I thought finding my daughter with missing teeth would be the worst part of coming home. Then she told me what Grandma had been saying to her while I was gone, and I realized the teeth were only part of what she’d taken.
I swear, I almost called the police on my mother-in-law before she even finished her sentence.
My husband Mark and I were both away for work, so my MIL, Diane, had offered to stay at our house with our 7-year-old daughter, Emma.
I hesitated.
Diane had always had very strong opinions about parenting.
Emma’s hair was “too wild.”
Her clothes were “too childish.”
I packed “too much sugar” in her lunch.
I didn’t make her sit still enough at restaurants.
Mark kept telling me I worried too much.
“She raised three kids,” he said. “Emma will be fine.”
So I went.
The second I walked through the door four days later, Emma came running toward me.
“Mommy!”
I dropped my suitcase and opened my arms.
Then she grinned.
“Look!”
She opened her mouth.
I froze.
Several of her baby teeth were gone.
Not one.
Not two.
Several.
There were gaps where I was certain there hadn’t been gaps four days earlier.
“What happened to your mouth?”
Emma’s smile disappeared.
Her hand flew up to cover it.
“Grandma helped me.”
I slowly looked toward the kitchen.
Diane was sitting at the table drinking coffee.
She looked completely calm.
“You did what?”
Diane sighed.
“Oh, please. They’re baby teeth.”
“You removed them?”
“They were going to fall out eventually.”
I crouched in front of Emma.
“Sweetheart, were they loose?”
Emma looked toward her grandmother.
Then back at me.
“Some of them.”
Some.
Of.
Them.
I stood so fast I nearly knocked over my suitcase.
“Why would you touch her teeth without calling me?”
Diane rolled her eyes.
“Because every time I try to tell you something about that child, you act like I’m criticizing you.”
“You pulled my daughter’s teeth.”
“Stop being dramatic.”
That sentence nearly sent me over the edge.
Diane smiled at Emma.
“Sweetheart, why don’t you go upstairs? Grandma and Mommy need to talk.”
“No,” I said.
Diane looked at me.
“Excuse me?”
“She stays.”
Something changed in Emma’s face.
She moved closer to me.
Diane folded her arms.
“Fine. Do you want to know why I did it, or do you just want to scream?”
“I would love to know why.”
“Because you weren’t doing anything about them.”
“About baby teeth?”
“Exactly. She’s seven. They looked ridiculous.”
For a moment, I genuinely couldn’t understand what she meant.
Then I did.
“You removed my daughter’s teeth because you didn’t like how they looked?”
Diane leaned toward me.
“You should be thanking me. Children notice these things. I didn’t want her getting teased.”
Beside me, Emma went very still.
Then she whispered something.
“Grandma said nobody would want to take pictures with me.”
I looked at Diane.
“Tell me she’s lying.”
Diane didn’t answer.
“Tell me you did not say that to her.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake. I told her she’d look much prettier once those crooked baby teeth were gone. There’s nothing wrong with wanting your granddaughter to look presentable.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
Emma had always loved photographs.
She’d make ridiculous faces whenever I took one. Crossed eyes. Puffy cheeks. Huge toothy smiles.
Now she was covering her mouth with both hands.
“Get out.”
Diane blinked.
“What?”
“Get your things and leave.”
Her face hardened.
“You’re throwing me out after everything I did for you?”
“I’m throwing you out because you made my seven-year-old think there was something wrong with her face.”
Diane grabbed her purse.
Then, just before reaching the door, she turned around.
“You should ask Emma why she didn’t stop me.”
I stared at her.
“What?”
Diane glanced at my daughter.
“If it was really so terrible, ask her why she kept letting me help.”
Then she walked out.
The door slammed.
I turned toward Emma.
She was staring at the floor.
I wanted to run after Diane.
Instead, I knelt.
“Emma, look at me.”
She wouldn’t.
I gently touched her arm.
“You are not in trouble.”
Her eyes finally lifted.
“Did Grandma pull more than one tooth at once?”
A tiny nod.
“Did you want her to?”
Emma’s eyes filled with tears.
“At first.”
My anger stopped me from speaking.
“What do you mean, at first?”
She rubbed her sleeve across her nose.
“The first one was wiggly.”
That made sense. Emma had shown me that tooth before I left. It had been loose for weeks.
“Grandma said she knew a trick so it wouldn’t hurt.”
“Did it hurt?”
“A little.”
She opened her mouth.
I looked carefully at the gaps.
“And the others?”
Emma’s voice dropped.
“She said they needed help too.”
My stomach turned.
“Did you tell her no?”
Emma nodded.
“Then why did Grandma say you kept coming back?”
Her face crumpled.
“Because she said if I let her finish, she’d stop.”
I felt cold.
“But every time she said she was done, she found another one.”
I pulled Emma into my arms.
She buried her face against my shoulder.
“I’m sorry, Mommy.”
“No. Absolutely not.”
I held her tighter.
“You have nothing to be sorry for.”
