Julia Fierro - Cutting Teeth

When he joined the playgroup after Hank’s six-month birthday, invited by Susanna, whom he’d met at the shrimp-level newborn swim classes at the Y, Rip was the sole stay-at-home-daddy, or SAHD. He’d quickly learned the lingo of the newest generation of connected mommies. For the first time in years, he knew what it was to belong, and he was still grateful to the mommies. Especially to Tiffany, who never failed to ask Rip how he was. Tiffany, with her oil-scented embraces and the reliability of her texts that made his phone dance all day, reminding him — even on lonely winter days, he and Hank stuck inside — he wasn’t alone. Tiffany’s smile. Her lips. Her tongue darting out to catch the cherry-flavored ice dripping off Harper’s Popsicle. Her hand reaching for him, pressing him into her. What if all those layers of clothes had disintegrated? His dick would have slid up and down, up and down, snug between her ass cheeks. Tiffany. Tiffany. Tiffany.

“Daddy,” Hank moaned.

Rip jolted, almost rolling off the cot.

“What? What is it?”

“My tummy feels sick.”

Rip sighed and rearranged himself, tugging at the elastic of his boxer briefs.

“Did you make a poo-poo today?”

“Um”—Hank hesitated—“no?”

“Okay, potty time,” Rip said, groaning as he slid off the cot and lifted the boy in his arms. His back was aching from the dozen piggyback rides he’d given that day, and from racing across the uneven sand as unofficial lifeguard. A night on an ancient metal cot certainly wouldn’t help.

“Okeydoke,” Rip said, trying to sound cheerful once he and Hank were in the small, pink-tiled bathroom whose fixtures were relics from the sixties. “Take off your ’jamas.”

“You help me,” Hank whined.

“Come on now, big boy.”

“But, I can’t.” Hank’s arms hung slack, zombielike.

Both he and Hank knew that if Grace were present, he wouldn’t give in, Rip thought, he would make Hank undress himself.

But she wasn’t there. She hardly ever was.

Rip tugged Hank’s Toy Story 3 pajama pants down, and then his Toy Story 2 underoos, careful not to slide the elastic over Hank’s penis. Rip had insisted on circumcision. He was a Jew (albeit a lackluster one), and he wanted his son’s junk to match his own. He’d stood strong against Grace’s insistence the circumcision was “mutilating” their child’s genitals, and every time he bathed Hank, helped him onto the toilet, or watched him run nude through the sprinklers in the backyard, he thought of how Grace had made him fight. And how he had won.

He helped Hank position himself on the toilet seat and watched as the boy’s eyes neared the epiphany-like glaze that accompanied each bowel movement. Like pooping was a spiritual experience. Like the kid might start talking in tongues. Rip chuckled, congratulating himself on his ability to find humor in the mundane.

“Don’t. Laugh. At. Me,” Hank said as he strained. “Privacy. I need privacy!” he yelled.

Rip hurried out of the bathroom, shutting the door behind him, almost colliding with Grace in the hallway.

“What are you doing?” she whispered. Asking him — as usual, he thought — the obvious. “He’ll wake the other kids.”

Her hair was mussed. Her eyes puffy in the bright hall light.

“I hate it when you sneak up on me like that,” Rip said. “It’s creepy.” He smiled to show he was joking, but she glared at him.

The memory of Tiffany gripped him. Her back arching in pleasure. The ends of her dark curls tickling his mouth.

“Are you hearing me?” Grace said, returning him to the stuffy hallway. Like one of his wet dreams, Grace appearing just in time to spoil his climax.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

Grace’s nostrils flared as she took a breath, preparing to speak, and Rip was certain she knew. Her eyes weren’t just swollen. They were ringed red. Had she been crying?

“Why don’t you ask your BFF mommy friend?” Grace said. “She seems to know sooo much about you. And me.” She took a shaky breath. “And our very private personal family life.”

His mouth opened, but he couldn’t speak. He heard himself say, “Wha? Wha?” Stuttering.

“Wait,” he got out. “What are you talking about? I have no idea.”

Grace interrupted him, her words launched by a breathy humph that made him feel as if he’d been blasted by hot wind.

“She just made me feel”—Grace paused—“like a really shitty mom.”

He heard the girl-like hurt in her voice and knew, with a cooling cascade of relief, Grace knew nothing of what had happened at the kitchen sink that afternoon. If she did, there’d be no room for sadness. Only anger.

“Grace, sweetie,” he said.

He cupped her elbows in his hands and drew her close, so her forehead rested on his chest. Groggy and loose-limbed, she let him. She shuddered — with a sob or a sigh, he wasn’t sure.

Hank yelled from the bathroom. “Come here. Daddy. I want you. Dah-day!”

“Forget it. She’s just an immature B-I-T-C-H,” Grace said as she lifted her head and pushed him toward the bathroom. “Hurry. Before our kid wakes the whole house and everyone really has a reason to hate me.”

“Why are you yelling, Henry?” Rip snapped, as the bathroom door shut behind him, but then he saw that Hank was leaning over, his chin almost touching his thick knees. His face twisted in pain.

Rip knelt, peering up through the boy’s glossy bangs.

“You having a tough time going, buddy?”

Hank let out a groan, and the vein in the center of his forehead wriggled.

“Oh, poor guy,” Rip soothed as he rubbed the back of Hank’s cold, sweaty neck.

After consoling Hank, and promising a good poop would make him feel better, Rip convinced him to lie back on the pilled bathroom rug. He helped Hank pull his knees to his chest, a bowel-loosening trick via their pediatrician.

They were in the bathroom for another half hour — the air sour with Hank’s intermittent farts. Rip scanned his memory to think of any slip of his (or Tiffany’s) that might have given their brief — whatever that was — away. Tiffany would never throw him under the bus, especially when nothing had happened. He thought of the playgroup mommies — Nicole, Susanna, Leigh. Oh God, he thought. Leigh. She’d have him ousted from the playgroup, never cc’ed on a group e-mail again, if she knew he’d even looked down Tiffany’s shirt — which, he had, of course, frequently. Hank would be devastated. And the new baby. Think of the loss he or she would suffer? What would Rip do without the playgroup? Who would he be? One of those aimless stay-at-home dads, the ones without a clique. He thought of them as floaters, hovering around the margins of the playground, like ships without a port to anchor in.

“ What is going on in there?” Grace whispered through the door. Rip could hear the irritation tweaking her voice. Not Is everything okay? Or something comforting, like You’ll feel better, Hank, honey.

Rip was the one trapped in the bathroom. He was the one who made Hank’s lunch every day, making certain there wasn’t the tiniest hint of crust on his cheese sandwich, not a speck of skin on his sliced apples. He was the one who bought Hank new socks and underwear, who kept track of the sales on kids’ clothes at the Gap and Old Navy. It was Rip who had bought a lead test to check the water in their apartment, and even the water fountain at the playground — though he’d never admit that to Grace, certain she’d call him a worrywart. Rip remembered to cut Hank’s toenails. If it had been up to Grace, Rip thought, as Hank’s face turned purple from straining, the boy’s toenails would grow until they curled over his toes. Like some freak in the old Guinness’ Book of World Records Rip had loved as a kid.