Magic and Teeth

“Chloe!”1

I heard my name being called, but I didn’t respond.2

“Chloe, come quick!”3

Reluctantly, I forced my eyelids open. My cheek was smooshed against the crook of my elbow, resting on top of the Algebra book that was spread open on my desk. My glasses were hanging onto my face by one ear. I let out a groan as I realized that I had fallen asleep. 4

“Chloe, where are you?”5

A slight panic laced the calling of my name. It seemed as if every bone in my body popped in protest as I stood. My numb fingers tingled sharply as I made my way towards the sound of the call, tripping over my book-laden school bag on the way.6

Light spilled onto the carpet outside the bathroom, indicating the whereabouts of the caller. I stepped into the doorway and leaned against the frame, folding my arms across my chest.7

“What?”8

My brother spit savagely into the bathroom sink. From my spot by the door, I saw the blood. He pulled the back of his hand across his mouth, streaking it with red. My head swirled and I took a staggering step towards him.9

“Robert, what happened?” I stuttered, horror-stricken. “What did you do?”10

I reached out and caught his face between my hands, swiping his hair away from his eyes. To my utter surprise, he started to giggle. 11

“I’m bleeding,” he chuckled, beaming up at me through blood-stained teeth.12

“No kidding. What did you do?” I repeated.13

Robert pulled his face away and grabbed a wad of toilet paper off of the counter by the sink, which looked like it could be part of a horror movie.14

“Look!” he exclaimed. He unfolded the paper and shoved it right up to my face. I snatched the paper from his hand and surveyed the contents. 15

A tiny, pearly white tooth sat nestled in the slightly red tissue. I sighed and laughed in relief when it finally occurred to me what was going on. Robert, my baby brother, has lost his first tooth.16

I looked back down at Robert, who was smiling expectantly up at me. With my head finally clear, I noticed the gap in his smile. As if to reassure myself further, I reached down to pull the corner of his lip up to get a better look. I didn’t get much of a look before he pulled his face away.17

“Hey, cut it out,” he whined in a typical seven-year-old-boy way. He suddenly squinted at my face. “Chlo…are you crying?”18

Wetness had begun to blur my vision, and I rubbed at my eyes with the back of my hand. I didn’t really know why I was crying over my brother’s lost tooth. Maybe I was just being extra emotional from lack of sleep.19

“No, I’m ok…” I started to tell him. But Robert had gone back to spitting into the sink. He seemed determined to spatter every inch of it with evidence of his battle wound.20

“Looks cool, huh?” he asked, spitting again.21

“Pretty cool, buddy,” I agreed. “Hey, why don’t you go get a class of water from the kitchen and rinse your mouth?”22

Robert grimaced stubbornly, but said, “Okay.” He scurried out of the bathroom, pumping his arms.23

The first thing I did was wash away the gore from the sink. As soon as I had finished and the basin was sparkling clean, I began to tear up again. Strangely, I wished that I could go back in time and take a picture before I had washed it away. 24

Sniffing, I picked up the ratty wad of toilet paper that held the tiny tooth. I wiped the tooth off until it showed no trace of the blood. I transferred it to a clean tissue, after using one to dry my eyes.25

Robert was sitting on the counter in the kitchen, kicking his feet against the cabinet doors, something I had told him numerous times not to do. A plastic, Scooby-Doo cup was clutched in his hands. When he saw me round the corner, his eyes lit up and hopped down from his spot, nearly spilling his water all over the floor.26

“Did you stop bleeding?”27

“Do you have it? Where’s my tooth?” he demanded, dancing in circles around me.28

I hid the tissue in the palm of my hand. “What are you talking about?”29

“Chloe! Give it to me!”30

“Give you what? I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I suppressed a giggle.31

Robert pulled at my arm. “Chloe, give me my tooth!”32

“Oh, you want your tooth? Why didn’t you say so?” I smiled at him and handed him the clean tissue.33

He snatched it away. “You’re so weird.”34

Robert clambered back onto his place on the counter. He laid the little fold of paper on his knee and began to carefully unwrap it. When the tooth was revealed, he pinched it between his thumb and index finger.35

“You cleaned the blood off,” he accused.36

“Sorry.”37

He looked up at me.38

“Did you clean the sink too?”39

“Yep.”40

“Aw, man,” he groaned. “It looked so cool!”41

I went and sat beside him on the counter. Robert now had the tooth balancing in the palm of his hand, and he was poking at it with his finger.42

“It hurt real bad all day, Chloe,” he said. “But I kept wiggling it and wiggling it in class, because I knew it was gonna come out soon. Mrs. Baugh told me to stop putting my fingers in my mouth, but I just couldn’t. I just had to wiggle it, Chloe. It’s a good thing I did, right? Right, Chloe? Cause now it’s out! I was just brushing my teeth extra careful in the bathroom, and it fell right out! And I didn’t even cry!”43

I smiled at his little monologue. “Good for you, buddy.”44

“Did you cry when your first tooth came out?”45

“I don’t remember, Robert.”46

“I bet you did,” he said. “Girls aren’t as tough as boys.” And he puffed out his chest and thumped it with his hand.47

I rolled my eyes. “What ever you say.”48

“So,” he continued, squinting at the little tooth on his palm. “What do we do now?”49

“Well,” I said, “you can put it under your pillow right when you go to sleep and the Tooth Fairy will bring you some money.”50

Robert’s forehead wrinkled up and he frowned.51

“No. I don’t think I want to do that.”52

“Why not? You don’t want the Tooth Fairy to bring you money?”53

Robert looked up at me with a slightly pleading expression. “Cody told me that the Tooth Fairy wasn’t real.”54

