Chapter 14: Open Wide

The waiting room of the dental office on Main Street was full at ten to seven.

A banner in the window said BLACK FRIDAY WHITENING, HALF OFF, WALK-INS WELCOME.

Eight women sat in the chairs with paper bibs already clipped on, and a ninth stood at the front desk with her coat on.

I knew four of them.

A woman from the church altar guild sat by the fish tank. Beside her sat my mother's closest friend since the eighth grade.

Lark came in behind me in her leather jacket and stood against the door.

"That's Joan's boy," somebody whispered.

"The one with the order against him."

"I heard he struck his own fiancée."

Monique was behind the desk in clean white scrubs.

She looked at me once, took a breath, and came around the counter.

"Everyone," she said. Her voice cracked and she cleared her throat. "Before I start the cleanings, I have something to say."

The room went quiet.

"Monique," said the dentist, leaning out of a back office. "We're behind."

"Two minutes, Doctor. Please."

She twisted the ring on her left hand.

It came off slowly, because it had been on her finger two years.

She set it on the front desk next to the bowl of free toothbrushes.

"This is Calvin Ellingwood's ring," she said. "He's standing right here. I told the police on Tuesday that I had never seen him in my life."

Somebody gasped.

"That was a lie. I was paid to tell it."

"By whom?" said the altar guild woman.

Monique took out her phone and connected it to the speaker in the ceiling that usually played soft piano.

"By the person who booked half of you into my chair tonight," she said. "So you'd hear me say he hit me."

She pressed play.

The piano cut off.

My sister's voice came out of the ceiling, warm and kind, the same recording Monique had played on my grandfather's porch.

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