Chapter One
Kiersten
Kiersten Cleaver looked down at the plastic teeth arranged across the reception desk at the orthodontist’s office. The straight, beautiful teeth of disciplined people who wore their retainersevery nightfor the rest of their lives.
Unlike her son, Matt, who’d accidentally thrown his upper retainer away in the middle school cafeteria yesterday. The orthodontist referred to the plastic-and-wire contraption as anappliance. It sounded like a washing machine for his teeth and cost about as much too.
“When would you like to make your next appointment?” the receptionist asked.
A simple question, but Kiersten could not formulate an answer.
This happened more and more often lately. Brain fog. Inability to concentrate. Trouble remembering the ten thousand trivial yet somehow vitally important things she had to keep track of each day. Was it perimenopause? Lyme disease? Or perhaps just low IQ?
The impossibly young receptionist stared up at her with clear eyes and luminous, unwrinkled skin. She looked like she was eleven, and this made Kiersten feel like she was forty-two going on eighty-three.
“Mrs. Cleaver?” The receptionist cleared her throat and frowned, obviously unsure of the protocol for interrupting parents in the middleof some kind of senior moment. “When would you like to bring Matt in for his next appointment?”
Never. Was never an option?
She dreaded coming to the orthodontist, which always included a lecture on the importance of brushingalong the gumline, as well as dire warnings about the discoloration of teeth if patients failed tobrush thoroughlywhile wearing braces.
Her thirteen-year-old son routinely failed to do this, and of course, his poor dental hygiene was her fault because she was his mother, and when you are a mother, everything is your fault.
“Wednesday, October 22 at four thirty is available,” the receptionist prompted.
Kiersten glanced down at the calendar on her phone, where all the new activities and appointments of a fresh school year loomed. Her mind ran through the logistical ramifications.
If she took Matt to the orthodontist on Wednesday, October 22 at four thirty, she’d be unable to take Luke to the Orton–Gillingham dyslexia tutor. Or drop James at hockey practice. Or pick up Johnny from LEGO Robotics Club.
They’d moved to the DC suburbs in late July. School started in August. Now she found herself drowning in mid-September, swimming against a tidal wave of games, practices, clubs, parent meetings, back-to-school nights, and appointments.
She didn’t know the other parents yet and had been unable to join the elaborate trade network of car pools mothers relied on to get children from point A to point B. Plus, she had no family nearby to help with the driving, like she had back home in Minnesota.
“I’m so sorry, but I’m afraid that won’t work,” Kiersten said. Obviously it was her fault they were too busy to schedule an appointment at a time the orthodontist found convenient. “Is there anything available on a Friday?” She’d come to think of Friday as Freedom Day, because it was the only day without lessons, practices, games, or meetings.
“Sorry, we aren’t open on Fridays.”
“How about Monday?”
The receptionist shook her head. “We aren’t open on Mondays either. And we reserve Tuesdays for putting on and removing braces. But you could come in on a Wednesday or a Thursday.”
The orthodontist was like a restaurant where you could have anything you wanted, as long as it was a hamburger.
Kiersten massaged her forehead. She’d have to pull Matt out of school because there was absolutely no time to squeeze in an orthodontist appointment later in the day. And that would likely annoy Mrs. Bile, the terrifying school secretary with intimidating eyebrows who she’d met at Classroom Sneak-a-Peek before the first day of school.
She scheduled the appointment for 11:00 a.m. on a Wednesday and left with her son and his new retainer trailing behind her across the parking lot.
“You seem kind of cranky,” Matt observed when they got in the car.
“I’m not cranky,” she said, immediately aware that she sounded cranky.
He shrugged and turned to the window. “Just sayin’.”
She took a deep breath. “I’m so-rry if I sound cranky. It’s just frustrating when we can’t make a simple orthodontist appointment because we have so many after-school activities.”
“I could quit baseball,” he volunteered quickly.
She frowned. “You love baseball. And you’re really good.”
