False Teeth

My great-grandmother Leta had false teeth. When I was a young child, I thought they were perfect teeth—beautiful and incredibly white. Sometimes I noticed she would stretch her jaw, as if she had something in her teeth or it was stiff. When she did this, we also heard something that sounded like cracking of the knuckles. I didn’t know what that meant, but there was a time when my brother, sister and I all learned how to crack our knuckles, and I wanted to crack my jaw, too, like Grandma Eckman did.

I learned that she had dentures one morning when we stopped by my grandparents’ home. I don’t know where we were going, but my mother wanted to stop, and instead of waiting in the car with my siblings, I went inside with her. I needed to use the toilet. Grandma Eckman was spending a few days with them, as she was wont to do on occasion. She stayed in my teenaged aunt’s room, forcing my aunt to temporarily sleep on the pullout couch upstairs.

Briefly, my grandparents’ house was basically one story with a basement. On the first floor, there were several rooms: kitchen, dining room, living room, two bedrooms and a full bath. My grandparents occupied one of the bedrooms and my aunt (until shortly before my grandmother died) occupied the second. There was a full basement with a large family-style room with a built-in bar at one end, a large work/rec/laundry room with a pool table, and a fruit cellar. The upstairs was comprised mostly of a third bedroom and half-bath. My father and uncle shared that room—although there were only a few years from the time my uncle moved into the room and my dad married my mom and moved into his own home. At the top of the stairs was a large landing with a closet, desk and pullout bed.

Anyway, while my mother and Grandma Metzker were in the kitchen chatting, I made my way hastily into the bathroom, and when I finished, I turned to the sink to wash my hands. There in a clear glass were two sets of teeth soaking.  I was fascinated. They looked like a science experiment. I wasn’t a toucher, so I just looked at them and wished that I could show my sister. (She was the toucher.) I even twisted myself, so I could see around the glass.

They were teeth!

I must have been in there for some time, because I was startled when someone tapped on the door.

“Jerry, are you all right in there?”

“Just washing my hands,” I called. When I left the room, my grandmother was alone in the kitchen.

“Did you wash your hands?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Good. Your mom is in the car waiting for you.”

I looked at her very hard. She wasn’t missing her teeth. And the ones in the glass couldn’t be my grandfather’s. He was at work.  They must have been Grandma Eckman’s. Just as I walked out the door, I saw that she had left her room and went into the bathroom.

“Grandma Eckman has false teeth,” I told my siblings after I was back in the car. “I saw them in a glass in the bathroom.”

My brother shrugged his shoulders. “So does Grandma Metzker,” he said.

I was stunned. I had just looked at her teeth, and they seemed normal.

“I saw them once when she was brushing them,” my brother explained. “She was in the bathroom with the door open.”

We were all a little stunned with the knowledge. I wondered how it happened and what it would be like to have false teeth.

* * * * * * * * * *

Leta lost her teeth slowly at first, a tooth pulled here and there, particularly on the bottom. First, she had a partial denture fitted for her lower teeth, so she could chew. She continued to have more teeth issues, and finally she agreed with the dentist to have the remainder of her them removed. She was 55 years old.

“This happens a lot to women with your background,” the dentist told her.

“What do you mean?” she asked, expecting that he would call into question her reputation.

“You know,” he explained nonchalantly, “working folks, not farmers, who don’t always get to eat the best foods in your childhood. The teeth just never get strong enough.”

She reluctantly agreed.

While losing her teeth did not necessarily make her feel old, she did feel that it was a kind of weakness. However, the constant discomfort of her quickly deteriorating teeth was affecting her greatly. Her teeth hurt constantly, and she had terrible halitosis.  So over the course of a few months, she had all of her teeth removed, a temporary denture so she could eat and talk, and then her own dentures made and installed. While the false teeth took some getting used to, she quickly adapted and as far as anyone she met from that point on knew, these were her normal teeth.

June 19, 1946 and After, part three

Leta's daughter Vivian and her husband Ed arrived just as the ambulance attendants were carrying the stretcher out the door. Leta was standing on the porch in her bathrobe watching them. She vaguely recalled that one of the medics had helped her put it on after she spoke with him in her bedroom. It wasn’t a long conversation. They had barely started when his colleague called for him to return to the bathroom where her husband was lying on the floor. About an hour earlier, she was still in bed and heard a sound from the bathroom that woke her. Or maybe she was already awake. She could have stirred from the moment her husband Bob rose from the bed. In any case, she went to the bathroom to check on him and found him lying on the floor, his body splayed so much that she could not open the door more than a few inches. Nor could she see his face. She called his name, but he did not respond.

