The School for Good Mothers(50)



The instructors don’t mention Lucretia or her doll Gabby by name, but begin class with a freestyle hug sequence, no counting necessary.

Emmanuelle points to the spot next to the window where Lucretia and Gabby usually sat. Frida says Gabby has gone to the equipment room in the sky, maybe to the equipment room in a doll factory in China.

“I won’t let that happen to you,” she says, trying to sound convincing. She turns away and yawns. Roxanne kept her up late with impossible questions. Why isn’t Linda being punished too? What if the foster parents don’t want to keep Brynn? How will Lucretia find a job? Parents who get expelled are automatically added to the registry. She’ll never be able to teach again. When does she have to start paying the school back? Does she still have to pay them back if they’re taking her kid?

“Lu should go get Brynn,” Roxanne said. “Take her. There are ways. It doesn’t have to end like this. I’d do it.”

“Right,” Frida said. “And then what? Your kid visits you in jail? Brilliant plan.”

“And you wonder why I don’t tell you things.”

The instructors are wearing Santa hats with tinkling bells. They’ve set up the classroom with four mothering stations, each with a changing table, a diaper pail, a rag rug, and a basket of toys and books. Having honed their tenderness skills, the mothers will now incorporate this tenderness into basic childcare tasks. First diapering, then sleep.

Ms. Khoury shows them how to unfold a clean diaper with a flick of the wrist, how to roll the dirty diaper into a tidy cylindrical bundle so that it will take up less space in a landfill.

The dolls hate being on their backs. They can’t lie flat because of their blue knobs. The instructors tell the mothers not to stare. The dolls’ genitalia are remarkably lifelike. Blue liquid of different consistencies pours out of each hole. The make-believe urine and feces smell more pungent than the real thing. Beth and Teen Mom are caught saying “Ew.” Linda doesn’t seem bothered.

Emmanuelle’s body is sleek and cheerless. It feels wrong to be looking at her labia. It feels wrong to part her vaginal folds to check for blue specks. Frida hates that Susanna knows Harriet’s body this intimately. Harriet’s diaper rashes sometimes lasted for days. Susanna thought Frida’s preferred rash cream was full of chemicals that would increase Harriet’s risk of Parkinson’s and other degenerative diseases. She repeatedly suggested that both households use plant-based creams. Arguments about rash cream so often spiraled into fights about love and faith and what kind of person Harriet would become. It shocks Frida to think she ever felt so passionately about consumer products.

Though there are now only four dolls, they make as much noise as a dozen toddlers. They grab at the diapers, the blue liquid, the rash cream, the wipes, their vaginas. Each diaper change is a battle. The dolls surprise the mothers with their strength and ingenuity. That afternoon, Teen Mom’s doll picks up her jar of rash cream and hurls it at Ms. Russo while she’s walking past. The jar hits Ms. Russo solidly in the chest. The doll laughs. Teen Mom laughs.

Linda’s doll mimics her and strikes Ms. Russo in the back.

Frida covers her mouth. Her eyes are watering, she’s laughing so hard. She looks up and sees Beth stifling giggles. Ms. Khoury is watching them. Ms. Russo tells Teen Mom and Linda to make their dolls apologize.

The dolls aren’t sorry. They giggle and clap, their laughter coming from the back of their throats or somewhere deep inside their circuitry, as if they’re being tickled.

Frida takes the jar out of Emmanuelle’s hands. “We do not throw things.”

The instructors could be stoned to death with jars of rash cream. If it were the mothers throwing, such force might be possible. They ought to do it for Lucretia.

Diapers are changed every half hour. After each change, the instructors freeze the dolls and carry them back to the equipment room to be refilled, carrying them two at a time horizontally, like they’re lawn ornaments or loaves of bread. The imposition on the dolls is tremendous. Their bottoms turn pebbly and red. They wince as they walk. Motherese can barely be heard above the weeping.

Other classes are practicing potty training and bathroom hygiene and curing bedwetting. The mothers working on potty training sob during meals. Mothers with infant and toddler boy dolls have to wear face shields. Spraying is not just annoying but dangerous. One mother got blue liquid in her mouth and had to be taken to the infirmary.



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The holiday is not without beauty. The next night, after an austere Christmas dinner, the mothers gather in the main stairwell of Kemp and listen to the trio of middle-aged white women sing carols. The trio’s harmonizing suggests prior a cappella experience. “Silent Night” and “Little Drummer Boy” and “All I Want for Christmas Is You.” Their rendition of “Edelweiss” is especially poignant.

Frida sits between Roxanne and Teen Mom. They hum and sway. Together, they sing the refrain, “Bless my homeland forever.” That’s the only line Frida knows. A music therapist played this song at Ahma’s bedside when she was dying.

Frida looks down at the many faces, imagining them all as girls, shy and sad, wearing clothes they didn’t choose, their hair braided, pin-curled, tied in kerchiefs. They are waiting, brimming, thinking themselves to freedom. Frida misses her mother’s laugh, her father’s cooking. Harriet. Gust had Harriet last Christmas too.

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