Keely Naylon: Front Tooth

Front Tooth

Keely Naylon

His lips are blue.

Claire is frantic beside me, her breathing distracting, hissing in and out. I focus on it. The shaking, heaving breaths. I pretend her breaths are moving his chest and I pretend his lips are blue from nicotine. I pretend his blood isn’t ruining my jeans. I pretend I am home. I wish I was home.

‘Grace,’ Claire moans, her hand colliding with my shoulder, shaking me. ‘Grace, we have to call the police. Grace.’

I pretend I am home. I pretend I am home, and my mother is drunk, and I am small. I pretend I am home, and my mother is drunk, and my tooth lies bloody on the couch. I pretend I am home. I pretend I am gone.

My mum sits on the witness stand. She sits still but her hand is shaking as she lifts a crumpled tissue to her mouth, stifling a cough.

‘Mrs Grant’, the lawyer begins, shuffling his papers. ‘We’re here today to determine your daughter’s character, Miss Grace Grant. How is your relationship with your daughter?’

Mum clears her throat shakily. ‘Estranged, sir.’

‘And why is that?’

‘She was a difficult child,’ Mum says, refusing to look at me though I’m sitting only meters away, staring at her, 'she believes she was abused.’

The jury shuffles in their seats, their gaze is torn between me and Mum, a tear drops from her chin. I clench my teeth.

‘I’ve never laid a hand on her.’ I swallow back bile.

I am 14 and Mum is drunk. She waves a permission slip in the air violently, the paper begins to tear, I sit still. She yells. She calls me selfish. She calls me idiotic. She calls me irresponsible. I sit still and I wait, and I listen. She yells until I cry. I run, I hide beneath the covers of my bed, I wait. Mum slips in beside me. She holds me tight. She cries. She says

she’s sorry. She begs for forgiveness. I tell her I forgive her. I stroke her hair. In the morning the permission slip sits on the benchtop. Signed. My birthdate is wrong.

‘Would you say she has a habit of lying?’ The lawyer asks, and Mum nods. The lawyer presses further. ‘Could you describe an example?’

‘She told her friends, her school friends, this ridiculous story. That I’d get her drunk, let her friends get drunk. That I’d beat her so badly her tooth came out.’

When Mum lies, she grinds her teeth. Her front teeth are short. When Mum smiles, they stand out, ground down to nubs. She isn’t grinding her teeth.

‘Her friends deny these claims?’ The lawyer asks, and Mum nods again.

She isn’t grinding her teeth. I close my eyes and try to picture it. I close my eyes and try to imagine the tooth. If the tooth isn’t real, I have nothing. I have nothing.

‘The story, about the tooth, is there evidence proving it false?’ the lawyer asks. Although he knows the answer. Mum nods and the lawyer lays a paper on the desk before her. He asks Mum to read it and she does. Her voice is clear and steady. She isn’t grinding her teeth. I can’t see my tooth.

If my tooth isn’t real. If my memories are not real. I am not sure of anything. I am not sure I am innocent. I am not sure. I am not sure. I cannot see my tooth.

‘Grace lost her two front teeth this afternoon, pulling them out herself. She claims to have placed them in a ‘safe place’ in her bag but was unable to find them again when asked.’ The lawyer nods, as though considering, as though each word he says hasn’t been planned and rehearsed.

‘Mrs Grant, as Grace’s mother, do you believe your daughter could be violent?’

‘She is violent,’ Mum says without hesitation, without blinking.

I feel dizzy. She keeps talking, telling lies (are they lies?).

‘She hits her brothers often. Gave them black eyes, broken noses. I have to pull her off them. She’s not allowed in my home.’

No, I am confused, I must be confused. She did that. She must be lying. I am not sure she is lying. She does that.

I am 16 and Mum is drunk and screaming. I am cowering in my room. I hear her footsteps thundering down the hall, rapid-fire, like gunshots, echoing off the white walls. She skips my room. My heart sinks. Next door my brother screams, he sobs, he shoves. I curl into a ball. ‘Don’t be a coward’, I think, ‘please, please, please. Don’t be a coward.’ I am.

