Baby Teeth_A Novel

by Zoje Stage

  She blinked. “Hey. No throwing. Eat your lunch.”

  Mommy hunched back down, blowing out her cheeks. She went still. As Hanna watched, sometimes Mommy forgot to keep chewing and the sandwich looked like it was about to fall out of her hand. Hanna didn’t like it. Was Mommy dying, like a toy that needed to be wound up? Was there a little slot in her somewhere, like on a phone, where she could be plugged in? She was too big to drag around if all her parts stopped working. Hanna wanted her to come back to life; she threw a grape at her.

  “Hey. Why are you throwing everything?” She tapped at Hanna’s plate, like that would make her hungry.

  Hanna wanted to say Why? She wanted to say Stay here don’t go away don’t look so weird. She squeaked out a noise instead.

  “Eat a little, something from each—you like these.”

  Hanna put a piece of cheese in her mouth, sucked it a little, then took it out and dropped it on the floor. She and Mommy did one of their games, where they watched each other and neither of them spoke. And the whole time Hanna dropped pieces of her lunch on the ground, one tidbit at a time.

  “Don’t you ever get tired? Just completely tired?”

  Hanna blinked hard in surprise, and maybe that meant she’d lost the game, but she didn’t care. Mommy didn’t usually talk to her like she did to Daddy, but it was interesting, so she stuck a carrot in her mouth and waited to see what she would say next.

  “Do you ever wish … Maybe you don’t even know who you are yet, so you probably don’t ever wish you were someone else. Not that I know who I’d want to be. Not someone I know, just someone … else. Maybe someone without…”

  Hanna didn’t like what Mommy was saying, so she threw the carrot right at her eye.

  “Hey!” She bent over and picked up the other bits that were littering the floor. “Don’t waste food. Do you want me to take it away?”

  When Mommy started to pull it away, Hanna pulled it right back. Would Mommy really take her food away? Just because she wanted Mommy to stop being weird? She put a grape in her mouth and started chewing.

  “I was just trying to make conversation. I always do all the talking and it’s like I just talk to myself all day. I didn’t think it would be so lonely. I didn’t think you’d be so hard to spend so much time with. You make me miss Alex, Daddy, who he was before.”

  Hanna missed Daddy, too. She spit the chewed grape into Mommy’s face.

  “Hey, Hanna! That’s not how we eat our food, you know better. Chew and swallow, don’t put everything on the floor. If you don’t want to eat then just…” She flicked the grape onto her own plate.

  Mommy deflated again, with a look on her face that Hanna thought meant there wasn’t a point. Hanna wasn’t worth the little energy she had left.

  Hanna glared at her. She stuffed a grape in her mouth, a strawberry, a cheese cube, another cheese cube, another grape. And made a show of chewing, chewing.

  “Thank you. See, that wasn’t so hard.”

  When it was a nice mushy consistency, Hanna got up on her knees and spit the whole glob in Mommy’s face. It struck her cheek, then started to dribble down. Hanna giggled.

  Mommy scooped the mash from her face. For a second Hanna thought she might cry. But Mommy got up and came around and forced the glop back into Hanna’s mouth. She held her hand there, making it so Hanna couldn’t open her lips. She couldn’t spit anything back out, but she could also barely breathe.

  “Chew.”

  Mommy’s eyes looked scarier than the dead fish and she pressed hard against Hanna’s mouth. Hanna whimpered and tried to chew, but it was too tight and her teeth only gnawed on her cheeks as the gloop started slipping down her throat.

  She started to gag but thankfully her tears made her throat too tight so nothing else went down that way, and that’s when Mommy burst back to normal—“Oh my God, I’m so sorry!”—and lifted the plate to her mouth so she could spit it all out.

  Mommy patted her back and wiped her chin and Hanna coughed and coughed.

  “I’m so sorry, I don’t know why I did that. Oh, baby.” Mommy scooped her onto her hip, bouncing her, kissing her. “I’m so sorry. You’re okay, I didn’t mean to do that. I don’t know why I did that. I love you, baby, I love you.” She kissed her cheek so many times.

  But Mommy wasn’t full of love. She was full of fear.