After she calmed down, I called our dentist.
The office was about to close, but when I explained what had happened, they told me to bring Emma in immediately.
I took pictures first.
Every gap.
Every swollen spot.
Every place Emma said hurt.
Then I texted Mark.
“CALL ME NOW.”
He called before I had finished putting Emma’s shoes on.
“What’s wrong?”
“Your mother pulled out Emma’s teeth.”
Silence.
“What?”
“Several of them.”
“Wait. What do you mean pulled them out?”
“I mean exactly that.”
He started saying something about calling his mother.
“No. Don’t call her. We’re going to the dentist. Meet us there.”
The dentist examined Emma while I sat beside her holding her hand.
Two of the missing teeth had been ready to come out.
The others had not.
One area was badly irritated.
The dentist looked at me.
“How were these removed?”
“Her grandmother did it.”
He stopped writing.
“Her grandmother?”
I nodded.
His expression told me everything I needed to know.
Emma squeezed my fingers.
Then she looked at the dentist.
“Will the new ones grow straight?”
He smiled gently.
“They’ll grow however they need to grow.”
Emma frowned.
“Grandma said she was fixing them.”
The dentist looked at me.
I looked away before Emma could see my face.
On the drive home, she barely spoke.
Then, halfway there, she said, “Mommy?”
“Yes?”
“Are you mad about the other one?”
“What other one?”
Emma touched her pocket.
“I kept one.”
I pulled into a parking lot.
“What do you mean you kept one?”
She took a tissue from her pocket.
It had been folded over and over until it was barely bigger than a coin.
Emma carefully opened it.
Inside was a tiny baby tooth.
“Grandma missed this one,” she whispered.
My chest tightened.
“Missed it?”
“It fell out by itself.”
She looked almost guilty.
“I hid it before she could take it.”
I stared at the tiny tooth.
“Why?”
Emma swallowed.
“Because Grandma kept the others.”
I thought I’d misheard her.
“She kept them?”
Emma nodded.
“She said she needed them.”
“For what?”
“I don’t know.”
Then she said something that made me reach for my phone.
“She put them in the blue box.”
I’d seen Diane carrying that box when she left.
I hadn’t thought twice about it.
I called Mark before I even pulled out of the parking lot.
“Your mother has Emma’s teeth.”
“What?”
“The teeth she pulled. She took them with her.”
There was a long silence.
Then Mark said, “I’m going over there.”
“We’re going over there.”
“Maybe Emma shouldn’t.”
“Emma is staying with me.”
I wasn’t letting her out of my sight.
When we reached Diane’s house, Mark was already on the porch.
He looked sick.
“She called me.”
“And?”
“She says we’re blowing this out of proportion.”
“Of course she thinks so.”
Emma took my hand as we walked inside.
Diane was standing in the living room.
The blue box sat on the coffee table.
I pointed at it.
“Open it.”
Diane crossed her arms.
“You’re behaving like a lunatic.”
“Open the box.”
Mark stepped forward.
“Mom.”
Something in his voice finally made her move.
She lifted the lid.
Inside were three tiny envelopes. Each had a date from the four days I’d been away.
My stomach dropped.
I picked one up.
There was a tooth inside.
Then another.
And another.
“Why did you keep them?”
Diane sighed.
“For the Tooth Fairy.”
“Then why didn’t Emma have them?”
“I was going to let her put them under her pillow one at a time.”
Emma suddenly spoke.
“You said I couldn’t have them.”
Diane looked at her.
“I said Grandma would take care of them.”
“No.”
Emma moved behind my arm.
“You said they were ugly.”
Diane’s face tightened.
“Emma, that’s not what I meant.”
“She told me not to smile.”
Mark looked at his mother.
“What?”
Emma was crying now.
“She took a picture and said I looked silly because you could see the crooked ones.”
Mark’s face went white.
I remembered Diane’s parting shot.
Ask Emma why she kept coming back.
Now I understood what she’d been doing.
She wasn’t just removing teeth.
She’d been convincing Emma that something was wrong with her until a seven-year-old believed letting Grandma “fix” her was better than being ugly.
Mark picked up the blue box.
“You’re done.”
Diane laughed once.
“Don’t act innocent. You told me to handle it.”
I turned to Mark.
“What?”
His face changed.
“I told her if one was already coming out, she could handle it. I didn’t think she’d pull anything that wasn’t ready.”
“Why?”
“Because I knew you’d say no.”
Emma’s voice came from behind me.
“I told Daddy on the phone I didn’t like when Grandma touched my teeth.”
Mark went pale.
I stared at him.
“You knew?”
“I thought Mom was just checking them. I was wrong.”
“You knew Emma didn’t like it.”
He looked at our daughter.
“I know.”
Then he turned to Diane.
“Look at her.”
For once, Diane did.
Emma immediately covered her mouth.
Mark’s voice broke.
“She never used to do that.”
Diane didn’t answer.
“She smiled in every picture. She smiled at strangers. She smiled with food stuck in her teeth. And now she’s hiding her mouth from you.”
