The School for Good Mothers(37)

“But she doesn’t like me,” Beth says. “I can tell. What if that’s her personality? What if they gave me a bad one? What if she’s a bad seed?” She starts telling Lucretia how her mother once called her a bad seed, how that fucked up her whole childhood.

“Beth, seriously, pull it together,” Lucretia tells her. “You’re going to get all of us in trouble.”

Frida feels her chest loosen once she gets outside. She longs for her narrow street and her tiny dark house.



* * *



Frida’s roommate, Helen, is quitting. The whispers begin the next morning at the bathroom sinks. Some say her doll son spat in her face. Some say her instructors were too harsh. Some say she went into shock when the dolls appeared and never recovered. How old is she? Fifty? Fifty-two? The older mothers are having trouble adjusting.

All eyes are on Frida as she enters the dining hall. Mothers sidle up to her table, plying her with smiles and compliments, offering to bring her a fresh cup of coffee. Frida refuses to talk. She’s desperate to gossip and would like to use her fleeting cachet to acquire some friends, but there are rules to consider and women in pink lab coats circling.

“We should respect her privacy,” Frida tells them. The answer is too pat. The other mothers call her cunt and bitch and pussy. A white mother makes ching-chong noises in her ear. Another knocks her silverware to the ground. April, the tattooed mother from the bus, now points in her direction and whispers to the trio of middle-aged white women. Someone at the next table refers to her as the uptight Chinese bitch. She hears her name being whispered. The one who left her baby at home. The one who says she had a bad day.

“Ignore them,” Lucretia says. “They’ll forget about you by lunchtime.”

Frida is too nervous to eat. She passes Lucretia the other half of her bagel.

Lucretia says only a white lady would quit on the second day. If a Black mother tried a stunt like this, they’d throw her ass in jail, maybe have her get shot on the way there and make it look like she killed herself. Several Black mothers at the next table overhear Lucretia and laugh knowingly.

Linda tells Frida, “Your roommate is weak as fuck.”

“I don’t think she actually loves her son,” Beth says. “Imagine when he finds out his mom is a coddler and a quitter. The state should be paying for that kid’s therapy.”

Frida stirs her coffee. She wants to tell them about the tone Helen took with Ms. Gibson, how Helen called the dolls monsters. The school gave her a six-foot-tall doll son, built like a linebacker, far taller and stronger than her real boy. How could she be expected to control him? He refused to hug. He wouldn’t answer to his new given name—Norman. He called Helen old and fat and ugly, demanded a different mother. Helen said the program was a mind-fuck. Psychological torture.

Ms. Gibson told Helen to modulate her aggression. Be more open-minded. Stop projecting. Helen, you are a bad mother, but you are learning—

Helen waved her finger in Ms. Gibson’s face. What did changing the blue liquid have to do with parenting? What about the cameras inside the dolls, the sensors, the biometric nonsense, the insane curriculum? What were they being taught? Was it even possible to pass?

Ms. Gibson reminded Helen about the consequences of leaving. Did she really want to end up on the registry?

“I don’t think the registry is real,” Helen said. “My son is seventeen. We’ll be apart for a year at most. Then he’ll come find me. I should have thought harder about that before coming here. The judge made it seem like I had a choice, but choice and this place do not belong in the same sentence.”

After lights-out, Helen tried to convince Frida to leave with her. Her niece is coming to pick her up. Frida could stay with her, join her in a lawsuit, take a stand. “We can stop them,” Helen said.

Frida delivered the required platitudes about Helen’s son as a beacon of hope, tried to convince Helen to give the program another chance, hated herself for feeling tempted. She imagined showing up at Gust and Susanna’s door, making them promise not to tell Ms. Torres. But that was no solution. And Helen will never sue. She’ll never go to the media. Helen said she wasn’t afraid of the registry, if it even exists. That her lawyer can fight it. But Frida knows she’s all talk.

After breakfast, the mothers gather on the steps of Pierce. They watch as Helen’s niece pulls into the rose garden circle. Helen is escorted out by Ms. Gibson and one of the guards. Today, she takes the crown from Linda as the worst mother, the baddest bitch.

The mothers whisper, “Fuck her.” “Fuck this.”

Helen looks back at them and raises a fist. Some mothers wave. Others flick her off. The mother next to Frida sniffles. Helen and her niece hug and laugh. Frida is chastened, surprised that after only two days here, the sound of a car pulling away can break her heart.



* * *



Building upon the one, two, three release model, the mothers practice varieties of affection. The hug that conveys apology. The hug that conveys encouragement. The hug that soothes physical injury. The hug that soothes the spirit. Different cries require different hugs. The mothers must become discerning. Ms. Khoury and Ms. Russo demonstrate.

Lucretia raises her hand. “I swear I’ve been paying attention, but all those hugs look exactly the same.” The others agree. How are they supposed to tell which cry goes with which problem goes with which hug? What difference does it make? Why can’t they ask their doll what’s wrong?