The School for Good Mothers(5)
Frida tugs at her hair, pulling it loose. “My daughter hasn’t been sleeping. She’s supposed to take two naps a day, and she hasn’t been napping at all. I’ve been sleeping on her floor. She won’t fall asleep unless I’m holding her hand. And if I try to leave the room, she wakes up instantly and totally flips out. The past few days have been a blur. I’ve been overwhelmed. Don’t you have days like that? I’ve been so tired I’ve had chest pains.”
“All parents are tired.”
“I intended to come right back.”
“But you didn’t. You got in your car and drove away. That’s abandonment, Ms. Liu. If you want to leave the house whenever you feel like it, you get a dog, not a kid.”
Frida blinks back tears. She wants to say she’s not the same as those bad mothers in the news. She didn’t set her house on fire. She didn’t leave Harriet on a subway platform. She didn’t strap Harriet into the back seat and drive into a lake.
“I know that I seriously messed up, but I didn’t mean to do this. I understand that it was a crazy thing to do.”
“Ms. Liu, do you have a history of mental illness?”
“I’ve had depression on and off. That’s not what I meant. I’m not—”
“Should we assume that this was a psychotic break? A manic episode? Were you under the influence of any substances?”
“No. Absolutely not. And I’m not crazy. I’m not going to pretend I’m some perfect mother, but parents make mistakes. I’m sure you’ve seen much worse.”
“But we’re not talking about other parents. We’re talking about you.”
Frida tries to steady her voice. “I need to see her. How long will this take? She’s never been away from me for more than four days.”
“Nothing is resolved that quickly.” The social worker explains the process as if she’s rattling off a grocery list. Frida will undergo a psychological evaluation, as will Harriet. Harriet will receive therapy. There will be three supervised visits over the next sixty days. The state will collect data. CPS is rolling out a new program.
“I’ll make my recommendation,” the social worker says. “And the judge will decide what custody plan will be in the child’s best interests.”
When Frida tries to speak, the social worker stops her. “Ms. Liu, be glad the child’s father is in the picture. If we didn’t have the kinship option, we’d have to place her in emergency foster care.”
* * *
Tonight, again, Frida can’t sleep. She needs to tell the family court judge that Harriet was not abused, was not neglected, that her mother just had one very bad day. She needs to ask the judge if he’s ever had a bad day. On her bad day, she needed to get out of the house of her mind, trapped in the house of her body, trapped in the house where Harriet sat in her ExerSaucer with a dish of animal crackers. Gust used to explain the whole world that way: the mind as a house living in the house of the body, living in the house of a house, living in the larger house of the town, in the larger house of the state, in the houses of America and society and the universe. He said these houses fit inside one another like the Russian nesting dolls they bought for Harriet.
What she can’t explain, what she doesn’t want to admit, what she’s not sure she remembers correctly: how she felt a sudden pleasure when she shut the door and got in the car that took her away from her mind and body and house and child.
She hurried away when Harriet wasn’t looking. She wonders now if that wasn’t like shooting someone in the back, the least fair thing she’s ever done. She bought an iced latte at the coffee shop down the block, then walked to her car. She swore she’d come home right away. But the ten-minute coffee run turned into thirty, which turned into an hour, which turned into two, then two and a half. The pleasure of the drive propelled her. It wasn’t the pleasure of sex or love or sunsets, but the pleasure of forgetting her body, her life.
At 1:00 a.m., she gets out of bed. She hasn’t cleaned in three weeks, can’t believe the police saw her house this way. She picks up Harriet’s toys, empties the recycling, vacuums her rugs, starts a load of laundry, cleans the soiled ExerSaucer, ashamed she didn’t clean it earlier.
She cleans until five, becoming light-headed from the disinfectants and bleach. The sinks are scrubbed. The tub is scrubbed. The hardwood floors are mopped. The police aren’t here to notice her clean stovetop. They can’t see that her toilet bowl is pristine, that Harriet’s clothes have been folded and put away, that the half-empty take-out containers have been discarded, that there’s no longer dust on every surface. But as long as she keeps moving, she won’t have to go to sleep without Harriet, won’t expect to hear her calling.
She rests on her clean floor, her hair and nightshirt soaked with sweat, chilled by the breeze from the back door. Usually if she can’t sleep and Harriet is here, she retrieves Harriet from her crib and holds her while Harriet sleeps on her shoulder. Her sweet girl. She misses her daughter’s weight and warmth.
* * *
Frida wakes at ten with a runny nose and sore throat, eager to tell Harriet that Mommy finally slept, that Mommy can take her to the playground today. Then she realizes, with slow-blooming dread, that Harriet isn’t home.