“I was trying to help her.”
“No,” Mark said. “You were trying to change her.”
Diane looked at me.
I knew that expression.
This was somehow going to become my fault.
Sure enough, she said, “This is what happens when children are raised without standards.”
“What does that mean?”
Mark stared at her.
Then something in his expression changed.
“You did this to us too.”
I looked at him.
He was staring at the box.
“What?”
Mark touched one of his front teeth.
“When I was nine, she made me stop smiling with my mouth open.”
Diane scoffed.
“You had an enormous gap.”
“I was nine.”
“It was embarrassing.”
“For who?”
She didn’t answer.
“She made me retake my fourth-grade picture because I smiled.”
Diane folded her arms.
“You looked ridiculous.”
Mark stared at her.
“I was nine.”
Diane stood.
“This is absurd. I wanted my children to present themselves well.”
Mark shook his head.
“You made us ashamed of ourselves.”
Diane looked furious now.
“After everything I sacrificed for you.”
There it was.
The sentence that had ended every argument in Mark’s childhood.
Except this time, he didn’t back down.
“You don’t get to do it to Emma.”
Diane looked at her granddaughter.
“I love that little girl.”
“Then you should have listened when she said no.”
“I knew what was best.”
“She’s not your child.”
Diane flinched.
Mark put the lid back on the blue box.
“You won’t be alone with her again.”
“Mark.”
“No.”
His voice was calm.
That seemed to frighten her more than yelling would have.
“And whether she has a relationship with you after this will depend on what Emma is comfortable with. And if she does, you will never comment on her teeth, her hair, her body, her clothes, or whether she looks pretty enough for a picture.”
Diane looked at me.
“You’re going to let him do this?”
I almost laughed.
“You still think I’m the problem.”
We took the blue box home.
That night, I sat beside Emma on her bed.
I placed the envelopes in front of her.
“These belong to you.”
She touched one.
“Even the ugly ones?”
My heart broke all over again.
“There are no ugly ones.”
She studied my face.
“Grandma said people look at your teeth first.”
“Some people notice teeth. Some notice hair. Some notice shoes. But nobody gets to hurt you because they don’t like how something looks.”
She nodded.
Then she reached into her pajama pocket.
She still had the tooth she’d hidden.
“Can the Tooth Fairy have this one?”
“Only if you want her to.”
“What about those?”
She looked at the envelopes.
“Those don’t have to go anywhere.”
That seemed to surprise her.
“They can stay?”
“They’re yours.”
Emma smiled.
Just a little.
It was the first time since I’d come home that she hadn’t immediately covered her mouth.
Over the next few weeks, we had several dentist appointments.
Emma’s gums healed.
The dentist reassured us that the permanent teeth should come in normally, though we’d need to monitor them.
The harder part was getting Emma to smile again.
For a while, every time I lifted my phone, her lips closed.
So I stopped asking her to smile.
If she wanted a picture, we took one.
If she didn’t, we didn’t.
Mark did the same.
Diane called.
Then she texted.
Then she sent a long email explaining that she’d been raised to believe appearance mattered and that everything she’d done came from love.
Mark replied with one sentence.
“Love doesn’t make a child’s ‘no’ disappear.”
After that, we stopped arguing with her.
There was nothing left to argue about.
Three months later, Emma came running into the kitchen holding something between two fingers.
“Mom!”
I turned around.
She was grinning.
There was another gap in her mouth.
My heart jumped before I could stop it.
“What happened?”
“It fell out!”
She was laughing.
“By itself!”
She held up the tiny tooth like she’d won a trophy.
Mark came in from the living room.
“What happened?”
Emma spun toward him.
“Look!”
She opened her mouth as wide as she could.
Mark looked at me.
Neither of us said anything for a second.
Then he smiled.
“That is one impressive gap.”
Emma laughed.
“Take a picture!”
So I did.
She stood in the middle of the kitchen in mismatched socks, hair half out of its ponytail, holding her tiny tooth beside her face.
And she smiled.
Not carefully.
Not prettily.
Not the way someone had told her she should.
She smiled so wide I could see every crooked tooth and every space between them.
That night, Emma put the tooth under her pillow.
The others stayed in the blue box in her closet because Emma wanted to keep them.
They belonged to her.
A few weeks later, I printed the photograph from that night and put it in a frame.
Emma chose where it went.
Right in the living room.
The first thing you see when you walk through our front door is my daughter with messy hair, a missing tooth, and the biggest smile on her face.
For a while, I thought the worst thing Diane had done was pull teeth that weren’t ready to come out.
It wasn’t.
The worst thing was teaching a little girl that someone else’s idea of pretty mattered more than her right to say no.
The teeth would grow back.
That lesson was the thing we had to pull out by the root.
Enjoyed the read? Here is another story you will love: Long after my mother died, our neighbor returned the garden gnome she’d spent her final months searching for. I almost laughed at how much she’d worried about that ugly little thing, until it shattered on my kitchen floor.