Now he was being carried away. She watched them load him into the ambulance.

“Ma,” Vivian said, “What happened?”

She didn’t have to ask how her stepfather was. She could see plainly that the ambulance medics had covered him completely with a sheet.

“They think he had a heart attack,” Leta said, her voice hollow and seeming to come from someone else.

The next several days went by with the speed of a person stranded on an island: the minutes dragged, and then suddenly, the day was over. Leta performed all the tasks she needed to with the assistance of Vivian and her son Dale. They sent a telegram to Bob’s brother in Montana, his only known relative, but time and the distance he would need to travel was too great for him to come for the funeral.

She had been through this kind of situation before—with the death of her beloved Albert and with her mother before him. But those deaths occurred many years ago. Additionally, Bob’s death was so unexpected—the day before they were taking a two-week vacation to Niagara Falls and through Ontario, Canada. Fortunately, she had her family near to her—her children and grandchildren, her sisters and brother. They provided comfort and much needed assistance, as she held the funeral and burial.

Now the funeral and wake were over, and she was by herself in the home she shared with her husband. After Vivian, Ed and Don left, she went into the kitchen. It was immaculate. Vivian had made sure of that. She didn’t want coffee or beer or even sherry. She poured herself a short glass of milk, and took it into the living room. Together, she and the milk, sat quietly, part of the stillness of the summer night. Crickets chirped their nighttime song, and a few times she thought she heard an owl hoot. She could have been there for only a few minutes, or actually hours, which is what it seemed to her.

She drank the milk, rose, and took the glass into the kitchen, rinsed it out, and left it in the sink. Someone had left the back porch light on, so she turned it off, walked out of the kitchen and down the hall, bypassing the dining room, went up the stairs and into her bedroom. She first turned down the bed, and changed into her nightgown. Then she went into the bathroom. Although she had been in the room many times since her husband’s death, it still took effort for her to go in. She could still feel his presence there and gingerly stepped around the shadow of where his body lay.

In the mirror, an old woman looked back at her. She was only fifty years old, but a widow—twice. Her skin was white and thin. She could see veins here and there. There were circles under her eyes and her lower jaw sagged. Her hair was graying and seemed to have much more white in it than it had only six days earlier when she went to the hairdressers. Her shoulders seemed to be caving in. She rinsed her face and patted it dry with a towel. Then she returned to the bedroom and climbed into the bed.

Within a week’s time, she was sleeping in the second bedroom. By the end of the summer, she had decided to sell the house and move into a smaller one. By Christmas she was working again. She didn’t necessarily need the money. She needed to occupy herself.  Her life was moving forward.

June 19, 1946 and After, part two

Leta's body temperature suddenly rose. She stepped back from the bathroom door. Her heart rate went up so quickly that she could not only feel, but also hear it. She knew, but she did not want to believe. She opened the bathroom door again, pushing it a little bit harder. Her husband Robert’s leg only gave slightly, maybe another inch, and not willingly. He was lying on the floor in such a way that she could not see his face. He was on his side with his legs spread apart like the blades of a pair of scissors that were shaken free from the hand and let fall. She watched him. She did not know how long she stood there; time had become meaningless to her. He remained still, but every time she blinked, she wondered if perhaps she might be wrong, that he had moved a little.

It was still dark, but with the slight glow from the bathroom combined with the natural ambient light, she made her way down the stairs and to the telephone. First, she called for an ambulance. Then she telephoned her daughter Vivian. The telephone rang several times before her daughter answered. The voice was deeper than usual, but smooth and steady, unlike most individuals who were awakened abruptly.

“Hello?” she said.

“Vivian, it’s Ma,” Leta said, trying to maintain her composure, although her calm started slipping quickly upon hear her daughter’s voice.

“Ma?” Vivian was even more alert. “What is it?”

“Bob fell. He’s in the bathroom.”

“He fell?” Vivian inquired. “Is he all right?”

Leta listened to her own breathing. Her mouth was open, and she had to pause before more explanatory words formed themselves.

“He’s still lying there.” A picture of her husband in the bathroom flashed in her mind. “Maybe he threw up,” she said aloud, as if her daughter was not listening on the other end of telephone line. Then she listened again to her own breathing.

