Cutting Teeth(13)
“You know, I had a hunch,” he teases.
“Right. Duh.” She palms her forehead. “She’s in the fours. I’m on the parents’ committee actually and chaired the gala last year, so if I can ever be a resource, please don’t hesitate to—”
“You know.” He snaps his fingers. “Maybe you’re the person we should be roping in to help fundraise.”
“I mean,” she stumbles, “I guess I could.”
Ben crosses his arms, biceps forming small hilltops. She can’t tell what the tattoo is that peeks from his T-shirt, some kind of forked tail, maybe a sparrow or perhaps a mermaid.
She loves her husband and not in, like, a familial, we’ve-been-married-so-long type way. Doug’s cute. He has a baby face that’s hardly aged a day since they met; he looks the same, other than the few new pounds around his neck and jowls. She likes to back her body into the curve of his chest and stomach in bed. She enjoys the touch of his nose in the crook of her neck. All this to say there’s no harm in a crush. She’s not worried when that feeling in her vagina unexpectedly drops in for a visit and unpacks its bags and decides to stay awhile longer.
“Think of the children.” He winks.
“Well, when you put it that way,” she says. “I guess I have no choice. I’d do anything for our children. Absolutely anything.”
Maybe that’s Mary Beth’s problem.
* * *
“Hello, Mary Beth?” It’s soft-spoken Charlotte Higsby, George’s mom, on the phone. “I just wanted to check to see if you were aware of what happened in the parking lot this morning?”
The parking lot … the parking lot. She doesn’t like the sound of that. An uneasy feeling leaks into Mary Beth’s stomach, instant visions of a child being run over by a member of the army of mothers reversing their three-row SUVs.
“Not specifically, no,” she answers uncertainly.
Charlotte isn’t a fussy mom. She pays on time to the teacher gift fund, usually sending in a little extra. She asks Mary Beth how she can help. She’s the type of mother who will be her son’s first and maybe last love. And that’s why Mary Beth knows that if Charlotte Higsby is calling it must be for a very good reason.
“Another biting incident.” An audible wince in her milk-sweet voice. “Bex bit her mom—sorry, I’m trying to remember her name—?”
“Lena,” Mary Beth supplies.
“Right. Bex bit Lena. Badly.”
“Oh gosh.” Though there’s more than a little relief for Mary Beth. “I’m so sorry to hear that. Is she okay?” The nip on Mary Beth’s own ankle is already just a circle of itchy scabs. She understood Miss Ollie’s cryptic email last night to be somehow related to Zeke’s biting incident and heard rumblings of a small uptick in class bites. A sibling had been uncharacteristically bitten over the weekend. A nip last week in class that nobody thought much of. One of Lincoln’s moms said something about nearly losing a toe. The rhythm of life with tiny humans.
“Um, well, yes, mostly. It was the weirdest thing. Bex got agitated and then, you know, out of nowhere, practically, she bit Lena on the thigh and … okay, I’m just going to say it: I think she licked it.”
“Licked what?” Mary Beth asks.
“The blood. She licked the blood.”
Silence because, well, what really is there to say to that? A child who licked blood. Licked her mother’s blood? Mary Beth has the intense urge to say, “No, but thanks for calling,” and hang up.
“Zeke’s mother, Megan, is a nurse,” Charlotte continues as though Mary Beth doesn’t know. “She applied a butterfly bandage and said she didn’t think it would require stitches.”
“Poor Lena.” Mary Beth makes a mental note to add Lena to her prayer list tonight; it isn’t fun when your child acts out, let alone in public. Maybe she should send a note of encouragement. On second thought, that might make things worse. “Is there something I can do to help?”
“The other parents agreed we should be keeping a record. Of the biting. I understand there have been seven total from our class. Maybe a couple in others across the hall, but that was just something I heard.”
Seven. Seven instances of biting seems excessive, doesn’t it? Or does seven seem normal? It feels like Mary Beth should know the answer one way or the other, and yet she could be convinced either way. Seven.
“We figured,” Charlotte continues, “as our Room Mom you might be able to help keep a record, you know, just in case.”
It will be another sixteen minutes before the obvious question pops into her head: Just in case? Just in case what?
* * *
Mary Beth sits in the over-air-conditioned church meeting room, with its violent bright-white lighting, the sort almost always head-scratchingly reserved for swimsuit fitting rooms. Pastor Ben is running late, giving her mind a chance to wander in all the wrong directions.
“Oh good.” Miss Ollie slides into the chair beside her. “We haven’t started yet.”
“I didn’t know you were on the youth center committee,” says Mary Beth. “I would have joined sooner.” As if there’d been arm-twisting.
Miss Ollie shrugs. She so rarely shows her twenties, but, here and there, a peek. “I think it’s important for the preschool to have representation. There will be a lot of overlap. Design input. Construction. Logistical hang-ups.”