Julia Fierro - Cutting Teeth

He tilted his head back and let the beer course down his throat.

In life before the twins, Allie had described parenthood, to the amused tittering of her unburdened artist friends, as having houseguests who’d overstayed their welcome.

As she stood at the edge of the water, rolling the soaked cuffs of her black jeans, cold sand oozing between her toes, she felt like that clueless guest right now and wished she could hop in the car and flee to Brooklyn.

It wasn’t that she didn’t like children. She appreciated the purity of their enthusiasm, their unfiltered view of the world. But her jaw ached from smiling. The mommies smiled so damn much. They smiled when the children fell and when the children cried. They smiled at each other, they smiled as they looked out over the water, where, as far as Allie could see, there was nothing to smile about. They smiled even when the children were bad. When the minibarbarians deserved the very opposite of a smile.

Like right then, as Harper, clad in just the bottom half of a pink bikini, her tiny nipples as nut brown as the rest of her torso, flung sand at Hank.

Despite Hank’s cries of “Hah-per, Hah-per, stop!”

Tiffany just smiled and stood with her hands on her hips — which were gorgeous, Allie couldn’t help but notice. The woman was Marilyn-esque.

“Harp, sweetie,” Tiffany said, “are you doing good listening? ’Cause it sounds like Hank wants you to stop. What do you say, baby?”

Allie’s own mother would have yelled, through cigarette smoke, I’m watching you, Allison! And her father? Forget about it. He would have been in front of Harper in two strides and walloped her on the butt, right there in front of everyone.

These people were definitely not raised by the kind of people who had raised Allie. Her people had worked with their hands and disciplined with their hands and let it be known when they were pissed off so there was a sharp rise to each conflict, an explosion, maybe a bit of violence, then the matter was quickly forgotten. Life went on. Pass the peas.

The playgroup parents, especially Tiffany — despite the working-class roots under her perfect highlights — disciplined through talk.

“Talk, talk, and more talk,” Allie had complained to pale-faced Susanna before breakfast. “Do they ever say no?”

“Would you rather they hit them with their belts?” Susanna had snapped, which was unfair, Allie thought now, as the waves rippled over her toes, because Susanna knew Allie’s father had used his belt on Allie and her brother.

If she could just get a break, catch her breath for an hour, away from the talking, the two streams — the children’s chatter and the mommies’ chatter crossing right in front of her, catching her in its crosshairs.

She couldn’t leave Susanna, who sat with her legs outstretched, the small waves breaking against her enormous belly. Allie tried to imagine the baby in the echo chamber of Susanna’s womb, listening to the waves.

Poor Susanna.

How many times had Allie heard people whisper this and shake their head? Allie found herself wanting to say, as if in her own defense, It was Susie’s choice.

Allie had participated as much as she could. First, there were the months of crack-of-dawn fertility appointments in a pastel-walled office all the way on the Upper East Side, with its waiting room full of desperate women and hangdog husbands. Next, the hormone shots she and Susanna injected into each other’s butt cheeks in the weeks leading up to her egg extraction (and it had hurt). Finally, the wait-and-see anxiety of the in vitro procedure — Susanna lying immobile for days while Allie threatened the boys to leave Mama alone! Not to mention the costs. Allie’s work had paid for their baby. Two in vitro trials equaled a trip around the world, where, Allie imagined, they might have visited the art they’d worshipped in the years before the boys were born.

“Allie!” Susanna shouted. “You watching the boys? I can’t see them.”

Allie’s view swung away, and for a second, she panicked, the movement of the waves beyond the sandbar making her dizzy.

The boys were standing at the foot of a massive black boulder that had appeared gradually in the last few hours as the tide went out, and the ripple-streaked sandbar revealed itself, creating a perfect playspace. Atop the rock was the long-limbed Harper, her wind-teased hair a red-gold crown glinting in the sun.

“Boys!” Allie yelled through cupped hands. “Stay close.”

Harper shouted, “Come here! I said … Come! Here!”

Allie shielded her eyes. All the boys stood in front of the rock, peering up at Harper worshipfully. Allie wanted to make a joke about a sea witch and her minions, but Michael was just a few feet away. For once, she thought proudly, she would hold her tongue.

Susanna waved Allie over to help her up. Allie had to lift Susanna from behind and, finally, after a grunt or two, Susanna climbed to her feet. The pebbles had pocked the backs of Susanna’s fleshy thighs. Cellulite gone viral, Allie thought, embarrassed for Susanna, and for herself.

A few minutes later, they, along with Tiffany, Michael, Rip, and Josh, had joined the boys at the rock.

It was clear to Allie that Harper was calling the shots.

“You!” Harper commanded haughtily, pointing a finger at the boys. “You are my subjects. And I am Queen Priscilla, ruler of all the seas in the universe.”

“You go, girl!” Tiffany whooped, and the adults laughed, flinging words like precocious and advanced into the sea breeze.

Harper shot them a glare. “Don’t laugh at me!”

Allie was relieved when Michael chimed in, “Now, Harper, that’s no way to talk,” but she heard hesitation in his voice.

They were afraid of the little girl. Just like the mommies were afraid of Tiffany.

Queen of the Universe, my ass, Allie thought. More like a budding sociopath. She wished she and Susanna were standing closer, so she could whisper in Susanna’s ear. They would laugh together the way they once had. When it had been Allie and Susanna vs. the rest of the world.

Harper clapped her hands. Like a coach gathering the team for a pep talk. All that was missing, Allie thought, was the whistle.

“Listen up, everybody!” Harper shouted.

The crowd fell silent. There was only the lapping of the waves and the complaints of seagulls.

“You got your buckets?” Harper asked the boys, who stared up at her mutely.

“Answer me,” Harper ordered. In a remarkably authentic fed-up-mommy tone, Allie thought. “You got to answer me by saying, Your Royal Highness!”

The boys parroted Your Royal Highness! before scattering across the sandbar in search of containers. Wyatt, Levi, Dash, and Chase returned with plastic buckets in hand. Hank with an empty plastic water bottle.

“Make me a royal feast,” Harper commanded. “Go for” (Allie assumed she meant forth ) “and collect crabs and snails for my delish lunch!”

Harper opened her arms wide and tipped her head skyward. For a moment, Allie saw an exquisite photo. Scarlet hair and knobby knees, long limbs dotted with bruises, ribs pressing through browned skin. A warrior child staring up at the heavens as if testing God himself. Damn, that girl was fierce.

The children scattered, away from their queen and toward the Sound, and when they reached the water, their shoulders hunched and their heads bowed as they studied the sand that lay under a few inches of clear, sun-dappled sea. Their focus reminded Allie of search parties on crime shows. Even Levi, usually distracted, walked slowly — heel-toe, heel-toe — looking for a bit of sea life to serve up to his queen. A squeal of delight erupted here and there with each find, as the boys plucked tiny brown or black barnacle-speckled shells from the sand, the miniature claws and antennae creeping out, flailing before the crab went plunk! into the bucket with its kin.