  Daddy came in then. Had he been upstairs? Outside? Both she and Mommy were crying. Daddy ran over like a superhero.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “She was choking.”

  “Is she okay? You okay?”

  Hanna reached her arms out to Daddy and he took her, bouncing her just like Mommy did. “Just scared?”

  “It really scared us. I don’t know what happened.”

  “Everything’s okay now,” Daddy said. And it was. With him, Hanna felt safe.

  Mommy gave her a sip of water to drink and smoothed out her hair. “You’re okay now. We’re okay.”

  Hanna gazed at her, in a new way. A kind of game that wasn’t fun, but deadly serious. Like a war. She thought Mommy even understood. She stayed all big-eyed and hovering. Finally, Daddy gripped Mommy’s arm.

  “It’s okay, she’s fine.”

  “I can’t do this, Alex.”

  “You can. It happens. Look, totally fine.”

  “I don’t understand her anymore—”

  “She’ll start talking soon.”

  “I don’t know what she wants, I don’t know what she needs. I think maybe … Do you think there’s anything wrong?”

  “With her hearing?”

  “Maybe.”

  “You can hear Daddy, can’t you?” And Hanna replied with a big grin. “That’s my girl.”

  To show Mommy there was nothing wrong with her, she reached out her arms. Mommy hesitated, but Daddy held her out for Mommy to take.

  “See, she’s all good,” Daddy said.

  But Hanna felt it, how Mommy couldn’t relax with her in her arms. How Mommy wanted to drop her.

  She knew then, she needed to test Mommy. To find out what she was made of. Was she a sandcastle that would melt away as the water lapped ashore? Or was she made of rockier stuff? Daddy never crumbled. Hanna was determined to give Mommy every possible chance.

  Mommy owed her—and more than the empty apology that tumbled so easily from her lips. She understood then how words could hide a deeper truth. But actions. That’s what Farmor, Daddy’s mom, said, and Daddy agreed: actions speak louder than words. So Hanna would act, and give Mommy a chance to act in reply. And then she’d know. If Mommy passed or failed.

  SUZETTE

  HANNA HADN’T TAKEN regular naps for years, but it was obvious by the time they slunk back into the house, their limbs all loose and poorly directed, that they were both wiped out. Suzette felt on the verge of collapse, and she’d sped home after her emergency hair appointment when she saw Hanna drifting to sleep in the backseat, hoping to get her into the house before she’d sufficiently rested.

  They stopped in the kitchen and Suzette filled two glasses with cold water. They gulped in unison, which made her aware—for the billionth time—how similar she and Hanna were. Sometimes Alex remarked on it, how they’d both stand with one leg crossed in front of the other, or with their arms folded exactly the same way. They could sit like mirrored bookends on the couch, watching television in exactly the same position.

  “I’m going to lie down for a little bit. You seem kind of pooped too. Have fun at the park?”

  Hanna nodded without looking at her. Finished with her water, she opened the dishwasher and put her glass on the top rack.

  “Thank you. You’ve been most very, very excellent today. Except for…” She pointed to her new layered bob, angled a little from the back. The left side still had a couple of slightly shorter layers, but most people wouldn’t notice. Meri suggested long bangs, swept off to the side. It was a very different look for her, but it was fresh, and modern. Hanna, indifferent, took off and gallope
d up the stairs. Suzette filled her glass with more water and followed her up.

  Hanna was already lying on top of her comforter, looking through the weird book that Alex often read to her. Suzette paused in her doorway.

  “I’ll leave my door open, if you need anything. I won’t be asleep for very long, I just need to…” Fall into a coma. Wake up in a new body. Hanna ignored her, so she retreated to her own space.

  She set her water on the bedside shelf, but before putting her phone down she opened the camera. Using the selfie mode, she examined her new look. Definitely shorter than she was used to. But it was still feminine, pretty-ish. Stop being so tragic. It was hair, it wasn’t like Hanna …

  Poked out her eye.

  It could have been worse.

