Julia Fierro - Cutting Teeth

Chase leaned forward to sniff at the grilled cheese. Before she could stop herself, she was raising her voice, “Chase. Do not put your nose in the food.”

“I not hungry.”

“You have to eat. Or your tummy will hurt. Dash and Levi are eating. Don’t you want to be big like them? Are you a baby, or a big boy?”

“A big boy?” Chase said.

Levi laughed. “You a baby!”

Leigh saw it coming, a literal darkening of Chase’s face, as if blood had gathered under his forehead and cheeks. She stood, a pinch of pain where Charlotte’s mouth was still attached to her breast, and caught Chase’s arm before it landed on Levi’s head.

“Oh-kay! My big boy,” Tenzin said, and, as if reading Leigh’s mind, scooped Chase from his seat and carried him away.

Leigh sighed. “Thank you so much, Tenzin,” she said.

She could feel Tiffany watching her, so she kept her eyes on Charlotte, tucking her nipple back in the baby’s mouth, rocking back and forth as she perched on the edge of the sofa seat.

When Tiffany spoke, Leigh thought she might have flinched.

“Once again,” Tiffany announced. “Your Tibetan Mary Poppins saves the day.”

Leigh could feel the blush coming, the heat starting between her breasts and clawing up her neck.

She had shared that once, in a late-night text to Tiffany, confessing that she thought of Tenzin as her Tibetan Mary Poppins.

Charlotte let out a sudden, piercing cry.

“She must be getting a tooth,” Leigh said.

“Well,” Grace said as she dabbed at a spot on Hank’s cheek, “at least these guys are done with teething.”

“Actually,” said Tiffany, “that’s not true. I read a fascinating article in Holistic Health about how kids keep cutting teeth until they’re teenagers.” She drew the next word out syllable by syllable. “Nev-er-end-ing.”

Grace peered out the windows looking onto the deck. “Where could they be? Rip said they’d canoe for an hour, max. It’s been way longer.”

“Oh, come on, Grace,” Tiffany said. “He deserves a break now and then, doesn’t he?” She took a sip of her gin and tonic and lifted it toward Grace. “Cheers.”

Leigh scanned the room. Where was Chase? She spotted him by the door to the kitchen. Doing his own thing —Brad’s code for Chase dazing out. Chase lay flat on his stomach, pulling a shoelace he had removed from who-knows-whose shoes and hooked around the wheel of one of his cars, inching it forward at a snail’s pace, watching the wheels turn as if some mystery were about to reveal itself. It was one of few activities that slowed him down, and his concentration was sharp. She could make out the drool glistening on his lip.

“How you doing, Chase, honey?”

She hadn’t expected an answer. She knew that in a room full of noise, the rapid-fire chitchat of adults and cries of children, her voice was one sound melting into an ocean of sound.

This was the child who shrieked when the apartment door buzzed. Who froze when the street sweeper churned down the street, and for whom the grinding frequency of a vacuum cleaner, a blender or a lawn mower was a torment. Once, in the Bloomingdales’ powder room, Leigh had used the automatic hand dryer. Poor Chase, almost four years old and recently potty-trained, had peed his pants.

Good boy, she thought now, you do what you need to do to block it out.

“Mommy’s going to get you some food, okay?”

“Popcorn,” he demanded.

“We’ll see what Mama Nicole has. Just watch out for mommies going in and out of the kitchen, okay?”

His eyes were fixed on the slow-turning tires of his car.

“Chase? Chase. Answer me, please.”

He was far away.

She was about to turn to the pantry when she saw Susanna waddling in through the front door.

“We’re back,” Susanna sang, and the twins’ heads perked as though they were two pups.

Susanna’s arms were hung with bags of groceries, and Leigh saw that the bags blocked the pregnant woman’s already limited view.

Chase was stretched out right in front of Susanna’s path. Sure to make her trip and fall.

“Chase!” Leigh yelled. “Watch out!”

She rushed over and nudged him with her foot. Although it may have been closer to a kick, she realized just seconds later when Chase began to wail.

“Mommy! Mommy! Mommy!”

The children froze, staring at her.

“Did Mama Leigh kick Chase?” Dash asked, fear in his voice.

“No!” Leigh said. “I just moved him out of the way with my foot.”

“MOM-MEEEEEEE!” Chase writhed on the floor. Leigh couldn’t move, feeling every eye in the room locked on her.

“I’m sorry, baby.” She squatted, but Tenzin was already there, folding Chase into her long brown arms.

“I’m sorry,” Leigh said again, this time to Tenzin. The last four years had felt like a never-ending string of apologies to, and for, Chase.

“Don’t worry,” Tenzin said, reaching up to pat Leigh’s arm as Tenzin rocked Chase on the floor. “Incidents happen.” Leigh guessed that the woman meant accidents but she would never correct her.

Charlotte began to cry, and Leigh was grateful; this was a distress she knew how to remedy. She left Tenzin and Chase on the floor and settled on the sofa to nurse. The thrum of the milk’s letdown brought relief. At least I can do this .

The children were shooed outside after bathroom visits for a little playtime on the deck before bathtime. Tenzin took Charlotte.

Leigh and Chase were left behind.

“Sit here, honey. Please,” Leigh said to a puffy-eyed Chase, and patted the couch. He sat in a tense ball — his arms wrapped around his knees.

She had read an article recently — maybe in Vogue —about facial symmetry playing a key role in attraction. It had animated a series of hopeful fantasies that shot through her thoughts, like one of the flipbooks Chase loved to thumb through at the bookstore.

Chase in black tie. His prom date in chiffon.

Chase tossing his mortarboard into the air at graduation.

Chase kissing his bride at the altar in St. John’s Episcopal Church, where Brad had once kissed her.

Someone will care for him, she had thought, wouldn’t they?

They were alone, but instead of feeling the familiar unease, as if Chase’s restlessness were contagious, Leigh felt a sudden vibrating love. He was beautiful. His mournful eyes. His heart-shaped mouth. His face, even puffy with tears, was pure symmetry.

“Chase, sweetie? Look at Mommy.”

He ignored her, and she pulled him into her arms, his cheek hot against her chest. She held him there for as long as he would take it, until he cried let go, and the vein in his forehead bulged, as she whispered iloveyouiloveyouiloveyou into his pink ear, and I’m sorry, Mommy’s sorry, you know that, right?

He wriggled free and ran to the screen door.

“Chase,” she called. “Wait.”

“What?” he said, impatient.

“Mommy messed up.” Her voice almost cracked. “When I put my foot out. Do-over, please?”

Even if he had wanted to comfort her, she knew he wouldn’t have known how. She had been elated the week before when he said helicopter for the first time.

“You kick me, Mommy,” he said flatly, giving her the full eye contact he so often withheld.

“It was an accident.” She stood and took a step toward him. Slowly. She knew from experience that if she moved too fast, he’d flee. “I was scared that you’d hurt Susanna.”

He thought for a moment, studying his scuffed sandals.

“I like Mama Susanna.”

“Of course you do,” she said as she knelt, cupping his sharp little elbows in her hands.