Julia Fierro - Cutting Teeth

She gave the same kind of meticulous attention she had once given to writing her graduate dissertation to her Go Bags. To the precious goods she prayed would help them prevail, not perish, when and if it happened.

She was about to zip the bags when she heard the grinding brakes of an ancient car. An orange-and-white taxi pulled into the sea-pebbled drive, its bumper as rusted as the hinges on the beach house’s shutters.

The taxi door opened, and a red-faced Josh stepped out.

“Honey, you’re here,” Nicole called. She slammed the trunk closed.

Josh walked toward her in an exhausted half limp, his overfull messenger bag — briefcase of the creative world — bouncing against his thigh.

“I’m sorry. I’m late,” he said, breathless. “The train. I had to walk from downtown.”

He doubled over with his hands on his knees, and Nicole wondered if it was an exaggeration, an attempt to guilt her.

Josh took a slow breath, blew it out Lamaze-style, and said, “I was scared you’d be mad if I was late.”

She tried to squash the reflex but couldn’t stop herself. “You know I H-A-T-E it when you say you’re scared of me.”

She smiled. She knew the air must remain conflict-free if Josh was going to tolerate their weekend guests.

“I’ve been calling you for hours,” Josh said. “What’s wrong with the phone?”

“Oh, sorry. One of the kids must have been playing with it.”

He looked at the house, startled, as if seeing the line of cars crowding the driveway for the first time.

“Jesus, I forgot. The playgroup.”

“You said it was okay,” Nicole said, knowing he was just pretending to have forgotten about that weekend. She’d been reminding him for weeks.

“I’m just so exhausted. It would’ve been nice if it were just us.”

There was bloodshot exhaustion in his eyes. He did, she thought, work so hard for them. And she knew he was correct the many times, midargument, he had called her a leech. She also knew that wanting to be selfless, wanting to be a good wife, wasn’t the same as actually being one.

“Did the whole group come?” He looked up at the house and winced.

She guided him up the driveway, pulling away when her hand touched the sweat-soaked dress shirt clinging to his back. She knew that once they were inside, in front of an audience, his protests would subside.

“You can’t invite one and not the others, honey.”

“You said,” he spoke slowly, like a storm gathering, “we needed more family time.”

“It is family time,” she said, hoping the shrug of her shoulders served as an apology. “It’s just that, we’re sharing the time with other families.” She paused, “With the h1n1 stuff and all, I thought it would be good for us — all of us — to get a break from the city.”

This wasn’t necessarily a lie, she thought. At the start of the summer, when the flu numbers had spiked, she had begged Josh to commute to work from Long Island each day, where she and Wyatt, alone and essentially quarantined, would be safe from the flu. Like the Tudors, she remembered thinking, who had fled London for their country mansions every summer to avoid the sweating sickness. Now Nicole was embarrassed by the comparison. Josh had refused, claiming he would barely see Wyatt, he wouldn’t be able to tuck him in at night, and Nicole knew she’d be crazy and cruel to deny her son the hour of sweet prebedtime book reading and lullaby singing with his father, whom Wyatt called his best buddy.

Josh stared at the back door, beyond which rumbled the screeching, chattering, and banging of the children. His brows lifted in what, for a moment, looked to Nicole like fear, sending an arrow of panic through her chest. Josh was her rock, her given in the formula of her life. He’d been there those last ten years to tell her no, nothing bad is happening and yes, everything is okay. If he was worried, she was ten times as worried. Before she could ask him if he was okay, if everything was okay, he opened the door.

As they walked inside, the clamor of family time washed over them. The noise had reached predinner-bullhorn pitch.

Josh’s face shifted into a smile as Wyatt appeared from within the band of boys and galloped to him, yelling, “Daddy! My daddy is here!” He tackled Josh’s knees.

Nicole registered the adoring smiles on the other parents’ faces, and she was able to recognize that this was a happy moment, and she wanted to stop herself from yanking Wyatt away from his father. Truly, she did. She even thought about walking out of the room, running upstairs, locking herself in the bathroom, and lighting up.

But she had to protect Wyatt. Think of the masses of people whom Josh had shared, first, the subway with and, second, the commuter train out to Long Island. Surely, she thought, the number of people increased the odds that at least one of them had the h1n1 virus, and before she knew it, she was gripping Wyatt’s shoulders and lifting him out of Josh’s arms.

“Wyatt, go wash your hands, please,” she said. “Right now.”

When Wyatt rolled his head in protest, she bent over, and whispered, “You don’t want to get sick, do you? You touched Daddy before he changed out of his yucky germy city clothes.”

Wyatt looked down at his hands.

“Daddy?” Wyatt looked to Josh. “But”—he paused before gathering his breath to cry—“I don’t want to wash my hands!”

Nicole could feel the mommies moving away from the three of them, toward the dining table. All except for Tiffany, who plopped onto the sofa. Nicole knew Tiffany would find her later, to ask if Nicole wanted to talk about what happened earlier.

“Relax, Nic,” Josh said with a laugh that was clearly for the benefit of their guests.

Nicole pointed to his messenger bag sitting in the middle of her mother’s heirloom afghan.

“Was that on the floor of the train car?”

The voice she heard belonged to a caricature of herself, like a character in a sitcom with a laugh track. But this was important. To think of the filth! Of man, beast and/or machine; the dog shit, hocked-up spit and garbage juice that thrived in the grooved floor of the subway car.

Josh moved his bag to the floor.

Harper stepped forward, her fists on her hips.

“Take turns, guys,” Harper said, and shook a finger at Nicole. “Be nice.”

An intervention Nicole was both annoyed by ( that bossy little …) and grateful for, especially when the room broke into laughter, nodding heads, and smiles that said well how about that !

“You little peacemaker,” Tiffany sang as she ushered the little girl away.

Tenzin intoned from the corner where she was building a castle made of blocks with the twins. “As the great Dalai Lama himself says,” she began, and Nicole almost whirled around to tell Tenzin not to hurl another Dalai Lama quote her way, but Leigh saved her by calling, “Tenzin, can you please take Charlotte for a sec?”

The roomful of parents seemed to sigh in unison. Their obvious collective relief made Nicole feel like more of a fool. One who had to be rescued by a three-year-old and an infant.

“Daddy?” Wyatt said, then paused, thinking, his lash-fringed eyes looking upward. “You said, Daddy, we could go to the carousel this weekend.”

“I did,” Josh said, smoothing Wyatt’s hair. “Mommy wanted to come to the beach instead.”

The sting of the passive-aggressive dig made Nicole worry — not for the first time — about how Wyatt would soon be old enough to see how his mommy and daddy used him as a weapon in the tiny battles they waged against each other.

She interrupted with a cheery exclamation, “And here you are, Wyatt. With all your best buddies!”