The first time I saw them, they were grinning at me from a glass on the bathroom sink. Just sitting there in that cloudy, fizzing water, they looked kind of alien and alive. Like some creature from a little aquarium. Grandpa Dan’s teeth. During the day, they were him the source of his wide, booming smile and the reason he could tackle a cob of corn with a ferocity that seemed almost dangerous.
But at night, they were just… this thing. This strangely intimate object left out in the open.
He caught me staring once. I must have been, I don't know, maybe seven. Instead of shooing me away, he just chuckled, a soft, gummy sound that was totally different from his usual laugh. He fished them out of the glass, water dripping from the pink plastic gums. "Go on," he said, holding them out. "They don't bite."
I remember the feel of them in my small palm. Impossibly light and smooth, and the teeth were a little too perfectly white, too evenly spaced. They weren't like real teeth, you know? With their little histories of chips and stains. They were a perfect, store-bought smile. In that moment, holding his teeth, I realized they were both a part of him and completely separate. A tool, really. A costume piece he put on every morning to face the world, and without them his face just sort of sunk into itself, his words softening into a gentle whistle. He looked older then, more vulnerable, more like the quiet man he became after Grandma passed.
Now, years later, the dentist mentions the word "implant" or "bridge" and my mind flies right back to that glass of water. I think of Grandpa’s false teeth not as some strange curiosity, but as him finally giving in to time. It’s an acknowledgment that the original parts have worn out and a substitute will have to do.
They’re the click you hear in a quiet room, that extra step in a nightly routine, the faint medicinal smell. They’re the period at the end of a long sentence. The quiet admission that while you can still sit at the table, the feast isn't quite the same.
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