Thank you all for your kind suggestions regarding Helena's teeth. However, you should take not that your responses have caused a veritable melt-down of her self-confidence. It is hard to talk about something like gums on a sight like this, what without any visuals. So let me try and paint the picture for you a little better.
In truth, Helena's teeth could launch a thousand ships. They have. All of them filled to the brim with fluoride and dental floss. She is a big flosser, in truth. She is silent about this, but we are all so often silent about our secret prides. And this is it--for Helena, her teeth are her secret pride. We all suspect ourselves of one of life's cardinal virtues--for Helena, it is her smile.
So when she asked about her gums, it was an effort by a woman desperately afraid of losing the thing she imagines to be her very image in the world. So let me represent her teeth to you. No, their not all /\/\/\/\/\ peeping from those gums. Think more two perfect hyperbolic curves of gleeming whiteness. Taj Mahal whiteness. Gleeming in the noonday sun.
I believe the "looseness" she speaks of is not really so much a physical matter as a curious belief that her life is spinning out of control. One tooth at a time.
But as for now, Helena's teeth gleem still. They are extraordinary, and you would all be lucky to see them. Gums and all.