True Fiction

“Dear My Tooth Fairy,” Harper writes. “I have a very wiggly tooth. I just wanted to warn you. It started hurting in school. If you don’t know, ‘school’ is where kids learn.”

“Anyway, I have a soft lunch but I am still worried. In case you weren’t using your sensors, I wrote you. Send a message on the back tonight. Date: 12/3/15 (December 3rd, 2015)  – Harper. P.S. It’s okay if you have a late note.”

The note stayed under Harper’s pillow with a flashlight, a pen, and in case her Tooth Fairy  needed more room to write, another piece of paper until January 1, 2016 when Harper grew concerned that her fairy had forgotten about her.

“Dear tooth fairy,” she writes again. “I HAVE A VERY WIGGLY TOOTH. I was wondering why you didn’t come last night when I also wrote to you. I was just kind of suspicious. I was just afraid something happened to you like you’re not the real tooth fairy of mine.”

On the first of the New Year, Harper came downstairs terribly upset. “Daddy,” she said crying, “I don’t want my tooth to fall out because I don’t know where my Tooth Fairy is. She hasn’t written me back and what if she doesn’t know how to get from Colorado to where we live now?”

Harper’s first tooth popped out in Colorado, in a bookstore called Inkwell and Brew. It’s the loveliest of bookstores if there ever was one, and I was so lost in delight looking at the paper and the books and the pens and the prints that I said to Jesse, “I think I could live here if it weren’t for the grizzly bears.” That’s when Harper’s tooth fell out, and even the lady behind the cash register cheered despite the blood that comes with the loss of things we outgrow. Anyway, this was why Harper was afraid her Tooth Fairy wouldn’t find her.  It is a long way from Colorado to Maryland.

I wonder about those eight lines that Harper left blank before she signed her named and added a “PS” about Hadley. Was there too much to wonder about, and was it too hard to put down what she wondered about on paper? Articulating what I am trying to believe in is one of the most difficult parts about writing for me. I wish I could give her some advice on what to do when words don’t come for what we want to believe in. Maybe a blank space and a faith that it’ll be filled someday is what we ought to hope in.

“Harper,” I said, “Tooth Fairies can only fly when they know their special kid has lost a tooth. She’s waiting, I know it, and I’m sure she wants to write to you, but she can only do that once that tooth falls out. She hasn’t forgotten you, sweet girl.” Harper sat between Jesse and I on the couch. We were watching the Rocky movies and Jesse paused it just as Rocky was starting his training all by himself at 4am in the Philadelphia cold; cracking four or five eggs into a cup and drinking them, then trying to run up the Philadelphia Museum of Art steps. “How could anyone forget about you?” I asked her and tickled her belly.

“Let me see that thing,” Jesse said and walked her over to the bathroom. Holding his hand, she stood in the light and opened her mouth.

“Is it OK if I just see how wiggly it is?” Jesse asked her.

“Uh, huh,” Harper said squeezing Jesse’s hand.

With his other, he popped her tooth right out.

“She’s on her way!” I gasped and clapped my hands. “This is so exciting!”

Harper pranced back upstairs, delighted, and in blue at the top of her note, she added, “Date: 1/1/16, Friday,” and, “I lost it.”

She fell asleep, and Jesse and I watched Rocky beat Apollo Creed. I cry every time I watch the Rocky movies. I roll my eyes at Downton Abby, but I sob watching Rocky. What is wrong with me?

“Did you notice that ‘Resurrection’ poster at the beginning of the movie?” I asked Jesse. “Why is Apollo’s last name Creed? What’s going on there?” I wondered out loud. “Did you know Sylvestor Stallone wrote all these?”

The truth is Harper keeps this note under her pillow. The truth is this note has replaced the other note her Tooth Fairy wrote her and put by Harper’s sleeping head in Colorado.  The truth is Harper took the note with her to Raleigh, and I didn’t ask, but I think she did it so her Tooth Fairy always knows where she is.

The truth is Harper makes me believe in magic, and that I can be anything I dare to imagine; even while I contend with my own grizzly bears in a big space where I can’t find the words but hope that my showing up every day to face them is enough.