The School for Good Mothers(43)

They’re practicing the hug of contrition. This week, the instructors finally gave them toys—stacking rings and blocks and shape sorters and stuffed animals—but after an hour of playing, the dolls laughing, bonding seemingly within reach, the toys are snatched away, leaving the mothers to earn the dolls’ forgiveness. The instructors have been doing this every morning, setting off tantrums that last the entire day.

Frida would not say that she is used to the place or the uniforms or the lessons or the mothers or the dolls, but she is growing used to the headaches. The throbbing behind her eyes is part of her life here, as is her dry skin and bleeding gums and aching knees and sore back, the sensation of never being clean, the tightness in her wrists and shoulders and jaw. She has a new roommate, Roxanne, a Black mother in her early twenties whose seven-month-old baby boy, Isaac, is in foster care. Roxanne let her twelve-year-old niece babysit Isaac when she got called into work on a Sunday. A passerby saw the girl wheeling Isaac in his stroller in front of Roxanne’s apartment building and called the police. He was only five months old when they took him.

Roxanne is from North Philly, had been a student at Temple, was just beginning her senior year. Poli-sci major, with a minor in media studies. She doesn’t talk about Isaac much, but she’s asked Frida about the stages of development she’s missing. Before all this happened, Isaac was just learning to sit up. He’ll be crawling soon. Roxanne said Frida is lucky. She had a year and a half with Harriet. Harriet will know Frida’s face. Her voice. What will Isaac remember about his mother? Nothing.

Roxanne has skeptical, inky almond-shaped eyes and a button nose and waist-length dreads that she plays with incessantly. She is compact and bosomy, with hips so narrow it’s unclear how she birthed a baby. She changes her clothes quietly, makes her bed quietly, never wants to gossip, never lets Frida see her naked, but, unfortunately for Frida, she talks and laughs in her sleep. Her dream laughter is charmed and abundant. Her dreams, if Frida is interpreting them correctly, involve fragrant meadows and mountain streams, a gentleman caller.

Frida wishes she could laugh about it with Will. She wants to tell him about Roxanne rustling the sheets and smiling in the dark. She wants to tell him that these buildings are composed of pheromones and regret. Hostility. Longing. That it’s possible to stop noticing sadness. That the sound of women crying now resembles white noise.



* * *



Some say the dolls needed time to get used to them. Some say all progress is due to the mothers. Some say the dolls’ cooperation has been programmed to increase competition. Regardless of the reason, the impossible has happened. There have been breakthroughs. Trust has been established. Mothers are meeting their dolls’ needs.

In Frida’s cohort, the leader is Linda, who, on Friday morning, quiets her doll with an eight-second hug and a two-second bounce-bounce.

The instructors ask the class to observe. They silence the other dolls, then taunt Linda’s doll with a teddy bear, which is then snatched away. Linda, who has birthed and allegedly neglected many, moves in swift and graceful. She presses her doll firmly to her shoulder, delivering affirmations in Spanish and English. She bounces the doll with jittery motions, as if she’s preparing a cocktail. She pats and dips. Soon, the doll is calm.

Linda takes a long, satisfied look at her classmates, her gaze settling on Lucretia.

The mothers cross their arms and tilt their heads and bite their tongues. It had to be random. No child, not even a pretend one, is safe with Linda.

Ms. Russo has Linda explain her hug strategy.

“I have to think like an athlete,” Linda says. “It’s like we’re at the Olympics. Every day, we’re going for the gold. My family is the gold. I can’t have my kids growing up without me. I don’t want to just be some bitch—excuse me, some woman they hear stories about.”

When the rest of the dolls are unfrozen, they all run to Linda. She is the pied piper. The shepherdess. Mother Goose. The instructors ask her to give her classmates pointers, a shift in power that results in a frosty lunch hour. Lucretia goes so far as to dump salt into Linda’s coffee when her back is turned.

No one wants to take their cues from Linda, but with her success in mind, and the potential shame of being bested by the woman who supposedly put her six children in a hole, the mothers hug faster and faster. Some hugs resemble putting out a fire. Others resemble wrestling moves. Eventually, Lucretia quiets her doll, then Beth.

After each breakthrough, they reflect as a group. The instructors say they should interrogate themselves every night. They should ask: “What did I learn today? Where is there room for improvement?”

“A mother is a shark,” Ms. Russo says. “You’re always moving. Always learning. Always trying to better yourself.”

It’s almost goodbye time. Frida counts to six, counts to eight, thinks of Harriet running on the playground, Harriet weak from vomiting, Harriet’s nosebleed, the last time they touched. She says, “I love you. Please forgive me.”

Emmanuelle stops crying. Frida can’t believe it. She raises her hand, trying to catch Ms. Russo’s attention. She checks the doll’s face for moisture and dabs the remaining tears away. She kisses Emmanuelle’s forehead. Their eyes meet in kinship. Contentment has been achieved. It feels better than she imagined.



* * *



Six inches of snow fall overnight. The campus turns stark and enchanted. Frida, Teen Mom, and two mothers from a different cohort are assigned to shovel the walkways from Pierce to the science buildings. The mothers have seen the regular maintenance staff use snowblowers, but questions about snowblowers are rebuffed. Snowblowers are shortcuts, Ms. Gibson says, and shortcuts are not what cleaning crew is about.