‘Do you think,’ the lawyer continues. ‘That Grace could be capable of murder?’

The court hushes, papers ruffle, chairs squeak.

Mum swallows audibly, heavy, hard. Is she scared? Of me?

‘Yes.’ She says, finally. ‘I do.’

The man wasn’t anyone I knew. I called Mum from the police station. I sobbed down the phone. I had expected sympathy. I didn’t know who else to call. When in danger, you call your mum. When you're scared, you call your mum. Even if she is what scares you. She has never liked me moving away. Mum likes to keep her secrets close and I am her worst kept secret.

I keep telling stories.

I found the man seconds after he was murdered. He bled so much my jeans dripped when I finally stood. I pulled out the knife. It was my fault he died. I was drunk. I wasn’t thinking. I didn’t want him to die. I am not found guilty, but I am sent away to hospital. I am a compulsive liar. I am dangerous.

That’s what I’m told.

I can’t remember.

Mum sits across from me and she is beautiful. Her hair is curled, freshly blonde, it bounces when she laughs, when she speaks, when she leans forward and grips my hand in hers and squeezes. It makes my bones ache. She visits twice a week. She’s my only visitor. There’s a new necklace resting on her chest. A dainty golden chain, and a small tooth, a front tooth, dangling sweetly.

I lean forward, smiling. ‘Oh, that’s pretty.’

‘Hm?’ She asks, her eyes twinkling in the sunlight, uninhibited by her usual glasses, ‘Is it real?’ I ask. Pointing.

‘Oh! Yes.’ Mum nods, her hand resting over the tooth, her pointer and thumb caressing it between them, rolling the tooth gently up and down.

‘Yours, actually.’

‘Mine?’ I ask, my heart fluttering, flattered, warmed. Yet guilt compounds still. Seeing her makes my chest ache. It feels wrong to let her love me. I wish she would visit less, though that thought makes my stomach turn.

‘Oh, Mum,’ I whisper, reaching forward. She clasped my hand in hers. Her palm cold against my knuckles. ‘Is it a front tooth?’

She nods, watching me.

My front tooth, I thought, head-spinning. I remember finding an extra two dollars waiting for me the morning after I lost them. They were the special teeth, the ones that symbolizes youth and childhood, the ones everyone has a story about. I suddenly still. The warmth fading as the cool reminder settles in my bones. My story doesn’t match. My palms grow wet with sweat.

‘But … Mum,’

I falter, blinking.

‘I … I thought … I lost those at school. I did … didn’t I? I … I swear I lost them at school.’ I try to look up at her, but I can’t tear my eyes from the tooth.

I start to pull my hand away and Mum grips it tighter, so tight my knuckles press together, it begins to ache again, this time I wince.

‘Mum, that hurts. ’

‘You did.’ She answers, still smiling. ‘One of them.’

I shake my head. ‘No, no, I swear it was both. Mum?’

Her nails dig into my skin. Her eyes are hard, the blue sharp as ice now, cold.

Her lips are still stretched in a smile. An old fear curls in my stomach as I look at her. Liquid hot and burning, bubbling up my throat. I drop my gaze, avoiding hers. I feel sick.

‘Just one,’ Mum said, her voice sweet. ‘Don’t you remember how you lost the other one?’

I shake my head, though I did know, or I had thought I did. The burn in my throat turns to heaving retches, my body jerks in my chair, I cannot pull away and Mum is disappearing into memory. The chair screeches as I pull, my shoulder aches as I attempt to yank myself away yet still Mum clings on.

‘Yes, you do.’ She said, leaning closer, blood curling under her neatly manicured nails. ‘I do too.’

I can’t see her anymore. I can feel it again. Feel my face pummelled into the couch cushions, the material rubbing harshly against my skin, the crochet blanket marking my face to match. I can feel her weight above me, on top of me, her hand on the back of my head, squeezing. I can feel my tooth catching on the blanket, feel her hand yanking me upwards. I can taste the blood in my mouth and the salty snot and tears.

I can see my tooth. I can see my tooth.