Rotten Bones by Kate Faigen

Dr. Sun retracts the forceps, my back molar between its metal fingers. A bloody, blackened little rock. A victim of genetics. Some teeth can’t be saved, he tells me. I picture the rotten bones in my gums as drunkards leaving a concert, stumbling past a “no re-entry” sign.

There’s pink spittle on my bib, the color of Erin’s swaddle.

At home I lift her from the crib, face pulpy from the peace of afternoon sleep. One day, there will be no more naps. When do I break the news? Not today, so I say: “Good nap, baby?”

I buckle us into the car, and when we pull into my mother’s driveway, I watch Pamela the night nurse take the place of Aurora the day nurse: a seamless shift, a baton-passing of presence.

“Little baby,” my mother croons from her toile duvet. She smiles and there it is—or isn’t.

“Here.” I lay Erin onto my mother’s lap, her bony, bent knees like small gravestones.

“I meant you,” she says, jingling her chunky, coral bangles. “How’s my big little baby?”

Like a fussy teen with fresh braces, I prop open my mouth dramatically. See, I don’t say,. Four down, only twenty-eight left.

My mother tells me she has the good candy in the freezer, what the hell, and I remember last February when they yanked her top incisor. The one that’s front and center. I agonized over the blow to her vanity, the fake tooth she’d have to wear. Nothing she ever wore was fake.

But wear it she did, religiously, until two weeks ago. Now and then I see the black hole, the nothingness, and turn quickly. She forgot today, I lie to myself.

“Your teeth are already screwed,” my mother says, like she has for decades, like it’s a promise. “Eat candy. Swish with warm water after. You know what to do.”

“Let’s hope Erin won’t have to know the swish trick someday,” I say. My mother pats the bed, and I go there. “Pray she doesn’t have the Stein teeth genes.”

Like clockwork I turn to the picture—the picture—on the grand dresser. Between the rope-plated frame, glass smudged from eons of fingerprinted admiration, my mother and father: grins goopy and brown from a chocolate tour in Brussels, 1971.

The former globe-trotter laughs, and my tongue traces the fleshy spot in the back of my mouth, now free of its long-standing inhabitant. So much has stopped by there—cigarette smoke, terrible vodka, bitter coffee. Divine cake and rapturous oysters and hand soap. Men’s saliva, infant pee, chewed fingernails. The sleeve of my mother’s cashmere sweater, many years ago, many times. The collar of my hospital gown when Erin was born.

“Hey, baby,” my mother says. “Have you seen this yet?” I refocus my eyes on the real baby, Mom’s baby’s baby, and when she babbles, I spot it in her tiny gums, her very first one.

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KATE FAIGEN — Kate’s stories have appeared in Los Angeles Review, New Flash Fiction Review, Ghost Parachute, and more. You can find her on Twitter: @k8faigen.

Art by BARBARA CANDIOTTI — Barbara enjoys the creative pursuits of art, writing, and poetry. She is listed in the Internet Speculative Fiction Data base and hails from the Pacific Northwest. You can find more of her work at https://bcandiotti.artstation.com/.