Chapter 2 - The Tooth
I did not ask Evelina another question in that ballroom.
Hattie came first.
I crouched in front of her.
“Open your mouth.”
She shook her head.
“It hurts.”
“I know. Let me see.”
Her front teeth were intact.
The tooth on the carpet turned out to be an upper primary lateral incisor that had already been loose for weeks.
The slap had knocked it out earlier than nature intended.
That did not make what happened acceptable.
It made the dental consequences less serious.
Our family dentist met us at an emergency dental clinic thirty minutes later.
Hattie sat in the chair holding my hand so tightly my fingers went numb.
The dentist examined her gums.
Took an image.
Checked the permanent tooth developing underneath.
“No fracture to the permanent successor.”
I exhaled.
“Any damage?”
“Soft-tissue bruising. The baby tooth was close to exfoliating naturally. We’ll monitor.”
Hattie looked at him suspiciously.
“Exfo-what?”
“It was almost ready to fall out.”
She frowned.
“So tooth fairy still comes?”
The dentist smiled.
“I would expect excellent service.”
That got a tiny smile.
Her cheek was red.
No fracture.
No jaw injury.
No concussion.
No stitches.
The blood stopped quickly.
Physically, she had been lucky.
Emotionally, a different wound had opened.
On the drive home, Hattie sat in the back with my security chief, Aaron Pike, beside her.
Not because I expected danger.
Because she had asked Aaron to come.
He had known her since she was two.
Halfway home, she said:
“Daddy?”
“Yes?”
“Who is my real mother?”
Aaron looked out the window.
I kept my eyes on the road.
The question had arrived faster than I was ready for.
There were answers I had planned to give Hattie someday.
Not this way.
Not because Evelina had turned motherhood into a threat.
I said:
“You had a mother named Mara.”
“I know.”
Mara Carver.
My wife.
Hattie’s mother.
Dead three years.
Her photograph still stood on Hattie’s dresser.
Hattie frowned.
“Then why Evelina said another?”
I could not lie.
Not anymore.
“There is more to the story of how you became our daughter.”
Silence.
“Bad?”
“No.”
“Secret?”
I hated the accuracy of that word.
“Yes.”
She looked down at the little plastic container holding her tooth.
“Did Mommy know?”
“Yes.”
That seemed to calm her slightly.
Mara knowing mattered.
Then Hattie asked:
“Did you lie?”
I tightened my hands around the steering wheel.
I had never told Hattie a direct falsehood about her birth.
But I had let her assume something I knew was incomplete.
Children do not care about the lawyerly difference.
“I waited too long to explain something important.”
She stared out the window.
That was the beginning of my accountability.
Not Evelina’s.
May you like
Mine.
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