As I hit my rhythm scooping and oozing the stone into the impression’s nooks and crannies, I pictured using this method to create a 3-D Cháng’é.

Suddenly I stood up straighter. This really was just art, I realized. I knew my parents had been saying that forever, but now I actually understood.

A laugh escaped my lips as I remembered how Drew hadn’t even gotten this far on his day here. I pictured him cringing over the patient’s mouth. Poor guy, just like poor Mr. Stinky Tofu.

And with that I forgot that I was going to confront my parents later today, and I hummed to the vibrating machine, also forgetting that I was holding something that had been in the dirtiest part of another human being.

The day started and ended with emergency visits, and in between, my parents caught up on records and billing while I helped them with their lab backlog. When the last patient left, I helped my mother CaviCide the operatory. Spray, wipe, spray, let sit. I’d been doing this since I was a preteen.

“You finished the Essix retainer for Lee Ǎyí?” my mother asked.

I nodded. “Why do you make so many of those as temporary mouth guards when a real mouth guard is so much better for the teeth?”

She sighed. “Not everyone can afford a mouth guard, even if I only charge them the lab fee and not for my time. Insurance doesn’t cover it. So I make them a free Essix. It’s not as sturdy as a traditional mouth guard, but it helps them in the short term.”

“Why don’t you charge them? It’s a lot of work for me,” I joked, even though I kind of enjoyed softening the plastic with heat and then using suction to hug it to the stone mold of the patient’s teeth. But between pouring the mold, letting it dry, and making the retainer, it was hours of work.

“We’re a community,” she said quietly, and I knew she was thinking about her Bible study and what I’d done to her place in said community.

“I’m sorry,” I said again, which, of course I was sorry, but also, why was I always the one apologizing?

“Thank you for your help today,” my mother said, then left.

I was so frozen I heard her enter the office she shared with my father, then flop into her desk chair.

After a few minutes of listening to them click-clack at their respective keyboards—my mother a distinctive click pause pause click clack pause and my dad a slow but steady click click click clack—I took a deep breath, coughing when the CaviCide burned my nose. Then I strode over and into their office with confidence.