"Mouth Full of Teeth" by John Brantingham

Mouth Full of Teeth

Catherine, pregnant and sweating and waddling on thick ankles, walks to her mother’s loquat tree with her daughter Becky hanging on to her hand. She picks a loquat, wipes it, and hands it to the girl. “Don’t bite it hard,” she says. “A seed’s in the middle.”
Becky presses it between her fingers but stares at the little space between her feet. “Hey,” Catherine says. “You’re not crying, are you?”
She wants to crouch down, but her knees won’t allow that. She puts her index finger under Becky’s chin and tilts her face up.
“Don’t worry. Sometimes grown ups argue.”
“What were you fighting about?”
“About who loves you more.” The moment it’s out of her mouth, she knows it’s the wrong thing to say, so she says, “No, I’m just kidding. I want to name your brother Jack. Your father wants to name him Kyle Jr.” Which is true enough, but she leaves out the fact that her first love was a boy named Jack. She’d forgotten she told Kyle Sr.
“That’s stupid,” Becky says.
“Yes it is, and I promise we won’t fight again until all of your teeth fall out of your head, and you grow a whole new set.”
It’s also the wrong thing to tell the girl because there is no right thing to tell her, but the fact that all of her teeth are going to fall out is news to Becky who pales and looks up at her mother, silenced, the loquat crushed to pulp in her fingers.
It’s the nature of things, Catherine thinks. Teeth will fall out of your head, beautiful boys die in car accidents, and women marry all the wrong men. It’s this way now because it has been this way for all time.

John BRANTINGHAM

John was the first poet laureate of Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Park, and his work has been featured in hundreds of magazines and in Writer’s Almanac and The Best Small Fictions 2016. He has eleven books of poetry and fiction including his latest fiction collection Life: Orange to Pear (Bamboo Dart Press). He teaches at Mt. San Antonio College.

Headshot: Alexis Rhone Fancher

Photo Credit: Staff