The School for Good Mothers(62)

Emmanuelle flings the leaf away. She pulls at her stroller straps, then reaches for Frida, calling, “Up up!”

Gust answers on the third ring. He apologizes for not calling back yesterday. He couldn’t leave work. Susanna misplaced her phone. By the time they tried Frida’s number, it was evening, and there was no way to leave a message. He stayed home today so she’d be sure to reach them. Frida tells him it’s fine. She thanks him and asks for Harriet.

They switch to FaceTime. As Harriet comes into view, Frida trembles, glancing from the screen to Emmanuelle. All these months, she thought they looked nothing alike, that there was something cruel in the set of Emmanuelle’s mouth, that of course Harriet is more beautiful and Emmanuelle isn’t real, but now that Harriet has lost weight, the resemblance between the girls is uncanny.

“Say hello, Hare-bear,” Gust says. “You remember Mommy?”

“No.” Harriet’s voice is calm and definitive. Frida digs her fist into her lap. She is a bad mother because she’s letting Harriet see her cry. She is a bad mother because Emmanuelle’s face is the one that feels more familiar. She is a bad mother because the girl on-screen, with her bangs cut too short, with her sharp chin and darker, curlier hair, feels less and less like hers.

Harriet and Gust hear Emmanuelle calling, “Mommy Mommy!”

“Who dat?” Harriet asks.

“It’s a recording.” Frida turns away from Emmanuelle, trying to focus solely on Harriet. “Bub, it’s me. It’s Mommy. I’m so glad I get to talk to you before your birthday. Happy, happy birthday! Eight more days. You’re my big girl! So big! I’m so sorry I haven’t called. I wanted to. You know that, right? I’d call you every day if I could. I love you so much. I miss you. I miss you all the way to the moon. To Jupiter.” She holds up a pinkie. “Remember?”

Harriet stares back at her, indifferent. Frida lets her tears run. “Remember, we say, I promise you the moon and stars. I love you more than galaxies. Then we hook pinkies.”

“Gala-seas.” Harriet sounds out the word.

“That’s right, bub. And who am I?”

They test possibilities for several minutes. Frida is not a bubble. She’s not an apple. She’s not a spoon. She’s not Daddy or Sue-Sue.

“I’m Mommy. I’m your mommy.”

They talk for fifteen minutes at a time between check-ins, the longest Harriet can sit still, rushing through two months of news. They’re going to have her party at home. They’re getting a pi?ata. Susanna will bake the cake. They’ve bought Harriet a balance b-i-k-e. They’re on the wait list for the Waldorf School in Germantown and the Montessori in Center City.

Susanna says hello. She and Gust both comment on Frida’s weight loss, though they kindly resist saying anything about her gray hair. One hour is lost to the mothers’ lunch break. Three more hours to Harriet’s nap. Gust lets Frida watch Harriet play in the living room with Susanna.

Frida has to say goodbye whenever Emmanuelle gets unruly. It’s an impossible choice—talk to Harriet, get penalized for ignoring Emmanuelle. Ignore Harriet, and maybe not live through the spring or summer. Frida feels guilty in every way. Guilty before her daughter, neglected on her mother’s one very bad day, guilty before her doll, who looks at her reproachfully. Guilty before the instructors when she turns up late to the last check-in.



* * *



On Wednesday morning, she comes to class prepared to toggle between her daughters, but she doesn’t have to toggle, because the test proved far too effective. All four of them neglected their dolls. They forgot their first priority. They gave in to distraction. Clearly, when given a basic freedom, this group will run wild, regress into selfishness and narcissism.

“We can’t let your progress go to waste,” Ms. Russo says. As quickly as the mothers were given a lifeline to the outside world, that lifeline is severed.



* * *



Frida and her classmates are bused to an off-site location. They reunite with their dolls in the parking lot of a warehouse by the side of the highway. Inside, there are four model homes, matching yellow bungalows with green awnings. The warehouse is freezing. The dolls have never seen a building of this size. They’ve never seen houses. They cling to their mothers’ legs and scream, their voices echoing through the cavernous space.

The instructors call the lesson “Preventing Home Alone.” To hone their supervision instincts, the mothers will be tested with distractions. At the sound of the whistle, the instructors will measure the time it takes them to notice their doll and carry her out the front door. As with the phone lessons, they’ll be learning how to focus: to maintain eye contact with, and close physical proximity to, their child. To have their child’s safety be their first desire and only priority.

The instructors make the mothers repeat after them: “An unsupervised child is a child in danger. I must never leave my child alone.”

The building could host lessons for fifty mothers, maybe more. Emmanuelle strokes the goose bumps on Frida’s cheeks. Frida could cry. She’ll relive her one very bad day over and over, but now timed and filmed and scored, with phone privileges hanging in the balance. How often has she thought of Harriet home alone, how often has she considered every single thing she should have done differently?