  She flopped onto the bed, ready to sleep. Beams of sunlight poured their hopeful, generous energy into the room. They knocked on her eyelids but she held them tight. Her thoughts became jumbled-up images and sound bites of the school, like Mr. G was narrating a promotional video. Then came blessed nothingness.

  At some point the nothingness ignited into a dream, a sexual dream. Suzette, a gauzy-clad nymphet, lay among immense patterned pillows in a room whose many windows contained no glass. The ever-aware part of her mind suggested that such a room would exist in a tropical place. But when the focus shifted past the fluttering sheer draperies, she saw not the wild greenery of the tropics, or sand or ocean, but towering mountains. At their base lay a body of reflective blue water. She knew, as one knows things in a dream, that she was a concubine, one of many, and through a distant room came the moans of passion as another whore enjoyed the pleasure of their master. She longed for him to come to her, give himself to her, fuck her like she was the only one he really cared about …

  Deep sleep left her. Her director-self called “Cut!” and a clapboard signaled the end of the scene. She had no interest in a stupid dream about someone else’s pleasure. But as she awakened, the audio portion of the dream remained—a feminine voice, groaning. She pushed herself up to her elbows, confused. Was the window open? Maybe a neighbor was enjoying the sunny afternoon, fucking en plein air? Though it didn’t really seem like something the neighbors would do.

  She glanced at the clock glowing on her shelf. She hadn’t slept that long, maybe twenty minutes.

  With a dawning horror, she realized the gasps and moans were coming from within her house, from down the hallway.

  She shook off the remnants of her nap and barreled out of the room, unable to process what was happening or what she expected to find. The sounds led her to Hanna’s room—

  Who’s raping my child?

  Hanna lay on the bed beneath her yellow comforter in her small but sunny room. For a moment, Suzette thought she’d found her engaged in an exuberant experiment in masturbation. Hanna’s denim shorts lay on the floor with the smiling curl of her pink striped underpants, and she could see the girl bucking and writhing beneath the comforter. But her hands were gripping it and her head was moving in such a way on her pillow like someone was thrusting against her.

  Suzette stood there for a moment, unsure what to do. What was even happening? Her daughter’s knees made a tent of the fabric and she moved and sounded like she was enjoying a fine afternoon of hearty intercourse.

  “Stop it! What are you doing?”

  Hanna looked at her, neither startled nor embarrassed. She smiled as her invisible lover resumed making love to her. Suzette grimaced, inhaling with disgust even as it scared her to see her child gasp and writhe like a fully sexualized adult. She ripped back the comforter, but of course no one and nothing was there. Hanna pulled her knees together and turned over onto her side, giggling.

  “What are you doing?” She snatched up the panties and shorts and restrained herself from throwing them at Hanna’s face. She dropped them next to the pillow, her hand shaking. “Get dressed.”

  “That’s how I get my power. From the devil, when he comes to me.”

  Her voice sounded different—mature and confident. It spooked Suzette. She stumbled backward a few steps. “Marie-Anne?”

  Hanna sat up, covering herself with the comforter. She maintained unblinking eye contact with Suzette.

  “I like it when he comes to me. It feels so good. He loves me and he puts his thing in me and fills me with the world.”

  “Leave my daughter alone!” She didn’t know whom she was saying it to. The invisible demon with his fire-hot phallus. The long-dead witch who made her daughter claim she was Marie-Anne. Her mouth went tingly and she backed out of the room. She wanted to vomit. Her daughter needed help, but not this smiling thing who writhed so happily beneath the covers. This girl needed to go away, leave them all alone. “Go, just go—go!”

  But it was Suzette who left, heaving, running for the bathroom.

  * * *

  Her mouth still tasted like the sour gut-spoiled remains of her lunch, but she didn’t care. She had to find the papers from the pediatrician’s office. They should have been in the folder, the one they kept in a file box in their walk-in closet that contained all of Hanna’s medical and immunization records. Had she misfiled it? Misplaced it?

  She turned, feeling a presence behind her. Hanna, fully dressed, wore a familiar and non-threatening question—“What are you doing?” But she didn’t have time or patience. She sprang up, scooped the girl around her ribs, and carried her back to her room. Hanna’s face asked “What’s going on?” as she hung over her mother’s arm, but she didn’t otherwise protest.

