What is Needed

Faithna Geffrard

A sour taste filled her mouth every time she nudged the second molar on the right side. For months it had a dull ache, so she chewed on the left side. Now a sharp pain pulsated beneath the gums causing the entire right side of her jaw to throb. At best, the small white tubes of over-the-counter tooth ache gel paused the pain allowing her thirty-minute reprieves of sleep. At worse, the pain drummed in every part of her brain. The hammering smashed against the bones of her skull, she wished to open her head and remove them one by one. 

And still, she could not stop nudging the tooth. In the blue tiled bathroom of her apartment, she used her pinky finger to pull her mouth open. In the watery, pink cave the infected tooth stood out. Grey and cracked while its mates were shades of white. She nudged it again and winced at the immediate agony.    

Eli popped his head into the doorframe and grimaced. “You need to get that thing checked out.” His voice leaned closer to disgust than concern.

Nella made eye contact with him in the mirror and glared. She knew what she needed to do. But she was hyperaware that she could not. Nursing provided her the salary to send money to her mother, and for her mother to send a part of that to family in Haiti. Four days on with twelve-hour shifts stretched her mind and body beyond their human capabilities. Followed by three days off where she balanced between caring for her younger siblings across town and being immobile in bed.

It wasn’t as simple as going to the dentist and Eli knew that. He knew that it was her salary that paid the bills while he drove her car and tried to make a career out of playing video games. He called it “streaming”. She called the microphone, dual monitors, ring light, adjustable desk, ergonomic desk chair, and sound mixing equipment that took up their spare bedroom a waste. In his yearlong endeavor, Eli successfully brought in $103. 

She made monthly payments into a dental plan that limited the dentists she could see in a three-mile radius, ten miles away from her home. Some had dental plans that included credit checks from their in-house financing and others obliged to being seen promptly if you paid $1,000 out of pocket.

From the mirror, she watched Eli fold himself into meekness before walking away. Nella squeezed the crimson gel from the tube and glided it over the sides of her tooth. Work started in an hour; she could use the sleep.