Standard X-Ray Precautions

You’re at the dentist for your bi-annual cleaning and as you finish up—post-spit, pre-fluoride—the girl, the tech, comes in to give you your X-rays, and she asks, because she’s meant to ask, it’s part of her job, any chance you’re pregnant, ma’am? and you tell her, no, well, more than likely, no, but you’re thirty-nine and you finally decided to start trying in the last month—really it’s only been one month—so should you say something? well you’ve said something, what with the sign on the wall listing the X-ray precautions, and the tech says, okay, ma’am, I need to check with my boss, and she comes back a minute later—really that quick—and tells you she’ll just add another blanket that’s all, it’s no worries, really, and so she saddles you up, that extra apron over what’s more than likely an emptiness, silliness, princess-and-not-a-pea—what you’re thinking—but you’re quiet as she puts the plates into your mouth, tells you to bite down now release and again, repositioning the little plastic tabs and not causing you pain, no, but discomfort, sure, and you can’t respond, of course, but she makes conversation because it’s her job, this moving around a person who can’t speak and putting little slides of plastic into their mouths and telling them, just bite down okay now release, and as she continues the conversation—if that’s what you were having and not an admission, a confession, an uncharacteristic overshare—she says, that’s cool you’re trying for a baby, because she wants a baby, too, but she’s only twenty so not now, no, or anytime soon really, but one day, a baby sounds nice, and sure, you tell her, a baby someday would be nice, and she nods, dreamily you decide, as she relieves you of the plastic tab, turning your chin to insert the next one, humming a little as she works, and you find yourself lulled by her serene expression, your mind starting to wander (call it Schrödinger’s baby or the embarrassment over your non-revelation or maybe just the low-grade radiation heading your way), but you imagine the conversation continuing, the young woman repeating a baby one day or maybe two? One to keep the other one company? and yes, you’d say, a baby or two . . . and a pause and then, because it’s important she understand—but it’s knowing you want one that matters most, and, well, sure, she’d smile, but doesn’t everyone kno—and not wanting to hear her finish you’d pull out the plastic tab and—what’s luckier is you know now even if you’re not ready now because knowing young, well, you have all the time in the world (which is true of course until it isn’t) but, you’d continue, deciding you want a baby’s half the struggle, and she’d nod, wary but polite, and you’d feel something in response (whether or not you could name it outright) because it’s not her age you’re jealous of you realize but her knowing because when you don’t know and don’t try and don’t know and don’t try until one day a middle-of-the-night-but-really-middle-of-the-day-realization snapping to in your pristine living room—leather couch, empty rocks glass, nothing baby proof but maybe your own body—well by that time it might be too . . . and she intuits your expression and interrupts you kind, but firm, I bet the next time you’re here you have a little baby inside you, six months from now when we’re doing this again, why not, and think how many blankets we’ll need then five, ten? and in your fantasy she’d laugh, and you’d laugh, too, lulled, a believer, why not! eleven, twelve, twenty-five aprons all to keep the two (or three or four?) of you safe because when you know what you want (even if it’s taken a long time to decide)—and she sighs, now in the room with you, just think about it, she repeats, and you aren’t sure what the it is, or if it will ever be anything because you’ve long lost the thread but she’s finished the X-rays and turned away from you clicking at the computer and, there, look, she says, as the images appear on the screen before both of you, your teeth, those little un-bones, I always love how they glow like that, she says, then laughs, so you laugh, too, because you also love this part—always have—to peer inside yourself, the possibility, what’s been there all along, even if you never see it, only feel it, only know innately that it could and might never become true.