  “I don’t have time for this. Play with your devil friends. Read your books. I’m sorry, but something’s wrong with you … I have to find out what.” She deposited the girl in her room and shut the door.

  This time, she locked her own bedroom door behind her and fell back to her knees as soon as she reached the closet; she dug through the file box again. She considered calling Alex. But she could already hear him, confusion in his voice, stuttering about how everything had been fine—better than fine—not two hours ago. How could she explain what she heard, and then saw, and what their daughter—was she still their daughter?—said while her little-girl underpants lay abandoned on the floor? Their practically indestructible recycled rubber, better than other people’s floor. Alex still used photos of their house in the company’s portfolio. Oh, yes, they looked the part. As long as no one knew what went on within that house. She couldn’t expect Alex to really help—not until he got to experience firsthand Hanna and her other self, the self who knew more than any seven-year-old should.

  She found it, stuck between two hanging file folders. She flipped to the last of the stapled pages, where the doctor had included the information about the referral to … Dr. Yamamoto. They might hear from the insurance company any day, but it couldn’t wait. She dialed, shaking like she’d narrowly regained her balance at the edge of an abyss. It went to voicemail. Her words came out in a panicked flurry.

  “Hello Dr. Yamamoto, my name is Suzette Jensen and I was referred to you by my pediatrician. I’m … We’re having an emergency and I urgently need to speak with you and make an appointment for my daughter. Please, as soon as you get this. Please, as soon as possible. Thank you.” She recited her phone number twice, just in case.

  After disconnecting the call, she tossed the phone onto the bed. She paced the room in long strides. Maybe she should see someone, too. The possibility of it came up from time to time. Part of her hesitation was not being able to figure out how to get a whole hour to herself. She didn’t want to drag Hanna with her, leave her alone in someone’s waiting room to do God knows what. But it was getting increasingly worse. The medical PTSD, the fear that motherhood had been a terrible mistake, the guilt that she wanted to undo it but couldn’t. She felt unhinged, like any large noise would force her body parts to separate and trail off into space in a slow-motion explosion. She wanted sleep. Real sleep. Maybe this was a dream, too, a dream within a dream and she could laugh to herself about it later, how she’d lost track
of the levels of unconsciousness.

  It struck her, replaying it in her head, that Alex cared only about what Hanna’s words had sounded like, not what they meant. But they needed to know where the delusions were coming from. Dr. Yamamoto could help her sort that out, of course she could. And the good therapist would help keep her fears from tumbling into the unreasonable—the supernatural. Left to her own degenerating uncertainty, it was too easy to imagine googling “experienced exorcists Pittsburgh PA” as if there’d be a local or regional list. It almost made her laugh, the progression that started with speech pathologists and auditory specialists. She didn’t even believe in possession or exorcism. But until she understood what was wrong with Hanna, despair might lead her there.

  Her phone rang. She recognized the number immediately, having just called it. It brought her back to earth a little: she needed help. What was Hanna going to do next?

  “Hello?”

  “Mrs. Jensen?”

  “Yes—”

  “Hi, I’m Beatrix Yamamoto—”

  “Thank you so much for calling me back so quickly.”

  “Happy to. Glad I had a break in my schedule. You sounded kind of panicked on your message—”

  “Yes—”

  “Is there any sort of emergency? Does one of you need immediate help? Is this a 9-1-1 situation?” In spite of the implied urgency of her questions, the therapist sounded calm and levelheaded.

  Suzette was already grateful for her help; in an instant Dr. Yamamoto put the crisis in perspective, something she had been unable to do. She perched on the edge of her bed and the mania and dread started seeping out of her. Her spine softened; her shoulders relaxed.

  “No. No, nothing like that.”

  “Good. I’m glad to hear it. I’m booked the rest of the day, but I could see you on Monday. I work from my home, in Squirrel Hill.”

  “Yes, perfect. Do you have something in the afternoon, after school?”

  “Let’s see … Four o’clock?”

  “Perfect, thank you.”

  “And I have a few minutes now, if you want to tell me what’s going on?”