Tooth Fairy
by
Jeff Stimpson © 2005
A few days have gone by, and I can't remember when
I first spied it. Or didn't spy it. Maybe Alex was laughing one
evening when Jill was out, after dinner (for Alex, probably two hot
dogs and a chocolate protein bar) and I had the guys alone, and I
glanced over and quickly thought something was just a little ...
off.
I called him over and asked him to open his mouth.
I gently opened his lower lip, and there it was. Or wasn't. Between
two teeth, a fine pink gap, small as I can imagine. At the bottom of
the gap was a tiny white sliver.
"Hey! Alex! You've lost a tooth!"
Remember when he had no teeth? Remember when he
first bit me? It doesn't seem like yesterday, but it also doesn't
seem like more than week ago last Tuesday. "Hey! Alex!"
Ned and Alex have learned about lost teeth from a
British kids' booklet entitled, well, The Lost Tooth.. It
spells out the whole story: the fingering, the wiggling, the way the
thing just pops out like a part of your life coming loose, and then
all the people you're supposed to show it to, especially if it's
your first loose tooth.
We don't have the tooth; Alex probably swallowed
with a hunk of chewy protein bar. Of course he can't tell us. I
thought back, though, and yes, Alex was yelping and screeching when
he ate that bar for dessert. I remembered asking, "Alex, what's the
problem? You've got your chocolate."
"Alex, you've lost a tooth!" I kept saying
and saying. It somehow makes me feel that my first son's future is
suddenly bright. I kept saying it until the phrase snagged Ned's
attention and he dashed over like E.B. White's daschund for a peer.
"Oh my god!" Ned said. "Oh my god! Oh my god,
Alex!"
"It must've happened when you ate your chocolate,"
I told Alex.
"I want chocolate!" Ned said.
I took a picture with the digital. I took another,
in case I screwed this one up and erased the first photo forever.
Alex seemed to understand this moment: He grinned in that way one
grins when showing off teeth. I know he likes to have his picture
taken, but still he seemed to understand, as if he'd had this
secret, though he didn't understand why it had to be a secret and
why it had to be locked from us by his autism, and now the secret
was out and he was happy.
I took the two pictures, helped the boys brush
their teeth -- a slightly quicker task for Alex now -- and put them
to bed.
Later, I showed Jill the digitals of Alex and his
grin. "Notice anything!" I asked her. No. "Notice anything
missing?" She got it then. "My bear," she kept saying, on this
night for all of us to mumble the same thing over and over in
wonder. "My little bear has lost a tooth ..."
She turned to me. "I'm sorry it's something he had
to go through alone," she said. "I knew there was something
bothering him. Was he agitated when you brushed his teeth, too? I'm
sad because he had to go through it alone. He couldn't tell us."
I used to get a quarter under my pillow. I think
my mother got pennies. Ned will probably get a twenty. We planned to
leave a toy under Alex's pillow. He doesn't really understand money,
and we want to get something that would really delight him.
Next day, I think it is, Alex falls on the
playground and gets a nasty cut on his chin. We even consider
getting him stitches, but figure he'd pull them out. And Ned's own
first dental appointment looms. Upshot is, not until a few nights
later, while Alex sleeps, do I place under his pillow a can of Elmo
Play-dough that Jill picked up somewhere and was saving for a
special occasion.
"Alex, let me see it again." I gently tug down his
lower lip, and there it is, or isn't. A tiny pink grand canyon, and
at the bottom of the gap is a white sliver of the tooth he'll
probably have for the rest of his life. Quite a moment, quite a
moment.
Copyright 2005 Jeff Stimpson, all rights reserved
