Mary Swan, "Washington's Teeth"

from Zoetrope: All-Story, Fall 2010, Vol. 14, No. 3

—If she were the same woman who’d left her house this morning, with clean shoes and tidy hair, she could go to that sunny café with the pale wood and hanging plants. But it would be too bright, wouldn’t it, and they might recognize her there—although she doesn’t go often—and wonder what’s gone wrong.


A woman goes about her errands for the day, a trip to the dentist, and to the optometrist, and the coffee shop. Along the way she observes things, remembers things, wonders things.

There seems to be a lot of uncertainty in her life, about things she thinks knows, about her decisions, her appearance, her presence.

She’s someone often on the outside of her own life looking in and constantly aware of the appearance of her actions. She’s the sort of person who is constantly replaying the latest conversation to find the thing she should have said that would have been better, funnier, smarter. She’s the person who goes home to check the facts, to make sure that what she said was actually correct, when she suddenly doubts that her knowledge is trustworthy.

She may have reason to distrust the things a person knows.

A nice simple story.