“Ma?” Vivian said gently after waiting for more information. Her warm voice drew Leta back into the conversation.

“I’ve called for an ambulance.”

“Yes, of course,” Vivian agreed. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

“Good-by,” Leta said in response and hung up the telephone.

The telephone was settled on a little table in a corner of the dining room, nearest the kitchen. They had a little wooden desk for it with a little chair. She rarely talked long on the telephone so she never sat down, but this morning, she pulled the chair out and sat on it. It was wood, and she was uncomfortable. She should have gone right back up stairs to check on Bob, but she lacked the wherewithal to move. She wasn’t even sure if she was breathing.

All she felt was emptiness.

When the ambulance arrived, she directed the medical personnel to the bathroom. They were friendly and confident young men. One of them pushed on the door and called her husband’s name. He looked at his partner, who then gently took her by the arm.

“Come with me into the bedroom and tell me what happened,” he said in a soft voice. She obeyed. The first young man stood at the bathroom door and watched them walk away. He turned on the bedroom light. She was embarrassed, because the bed was unmade, some clothes were lying about, and their suitcases were sitting against one wall. Robert’s was still open on her vanity’s stool, as she was still packing it.

“Please, sit down,” he said, and she obeyed.

“He’s dead, isn’t he?” she asked.

He was startled by her question, and froze for an instant before releasing a large breath of air.

“Yes, Mrs. Fields, we believe so.”

To be continued.

June 19, 1946 and After, part one

She was alone. Finally. Her last two companions, her daughter Vivian and son-in-law Edward, just drove away with their six-year-old son bundled up in the backseat of the car. The little guy had fallen asleep earlier in the evening, and without waking him, his mother wrapped him in a blanket and his father lovingly lifted him from the bed and carried him to the car.

Before she followed them out of the room, Leta put her hand on the warm spot where her grandson recently lay, but only for a moment. She wanted to walk her family to the door, and besides, the memories once again overwhelmed her.

It was June 23, 1946, and her husband Robert Fields, had been laid to rest that afternoon. The ceremony was brief, and the attendance was light. After all, he had no family of his own, and Leta’s was quite small – two children, their respective spouses, three of her siblings and their spouses, and a few friends. After the burial, they gathered at the house, ate, and reminisced. Most of them stayed for a long while, for her sake—so she would not be so alone.

After their friends, her son Dale and his wife Kate left earliest. They had two small children staying with Kate’s sister and wanted to get home to them. Then, one-by-one, Leta’s siblings headed to their respective homes, until finally, she just had Vivian, Edward, and Donald. The boy had been very good the entire day. As it was a pleasant June afternoon, his father took him outside for a good romp around the yard. Don liked to perform somersaults, and despite wearing his best clothes, his father let him roll around the yard. He did them over and over again.

“He’ll get filthy,” Leta told her daughter from the kitchen window, where they watched a few repetitions.

“I know,” Vivian said, standing as close to her mother as she could without touching. The family was not physical people in that way.

“They should just play catch with the ball you brought,” Leta suggested. “Why don’t you tell them.”

“They’ll be fine, Ma,” Vivian said, finally putting a hand gently on her mother’s shoulder. “I can wash everything.”

“He looked so handsome in his suit,” Leta said, her voice quivering.

“Bob was a handsome man,” Vivian agreed.

“I meant Don,” Leta corrected.

She had not intended to think so much about her recently deceased husband. She was already feeling numb from his sudden death. Only four days earlier, in the wee hours of the morning, he had risen from their bed. She hadn’t even noticed until she heard the thud from the bathroom. It wasn’t a loud noise, but she woke.

“Bob?” she called quietly.

She felt as though all the air had been sucked out of the house. When he didn’t respond, she called his name again, this time louder. There was still no answer. She rose and walked cautiously out the bedroom door. The bathroom light was on; the light leaking from underneath the door. She could hear nor see any movement.

“Bob?” she inquired again, as she took the last few steps to the door. There was still no answer. She tapped the door lightly and called his name again. The door was not completely closed and she pushed against it gently. It opened only a few inches and then was blocked, but it was enough room for her to poke her head in. The universe shrank to a small circle of light. Within that circle, she saw her husband lying on the bathroom floor, pressed up against the sink and toilet with his face on the right cheek and eyes open, staring blankly at the wall beside the door.

“Bob?” she said one last time.

To be continued.

Xxx