Cutting Teeth: A Novel

by Julia Fierro

  She saw that the bedroom windows were open just a few inches, and yelled up at the top floor. “Josh? Anything?”

  “Nothing,” he called back.

  No Dash on the deck.

  No Dash in the basement.

  No Dash in the bedroom closets and the bathrooms.

  No Dash anywhere, Allie thought, and the lines of one of the boys’ favorite bedtime books hopped through her mind, like an absurd tic:

  Goodnight stars

  Goodnight air

  Goodnight noises everywhere

  “Do you want me to call the police?” Josh asked.

  “Yes!” Susanna cried, and then Levi was wailing again, “Mama! Mommy! I want my brother now!”

  “Motherfucking shit,” Allie whispered, running her hands through her hair, tugging at the roots. Think, she told herself, trying to focus through the two glasses of wine she had drunk. Was this happening? The cops?

  “Sure. Call the cops. Do it now.” She barreled down the stairs and leapt out the front door. As gravel spit out behind her, she heard Susanna’s bellow, “You find my baby!”

  The moon was high and full, an immaculate white, animating every shrub, every stone with shadow. A world of secret hiding places. Her boy could be anywhere. She spun in a slow circle, searching for movement, for the sound of pebbles under little bare feet. A giggle. Anything. Something. Please, Dash.

  She sprinted to the weathered shack on the side of the house and threw the door open, so that the hook fell with a ping on the gravel behind her. She yanked on the string overhead. It tore off in her fingers, and the explosion of light revealed clear plastic bags filled with old teddy bears and stuffed animals. Like some demented carnival, and it made her think of the state park and the town beach, both just a short walk from the path she had chased Dash down that day, and what if some fucking pervert had seen them. He could have seen them, she thought, trying to measure the distance in her mind, couldn’t he? And then lay in wait like some predator, maybe even lured Dash out that night, maybe he had her boy somewhere right now, somewhere dark and distant and cold and fucking terrifying. Right now.

  She yelled toward the front door, “Call the cops!”

  Allie ran to the cars that lined the driveway. She opened the doors on the two closest to the house, not bothering to close them, and as she fell to her stomach to check under each car, the pebbles pressing through the thin cotton of her shirt, the ding-ding-ding sounded. She climbed to her feet and paused to look up at the house, the bottom windows glowing gold under a moon-tinted cloud-streaked sky.

  There was one more car to check, a dark SUV. She jiggled the handle and the alarm went off, a blaring siren punctuated by a honk. No Dash in there, at least not as much as she could see in the flashing taillights.

  “Dash!” she screamed over the alarm. “Dash! Where are you? Come here now!”

  “Hey! It’s all clear up front!” Michael shouted from the deck. “I’m going down on the beach to check the boats.”

  “Did you check the rocks?” Allie called back. “Check the rocks!”

  The rocks. Oh fuckfuckfuck, she chanted, and a sob lifted from her belly and stuck in her throat and she thought she might choke if she didn’t let it loose and she screamed, dashdashdashdash. Until her throat felt raw.

  Then, suddenly, she knew where he was. The woods. That afternoon.

  “I need flashlights!” Allie yelled at the house, then whirled to face the tree-and-bramble-lined path that led to the dunes, and beyond them the woods. The car alarm stopped. She stood for a moment, listening as her ears rang. Maybe she could hear her boy, the shush of his pajamas rubbing together, his sniffles, the little clucking noise he made when he laughed, his cry for help, but there was only her pulse screaming in her ears—move, fucking move, you moron.

  She was sliding down the dunes—the sand once again filling her pants, slipping into the back of her underwear, stinging her eyes—when she saw the cop car pull onto the beach by the park entrance. The hum of a motorboat engine made her look to the sea. Oh God no! she cried aloud when she saw the blue searchlights of the police boats sweeping the water.

  what dreams are made of

  Rip

  Rip ran down the aisles of Target, the soles of his sneakers squeaking across the gleaming floor. He stopped in front of each aisle, read the sign, and took off running again. Like the sprints he’d done as a kid on the junior varsity basketball team. There were shiny toys in primary colors for infants. A whole aisle of toy cars. Cars that talked, cars that blew bubbles, cars that shot up a track of intersecting circles and into the mouth of a giant, roaring dinosaur.

  He almost ran right into a mom in a windbreaker and sweatpants.

