Cutting Teeth(34)
From her seat on the floor, she stretches her back. She could ask Marcus. He’d know the answer straightaway. But if she tells anyone where she got the forms and when, there will be questions no one but her could answer and she’s afraid she’s not ready to.
* * *
The moment she steps back on campus, she feels it again: an intense wave of déjà vu.
Her vision swims. She’s overcome with the bizarre impression that she’s a former version of herself. The version that sat trembly-handed behind her car steering wheel, shaken from what she’d just done. It’s all there, shimmering at the edges of the pristine campus underneath the same baby-blue sky that portended disaster just over a week earlier.
The other mothers mill about in front of the entrance and she thinks: Not today. Please. She doesn’t want to parent by committee ever, but definitely not today. They might like to cluck and fuss and flap their mama-bird wings, but that’s not Rhea’s bag, sorry not sorry.
“Rhea.” Darby lifts onto her tippy-toes, pushing her head into Rhea’s line of sight. “Did you hear me? Are you even listening?”
Rhea blinks, unsure of how long Darby has been trotting beside her.
“I said, did you see Lena’s shoulder?”
“Why would I have seen Lena’s shoulder?”
“You have to see it. You just have to. Lena, come here.” Darby raises her hand and beckons her over. Lena is quick to oblige.
“Rhea, oh my god, Rhea, do you want to see something?” Lena’s got those crunchy curls from too much supermarket gel and it smells like expired nail polish when she leans over and peels a bandage from her shoulder, all before Rhea can answer yes or no. She would have answered no, for the record.
“Lena!” Rhea exclaims on impulse.
The skin on her shoulder is so swollen, shiny, and red that it looks like her arm’s made of plastic. There are six puncture wounds, four of which are a deep purple-black and a yellow pus-like mound curves around one of the other wounds. The sight makes Rhea’s teeth ache. “That’s infected. You need to do something about that. Pronto.”
How she let it get to that point in the first place, Rhea has not one clue. These mothers are out here caring about the strangest things like matching bows and monograms and middle school wait lists when they’re still serving their kids up full doses of animal growth hormones in their sippy cups. It doesn’t make sense and, when Rhea has pointed this out—she’s entitled to express her own opinion—they either lie and say they don’t or act like they’re too busy to worry about every little thing.
“It isn’t Bex’s fault.” Lena replaces the bandage. “I took too long with the blood draw. But, you know, it’s not exactly paint by numbers. I’m kind of funny about needles.”
“Yeah. Of course,” says Rhea. “I know.” She doesn’t.
“Just don’t mention anything to Maggie’s mom, Roxy. She’s anti.” Darby leans in. “She sent Megan this long email about the potential long-lasting behavioral consequences of indulging cravings. Apparently Maggie is still pure as the driven snow and Roxy is very proud of it.”
“Well, I’d put some aloe vera on that if you have some,” Rhea says to Lena. “And I can bring you some turmeric milk to drink tomorrow.”
Lena looks awash with relief. “Remind me to come to you when I have questions, Rhea.” She contorts her body to examine her wound again.
“It’s nothing,” replies Rhea. Though, it’s not nothing. Rhea knows what she’s talking about. Sure, she knows the thoughts that go through people’s heads when they meet her and Bodhi together. Oh, poor thing, I can’t imagine being a single parent. Does she work two jobs? How does she make ends meet? But with natural parenting, Rhea feels in control. ’Cause you know she’s doing all the stuff that good, two-parent homes are doing, plus some. Which means she belongs here even more than some of the other mothers who “belong here.” “You know, maybe it’s worth consulting a naturopathic doctor to offer some advice about what’s going on with the kids.” Rhea is feeling generous. “I could suggest someone.”
“Do you really think our kids biting is natural?” Darby says. “You know, come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve ever really understood your preoccupation with natural, Rhea. Aging is natural and I am deeply uninterested in it.”
Yes, well, that’s obvious, thinks Rhea a little less generously. She looks at Lena and Darby and at the other squawking mothers and it occurs to her: No wonder this biting epidemic is getting out of control. The mothers are handling it the same way they handle everything else with their children, fighting against the organic order of things. “I think our bodies are made to be listened to, including those of our children,” Rhea answers smoothly.
Oh, she knows that look, the one she’s getting from Darby right now, the one like here comes the crazy attachment-parenting bitch.
“The way I see it, there’s nothing wrong with nurturing. Fostering the connection through bodily closeness to raise secure children.” She speaks slowly and uses soothing tones, knowing this might not be what they want to hear. She remembers there had been a reaction when she pushed for a chemical-free brand of hand soap in the classroom. “Maximal parental empathy and responsiveness, that’s the way I deal with Bodhi.”