Oh no.55

“You mean Cody Taylor? Wasn’t he the boy that told you that if you weren’t careful you could get sucked down the bathtub drain?”56

“Yeah, but that’s different. I know that he made that up.”57

“Well, how do you know that he just didn’t make up the fact that the Tooth Fairy isn’t real just to trick you?”58

Robert shook his head. “He didn’t make it up, Chloe. He told me that his mommy told him that the Tooth Fairy wasn’t real.”59

I shook my head, but for a different reason. Why would a mother tell her child that had probably only lost one tooth, if any, that the Tooth Fairy wasn’t real? Wasn’t it part of a good parent’s job to let your children believe in magic, at least for a little while? It had been important to my mother.60

“His mommy wouldn’t lie to him, would she Chloe?”61

“I don’t know, buddy.”62

Robert was silent for a bit. He brought his tooth up close to his eyes and studied it for a while. Then he spoke.63

“Mommy never lied to me, did she?”64

I looked down at his little face. He was confused, his eyes squinty and his lips pressed into a hard line. I wrapped an arm tightly around his shoulder.65

“Never.”66

It wasn’t fair to a boy as innocent as Robert to have to ask questions like that. I didn’t want him to have to listen to children his age talk about what their mommies said. Especially when it comes to something he should believe in. Kids his age just seemed to have no filters.67

My mother would have known how to handle this. She would know just what to say to assure him that he could believe, despite what he heard. If she had been there.68

Suddenly, Robert wrapped his arms around my waist and buried his face into my side.69

“I wish Mommy could see my tooth.”70

My throat closed and I felt a familiar prickling in the back of my eyes. Robert’s shoulders heaved and I left the first tear fall. My arms pulled him tighter to me and I rested my cheek on the top of his head,71

“Me too, buddy.”72

Julia Wright had been the best mother anyone could hope to have. She always knew what to say, what to do to give me hope, even as a child. I used to believe that she was a princess or a fairy. She was beautiful, and she was magical. She would perform silly, trivial tricks that would amaze me and make me wish with all my heart that some day, she would teach me how to be magical too. Even now that I know the secrets behind her tricks, it doesn’t take away a bit of the splendor. Because she taught me how to believe. She taught me how to trust my soul when my brain made things confusing. What she showed me weren’t lies. They were chances to trust my heart. Chances to believe.73

Robert had gotten very little time to spend with her. He was only four when she passed away. Too young to embrace the magic that surrounded her. He never got to marvel at her tricks or understand her assuring words. After she died, my father had taken extra hours at work just to be away. It seemed backwards to me. I thought that a father would want to stay home with his children. But my father dealt with his grief by distancing himself from anything that could be a reminder. I had hoped that my father could be magical too. I soon learned that he could never be like her.74

Three years later, he still spent long hours away from home. It was almost like being orphaned. If it was that bad for me, I could only imagine what it must be like for Robert. What kind of life can a little boy have without a mother and a father? With much of my help, he grew up. He was just missing that one part of life that my mother had worked so hard to instill in me.75

We cried together for a while. His floppy brown hair was as tear-soaked as the side of my shirt. Finally he pulled away and scrubbed at his eyes with his fists.76

“Boys don’t have to be tough all the time,” he said hoarsely. 77

I laughed wetly. “You’re right. They don’t.”78

A yawn stretched his mouth wide, and I automatically looked at the digital clock on the oven.79

“Bedtime,” I announced. 80

To my surprise, there was hardly an argument. Robert jumped down from the counter, landing heavily on his feet. He spun towards the counter.81

“Where’s my tooth?” he said, slightly hysterical.82

I picked it up from the counter. “Right here. Calm down.”83

He carefully took it from me and began walking towards the direction of his bedroom. He walked slowly staring down at it in his hand, his mouth screwed up on one side.84

His tooth sat on the edge of his dresser all the while he was undressing, dressing, washing his face, and brushing his remaining teeth. It even stayed there as he crawled into bed.85

I sat down beside him and tucked the covers around his tiny frame until the only thing visible was his round face. I brushed his hair out of his eyes.86

“Hey Chloe?” he inquired.87

“Hmm?”88

He took a deep breath.89

“Did Mommy believe in the Tooth Fairy?”90

I answered without hesitation. “Of course she did.”91

“Do you?”92

I smiled. “Yes.” And it was the absolute truth.93

Robert shrugged. “Can you put my tooth under my pillow?”94

I stood and picked up the tiny wonder off of his desk, and returned to slide it under the edge of his pillow. He reached under his pillow and touched it.95

“Thanks.”96

“No problem. Night Robert.”97

I began to turn out his light when he said, “Wait Chloe. One more thing.”98

“Yeah?”99

Robert slipped his arms out from underneath the covers, reached towards my face, and took off my glasses. His face was blurry, but I saw him smile.100

“You look like Mommy with your glasses off,” he said.101

I knew that this was impossible. My mother had been the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. No one would ever look as beautiful as her. I only looked like her in my dreams.102

“Time to go to sleep,” I said, reaching for my glasses.103

“You do,” he insisted. “You look pretty. Like a princess.”104

I froze. A princess. He thought that I looked like a princess. Suddenly in that moment, I knew what I would have to do. I would have to be his magic. I would have to teach him how to believe. It was my chance to amaze him and assure him. For years I had become his mother, but I had never been his hope. It was my chance to be his princess like my mother had been to me105

And I would start by being the Tooth Fairy.106