GABBY
PARKER
CAPES

My orthodontist used to say teeth have memories. They return to exactly the same place they were before braces if you regress from the lifelong commitment to wearing your retainer. My retainer came packages inside an iridescent plastic case, like a clam shell plucked from the ocean floor. Pried open, it revealed my mother’s pearl of wisdom, “wear it Gabby, or your teeth will move back”. 

I was freshly fifteen the day my braces came off. The all-beige waiting room was so quiet, you could hear the pages crinkling as my mum shamelessly rubbed the perfume sample onto the underside of her wrist. And yet it was impossible to make out the sitcom airing on TV, which featured dream teens without braces, because they were actually 25-year-old Model-Slash-DJ’s from LA.

I used to consider orthodontics an accessory de rigueur for the suburban teenager. Like funding Catholic school, paying for driving lessons and hosting unsupervised house parties however, having braces was contingent upon my mum religiously working overnight shifts at the hospital. 

The aforementioned Catholic school of my teenage past was a vacuum for identity. Blazers were mandatory. Ties had to restrict breathing, otherwise it was a dress code violation (and punishable by death). There was no nail polish, no hair dye, and absolutely no means of self-expression that could offend the Vatican, or worse, ‘present the school in a bad light’. Naturally, the only creative outlet left was coordinating the colour of my braces to the upcoming holiday season. Red for Valentine’s Day; Green for St. Patrick’s Day....

This continued until one fateful Christmas Eve. Reclined all the way back in the orthodontist chair, the blood rushed to my head like a champagne nightcap, and under a woozy spell of seasonal festivity, I selected an alternating pattern of red and green bands. 

Red, green, red, green, red. 

Little did I foresee that I would be grinning ear-to-ear like a Christmas tree in my school picture come January. At my mother’s insistence, this relic of seasons past takes pride of place on the living room mantle. Deep down, I think she sees it as a token of her love and success as a parent. Sometimes love can be suffocating though, like a tight retainer. 

Wearing my retainer is how I learned to articulate love. As I'm nodding off to sleep, my mum's voice intrudes into my dreams. "Your teeth will move back" she tuts, as my hands clutches instinctively for the iridescent case on the nightstand of my teenage room. Eventually my adult surroundings blur into focus, and I blindly traipse the length of my New York apartment for the stowaway in the bathroom cabinet. 

For a second I catch my reflection in the mirror; crusted dobs of Clearasil freckled across my face. Shutting the light off for the second time — retainer snug against my teeth — I’m flooded with teenage discomfort, and the realisation that we never really leave behind the pain of growing up.