, summoning the children’s attention just as she did in music class. “Cleanup time.”

  Cleanup, cleanup, everybody do your share.

  Tenzin sang along, and, as she looked around the room, she saw that everyone was singing. Even Allie. Even Michael.

  Chase ran past Tenzin, his energy like a gust of wind. He roared at Levi. “I going to eat you up!”

  When he came around again, Tenzin caught Chase in her arms, giving him one of the squeezie “sandwich hugs” his therapist had taught her. He resisted, his sharp little fingers poking into the soft flesh of her chest, but she held on and, finally, his grunts ceased, and his body relented. Surrendered.

  “Which dinosaur are you?” Tenzin asked. “A swimming dinosaur? Or flying dinosaur?”

  Chase looked at her and put on his thinking face. His eyes rolled up, and his lips pursed as he cupped his chin in one hand. “Don’t know.”

  “You let me know when you make your decision,” she said.

  “Why?” Chase asked, giving her the gift where he looked into her eyes, even searching them. Yes, Tenzin thought, this boy will be good. Even without his mommy.

  “Tenzin wants to be the same kind of dinosaur,” she said. “So we can swim together. Or fly together. Forever after.”

  He wrinkled his nose in a shy smile, and said, “Tenzin,” as if he were calling her a silly old thing. But it was a silly old thing he loved, she was sure of that.

  “Okay,” she announced, “Before we get in the car for long drive home, we do our calming-down exercise. Okay?”

  She rearranged the boy’s skinny legs so they were crossed.

  “Crisscross applesauce,” she sang, also just as the boy’s therapists had taught her.

  She crossed her own legs and began.

  “Smell the flowers,” she said, followed by a deep and slow inhale. “Come now, Chase. Do it with Tenzin. Smell the flowers.”

  Chase shook his head, as if there were flowers being pressed into his face.

  “Just three times,” Tenzin said. “Okeydokey?”

  Together, while the other children raced cars, sorted shells, and flipped through the wrinkled pages of books, Tenzin and Chase sat crisscross applesauce and breathed in (smell the flowers) and exhaled out (blow out the candles). Until, Tenzin thought, they were like two monks on a mountaintop.

  pure gold

  Leigh

  “Sweetie,” Leigh called to Chase, “don’t chew on Sophie the giraffe’s head. ’Kay?”

  Sophie was Charlotte’s toy giraffe, the twenty-two-dollar organic rubber chew toy that Leigh loved to mock, joking that no infant in Brooklyn could teethe without a Sophie! Still, Leigh thought, hadn’t she been foolish enough to buy a Sophie in the first place, and even replace it when it had been lost?

  “Chase,” Leigh said, and had to call him three more times before he turned to her. “No mouthing,” she said firmly, but he turned away, the giraffe’s head still lodged in his mouth. A short squeak escaping with every gnaw.

  Leigh remembered their last visit to her parents’ house, when her mother, tipsy from her afternoon whiskey sours, had said, “For goodness sake, Leigh, darling. The boy puts everything in his mouth. He’s going to turn out to be a chain-smoker.”

  Leigh smoothed her eyebrow and plucked a little hair. />
  Just one.

  Dark clouds moved in over the water, blotting the sun. Maybe a morning thunderstorm, Leigh thought. A perfect end to the weekend. She thought of the ugly threat she’d whispered into Tiffany’s ear last night:

  Your precious little Harper will never set foot in St. Ann’s.

  Just the act of repeating the threat in her mind, the memory of Tiffany’s scent the night before, the sour, alcohol-tinged sweat that rose from the woman’s glistening neck, was enough to make Leigh sit a bit taller, to feel a new strength. For the time had come, she knew, to take stock of what was about to happen. To her. To her children. To the unblemished name of the Lambert dynasty. She could already see her father, his eyes runny with Scotch and old age and contempt, as he stared at her through the shatterproof glass of a prison visiting room.

  She was going to jail.

  Charlotte would have no memory of her. And Chase’s memory would be one tainted with shame, blurred by tears. Images of his mother’s harried thin face on the cover of the local Brooklyn paper would brand his mind.

  YUPPIE MOM PRESCHOOL THIEF IN SLAMMER.

  TRUST FUND MOMMY STEALS FOR IN VITRO.

  A week ago, she had found the courage to google “mother steals from school” and the search had produced story after story. Mothers in Miami, Long Island, Austin, and Atlanta had stolen from PTA funds, preschool fundraising accounts, and high-school charity events.

  The finite details—the women’s names, the sums they had stolen—had been a brief comfort. But that was before she had calculated the lawyer fees and accepted the possibility that her ruined reputation would eliminate the rare consulting work Brad found, and how would they ever be able to afford the cost of hiring Tenzin full time?