“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.”
“Mm, yeah, of course.” Mary Beth feels a sense of maternal protectiveness over Miss Ollie, the way she does for all of Noelle and Angeline’s babysitters. She enjoys hearing their plans, their goals, their relationship drama. “Did you hear Bex bit Lena? George’s mom called me a few minutes ago to tell me.”
She has big girl-next-door eyes. Probably very popular in high school. And college. “Really? That’s number seven.”
“You’re keeping track?”
“I think it’s important to.” Miss Ollie reaches into her canvas tote and pulls out a notebook. She uncaps a pen with her mouth. “I come from a research background. Data points are my love language.” She flashes a grin; her bottom teeth are a little crooked. Mary Beth never noticed. Probably didn’t wear her retainer religiously. Mary Beth will definitely make her girls wear theirs every single night until she’s dead.
Miss Ollie leafs through the pages of her notebook and begins printing Bex Feinstein’s name along with the date on a fresh line. “I’ve been doing my own research.” She talks as she writes. “There’s a syndrome associated with biting. It’s called Renfield’s syndrome. It’s a psychological condition that causes those afflicted to crave blood the way some pregnant women want to eat clay, and there are documented pediatric cases going back at least fifty years. It’s kind of amazing.”
Amazing. The word rolls around in Mary Beth’s head. She blinks. “Um, are we sure we shouldn’t be looking into something a little more, you know, run-of-the-mill first? Like, could it be something the kids are picking up at school?” Seven bites. Seven—eight, actually, because she hasn’t mentioned Noelle’s—and counting. And that actually is a lot, yes, Mary Beth sees that now, and yet it feels like she’s treading water against the current. The children are in the same class, so she starts there. “They’re learning about dinosaurs this week, aren’t they?” she asks. “Maybe if we laid off the dinosaurs, just a thought?”
Miss Ollie looks at her with tremendous gravitas and says, “We’ve been keeping it to non-scary dinosaurs. Herbivores like the stegosaurus and the brontosaurus.”
“Right.” Mary Beth chews the calloused side of her thumb.
“Kids love dinosaurs. Barney is a dinosaur. Barney is a T. rex. I don’t think dinosaurs are the problem.”
Mary Beth presses her lips together. They’re the youngest committee volunteers by a landslide. Across the room sit a couple blue-haired ladies and men with thick-soled orthopedic shoes and brown, pilled socks.
Miss Ollie scribbles a final note and flips the cover shut. “I plan on sending some literature home this weekend. I really do care about this class. They’re some special kids.”
On the worktable in front of them, Miss Ollie’s phone screen illuminates with a text. The background of her lock screen shows a guy in his early twenties—tanned, outdoorsy, kissing a scruffy terrier mix in his arms.