  “Sorry,” he mumbled. He was off and running before he heard her reply.

  Sweat stung his eyes. Maybe tears too, he thought. He remembered crying on the drive to the store as he swerved around the sharp turns of the dark road, pushing the car until he was flying at 80 MPH, Red Hot Chili Peppers pumping through the speakers.

  He thought of calling Grace, in case she’d woken up in the commotion. Was Hank awake, too, asking for his daddy? Maybe he should head back?

  No, he told himself. This mission was more important.

  He was nearing the back of the store, only a few more aisles left. Beach toys, no. Scooters and bike helmets, no. Board games, no.

  He was there. An aisle of pinkness. Even the boxes that held the erect Barbie dolls were pink. The plastic pretend baby carriages and tubs, all pink. It was a little girl’s fantasy. An aisle sprayed with Pepto-Bismol. There were dolls that talked and walked and pissed and moved their squat arms and legs and closed their eyes when you laid them on their backs. The motion-activated dolls sprang to life, and as he rushed past, he left a wave of mechanical giggles in his wake.

  And there it was, at least twelve feet of pink and violet and silver and gold polyester, iridescent tulle and sequins that caught the fluorescent light and dazzled. Princess dress after princess dress, what his Hank had coveted for months. Maybe longer. Who knew how long Hank’s princess-dress dream had percolated inside the boy’s perfect little heart?

  There were tiaras, some sprouting pink mesh fountains, like a bride’s wedding veil. There were even tiny pink rubber shoes with miniature heels. Princess in curlicued cursive. On tee shirts. On the bodices of the dresses. On purses and glitter-adorned makeup kits.

  He tore through the dresses, letting one after another fall, the hangers clicking against the floor. Which one would make Hank happiest? Which one would be good enough? Enough to forgive Rip for that afternoon, the way he’d scoured Hank’s face with his rough fingertips to wipe away the makeup? Which would forgive him for wanting another child, one who might feel more like his own?

  Rip was standing in a pile of pink pouf and puff when he found it. A gown in size XXL. Pink satin bodice and shimmery skirt. A pair of matching shoes with little heels and a tiara were part of the set—$16.99. He gave the outfit a hug, inhaling the tang of the flame-retardant chemicals, and he was off and running again.

  He threw the dress on the checkout line conveyor belt and leaned over, hands on his upper thighs, coughing as he caught his breath.

  The belt whirred to life.

  “Just the dress, sir?” asked the checkout girl in the baggy red tee shirt.

  She looked down at him with flat uninterested eyes and snapped her gum.

  She had been a little girl once, Rip thought. She had been filled with dreams of pink gowns and glass slippers and sparkling tiaras.

  “Just the dress,” he said.

  knock wood

  Nicole

  Something bad really was happening, Nicole thought.

  Not just bad, the worst.

  “What the fuck do you mean I can’t go in there?” Allie shouted, as the rotating lights streaked the silvery white dunes red, blue, red, blue. “Dash!” Allie screamed toward the black woods. “Dash!”

  Nicole had her arm wrapped around Alli
e’s shoulders—to comfort her, but also to keep her locked in the little huddle on the beach—Allie, Nicole, Josh, Michael, and the two town police officers standing at (guarding, it seemed to Nicole) the entrance to the state park. The cops had said, politely, that they’d appreciate it if Allie didn’t go in the woods. When Allie had raged at this—Nicole had seen saliva spray from her mouth as she shouted—the cops had apologized. There was a country charm in their yes, ma’am and no, ma’am and sorry, ma’am, Nicole thought. They had explained that two lost people would stretch their resources thin.

  There was a team of state police on their way, the cops said. The search and rescue team was bringing canines. The thought of the drooling, barking dogs lunging on leashes sent a shiver of queasy fear through Nicole’s stomach.

  One cop had introduced himself as Officer Morrello—a young guy who couldn’t be more than twenty-five. A spray of zits dotted his chin. He turned to Nicole and Josh, and asked, “Is the boy her son?” As if Allie weren’t there. Or as if she couldn’t be trusted.

  “Um, yes.” Nicole said. “Of course he’s her son. His other mother,” she began, then stopped, worrying it would confuse things. Hadn’t she seen that on an ER episode years ago—a boy refused medical care because his biological mother wasn’t there to give permission?

