Free Cutting Teeth: A Novel by Julia Fierro Page B

was a game he played, to see how close he could get without bumping someone. He sounded off as he galloped, yips and tongue-clucks and fluttering of his lips.
    The soundtrack of Chase, she had once joked with his speech therapist, who assured Leigh her son did not have a tic. Still, Leigh feared a Tourette’s diagnosis down the road. She had always been proud of how still she could hold herself, even as a child. In the polished pews of Saint John’s Episcopal Church on Sunday mornings. At the barre in Miss Posey’s ballet studio. In cotillion class, her white-gloved hand sweating in the viselike grasp of a pimply thirteen-year-old boy.
    Grace wiped the tears from Hank’s reddened cheeks with the corner of a towel, and said, “Chase just wanted to cheer you up, Henry.”
    Hank summoned the breath for an even louder wail. “My name is Hank!”
    “If you don’t calm down,” Grace said, pausing to search the room, “I’m going to have to get Daddy.”
    “I want Daddy!”
    “Okay, that’s it.” Grace’s lips were a thin white line. “You’re getting a time-out.”
    “Daddy!” Hank screamed, raw and phlegmy. Leigh covered Charlotte’s little ears with her fingertips.
    “Actually,” Tiffany began as she knelt in front of Hank and rubbed his back.
    Leigh saw Nicole’s eyes flicking to catch Susanna’s, a here she goes look passing between them. The air in the room fell flat, the same tense silence that always accompanied Tiffany’s lectures on child development.
    Tiffany continued, sweetly. As if talking to the children during music class, Leigh thought. “Studies show time-outs don’t work as effectively as we might think they do.”
    “Oh. Really?” Grace said. A skeptic’s wrinkle creased her forehead, and Leigh could see she was a woman unused to criticism, trigger-quick to bat down any challenge. “Where did you hear that?”
    “Well,” Tiffany said, “I don’t know if you’ve heard of the Waldorf philosophy? It focuses on imitation. It suggests you guide the child to more appropriate behavior. In a gentle way.” Tiffany gestured toward Harper. “Harp goes to a Waldorf school.”
    As if to say, Leigh thought, look at this perfect specimen.
    Tiffany took Hank’s free hand, and the little boy, his sobs ceasing, looked up at her expectantly. Leigh could see that Grace’s lips had parted. In astonishment, or irritation.
    “I’ll start on the kids’ dinner,” Nicole called out before vanishing into the kitchen.
    “Let me give you a hand,” Susanna said, waddling after Nicole.
    The fear Tiffany inspired in the playgroup parents baffled Leigh. Tiffany had been nothing but kind toward her. Even loving.
    “For example,” Tiffany continued, “if a child was acting in a disruptive manner, the teacher would redirect. By leading them away with an outstretched hand.” Tiffany mimed the gesture. “Suggesting an alternative activity.”
    Tiffany grabbed a beach towel hanging over the back of a chair. She held it out to Hank and smiled. Her voice was soft. Seductive even, Leigh thought.
    “Here, Hank. You may help me fold the towel.”
    The little boy reached for the towel, but his mother jerked him away and, for a moment, there was an absurd tug-of-war.
    “That’s so very interesting, Tiffany,” Grace said with a beaming smile of her own.
    Grace’s calculatedly cordial tone made the back of Leigh’s neck prickle.
    “I’m a child-development specialist.” Tiffany shrugged modestly. “With a master’s in music therapy.”
    “And where was that?” Grace asked. “The Columbia School for Teachers?”
    “No. City College.”
    “Oh,” Grace said, and smiled. With a barely perceptible nod of pity, Leigh thought. Then Grace ushered the still-whimpering Hank to the screen door and out onto the deck.
    Even before the screen door thwacked shut, Tiffany had pulled out her phone and was jabbing at the keypad.
    Three seconds later, Leigh’s phone vibrated.
    The text message read:
    ok!