  “Yes, he’s my son,” Allie said, pointing to the woods, the veins in her arm tense cords. “I know he is in there. Please, just go. Or let me go. We can’t just stand here!”

  “Ma’am, I know it is hard”—the second cop stepped forward and spoke slowly in a nasally Island accent—“but the search team will be here soon. They are on their way. They will get in there and find your boy. We cannot let you go in there, ma’am.”

  “Stop calling me that!” Allie yelled.

  Michael spoke for the first time. “Hey, man. I was a registered lifeguard. Maybe I can search the shore.” Nicole caught the antiseptic smell of hard alcohol on his breath and almost gagged. She realized she hadn’t eaten since lunch and felt hungover from the Xanax she’d taken on an empty stomach.

  “Sir,” Officer Morello said. “You’d help us best by staying right here for now.”

  “Gotcha,” Michael said, and stepped back, half falling to sit on the shelf of a rock.

  Jesus, Nicole thought, he was wasted. And where was Tiffany? And Rip? At least Tenzin and Susanna, and hopefully Grace, were with the kids. Nicole thought of Wyatt’s being tucked into bed again by Tenzin’s warm hands, then she imagined Dash, barefoot and in thin nightclothes, shivering in the shadowy woods.

  “Okay,” Allie said loudly, “Can we focus here? What are you doing to find Dash? Why are we just standing here?”

  “The rangers will be here any minute, ma’am. For now, we need to ask you some questions. To get vital info that will help us help the search team once they arrive. Okay?”

  “Yes,” Allie said, “Yes, please. Ask me.”

  Nicole tightened her grip around Allie’s trembling shoulders. She felt Allie resist, then melt into her arm. The wind picked up, and the cordgrass shivered, the whisper of the stalks a shushing that momentarily drowned out the hum of the cop car’s engine. Nicole and her brother had called the grass sea-hay as kids, and had used it for make-believe magic wands.

  “We need to talk about anything you might have seen during the day,” the second cop continued. “Anyone—a car, maybe—that seemed unusual. On the road or on the public beach.” He—O’DONNELL the pin on his uniform read—looked at Nicole, and asked, “You live here, right?”

  “No,” she said, and it was difficult to speak at first.

  O’Donnell was heavy-cheeked, clean-shaven, but she could see the red-brown stubble in the glow of the headlights. Officers Morello and O’Donnell—they sounded like fake names. Like they were characters on some cop show.

  Josh finished for her, “My wife’s parents live here. Over there.” He pointed to the beach, to the houses that sat side by side behind the stacks of black boulders, still wet from the departing tide. “In the third house. We visit often. But I don’t know much about this area. I’m sorry. We’re from the city. All of us. But Nicole grew up here.”

  Josh looked down at her. The cop followed his eyes and took a step closer to her. So close that she thought of running away, up the beach, hiding inside one of the shell-and-pebble-filled crevices in the boulders, like she had as a child.

  “Can you help me, ma’am?” Officer O’Donnell asked.

  She? Help them? A spasm of doubt made her mumble, “Um?” and she felt that same net of anxiety fall over her, that which had stopped her short so often in the last few months. Can I really call the insurance company, the landlord, the washing-machine repairman—interactions that promised conflict, that demanded confidence, that made her feel like an agoraphobic freak trapped in a cage.

  “This is just so unbelievable,” she managed to say.

  “Ma’am?” O’Donnell said, as the radio in the car squawked. The grass rippled again, a wave of motion and stalks clacking, and Nicole looked to the path, to the woods lined with trees that seemed to be drowning in the sand and whose branches were so gnarled by sea wind and salt that they reminded her—as they had when she was a child—of witches’ claws.

  Allie pulled out of Nicole’s embrace and gripped Nicole’s arm with what felt like the strength of a man. “Help them, Nicole!” Allie shouted as she shook her. “Snap the fuck out of it.”

  This was what Nicole needed. It felt like a cup of cold water thrown in her face. She almost turned to Allie and said thank you, but instead she looked at the cop, and said, “Well, it’s a holiday, so the beach”—she pointed to the public beach, still strewn with bits of trash that reflected the headlights of the ranger vehicles—“it was busy like it always is on Labor Day weekend. There were some families, I think. And the usual couple of Hispanic—I mean, Latino men fishing. We spent most of the day on the beach right in front of the house. I just wasn’t paying attention.”

  Allie interrupted. “But Dash ran into the woods. And I chased him. This is what I’m trying to tell you. He’s in there! I know he is. He’s pissed at me, and he went back in there!” Allie was pleading now, the tendons in her neck stretching as she rose on her toes and balled her fists at her side. Like a frustrated child ignored by the grownups, Nicole thought.

  “Ma’am,” O’Donnell asked, looking again at Nicole with a sympathetic frown, “did you see a car?” He paused and motioned for Morello. “What was it, Tony? Yeah. A Honda. Green. With a bike rack? We had a report of someone loitering in the parking lot over here. We made it part of the Amber Alert that went out.”

  “Oh my fucking God,” Allie said, and fell to her knees. Her head bent forward, and when she looked up, Nicole saw that her forehead was dusted with sand. Nicole knelt next to Allie, the sand cold under her bare ankles.

  “It’s okay, Allie. It’s going to be okay. I swear it. They’ll find him.”

  Nicole couldn’t make out what Allie was saying at first.

  “Susanna will kill me. She’ll take them away. She’ll take them away forever.”

  O’Donnell looked to the dark road, then at Morello, who had ducked into the car. He coughed and leaned over, resting one hand on Allie’s shoulder.

  “She’s right, ma’am. Listen to your friend,” O’Donnell said. There was such gentle kindness in his voice. Nicole wanted to hug him, to cry into his muscled shoulder. “We’ll find your son. Now, ma’am”—he paused—“Allie, where is your husband? Can we get him here to help you? To help us?”

  He peered over Nicole’s shoulder at Michael, now slumped on the sand half-asleep. “Is this him?”

  “She doesn’t have a husband,” Nicole said, and she started to explain that Allie had a wife, but Allie’s bitter laugh interrupted her.

  The ranger dug a hole in the sand with the toe of his boot.

  Nicole tried to rub Allie’s back as she waved Josh over. They’d have to take Allie back to the house, convince her to take a pi
ll to relax her, a glass of wine, something, but Allie shoved her away, and the girl-thin woman was running toward the woods, sand spraying out behind her heels, her pants a spot of pure white against the tangle of black branches.

  The cop cursed under his breath. “Damn. Just what we need.”

  A few minutes later, the parking lot blazed with the headlights of three vans. Nicole leaned into Josh, shielding her eyes. Two vans pulled onto the beach, sand spitting out through back tires. The rear double doors swung open and what seemed like a SWAT team of men piled out, each wearing a fluorescent orange vest. Ten, twelve, maybe more—too many to count. A siren blared and Nicole jumped, reaching again for Josh’s hand. His breath was hot in her ear. “It’s okay,” he whispered. “Be strong.”

  O’Donnell turned to her, and said, with triumph in his voice, “They’ll take over from here, ma’am. You’re in good hands.”

  He and Morello vanished into the headlights, and she felt a pang of loss as she called out, “Thank you!”

  The strips of reflectors on the men’s vests caught the cop-car strobe as O’Donnell and Morello backed up onto the parking lot. They were leaving them, Nicole thought, and now they were in a swarm of strangers, of broad shoulders, black boots, and low, grumbling voices. It was as if she and Josh were invisible. The men shook hands with each other, mumbled greetings, and she even caught the sound of a laugh thrown up in the wind. She felt small and naked, like a child in her white cotton summer clothes and bare feet.

  “Excuse me,” she said in the direction of a cluster of men, “Um, excuse me. The boy’s mother—she went into the woods.”

  The back of the second van opened with a loud creak and the Labradors and German shepherds leapt onto the beach, lunging in all directions, straining against the chain-link leashes, and she flinched, backing away, almost stumbling onto the sand. Josh caught her and wrapped an arm around her waist. “I got you,” he said, and as the dogs tugged at the leashes, a jangling that felt like the stuff of children’s nightmares, she pressed her palms together and whispered the prayer she had said every night since she was a girl, five times in a row, sometimes with barely a breath between. Dear God please keep us safe don’t let anyone or anything bad hurt us. Dear God please keep us safe don’t let anyone or anything bad hurt us. Dear God please keep us safe don’t let anyone or anything bad hurt us. Dear God please keep us safe don’t let anyone or anything bad hurt us. Dear God please keep us safe don’t let anyone or anything bad hurt us.