The School for Good Mothers(66)

Her beloved is Alicia, one of the slender, gorgeous, laughing young Black mothers whom Frida met on the first day. It seemed like she and Lucretia became good friends in the month before Lucretia’s expulsion. Alicia has cut off her braids. She’s lost so much weight that Frida barely recognized her. She had CPS called on her when her five-year-old was being disruptive at school. The teacher sent her daughter to the principal’s office. The principal asked Alicia to come get her.

“I was ten minutes late,” Alicia says. “They said I smelled like alcohol. I was working as a waitress then. Showed up in my uniform. Someone had spilled beer on me that day. They didn’t believe me when I said I don’t drink.”

Ms. Gibson reminds Alicia to take responsibility.

“But—”

“No excuses.”

“It was my fault,” Alicia says through gritted teeth. “I am a narcissist. I am a danger to my child.”

Alicia and Margaret are blushing so hard they could be glowing. Margaret sits on her hands. Alicia fidgets with her sleeves.

Frida remembers coming home from her boyfriend’s house at one in the morning when she was seventeen, finding her parents waiting up for her. She and her boyfriend had fallen asleep watching a movie. Her parents didn’t believe her. She remembers the way her mother looked at her, how her father didn’t speak to her for days.

Ms. Gibson asks Alicia and Margaret to confess their degree of sexual contact. They answer questions about fondling, heavy petting, digital penetration, oral sex, whether they made each other climax.

The mothers avert their eyes. It’s generally understood that the school finds lesbians unmotherly.

Alicia starts to cry. “We kissed a little. That’s it. We didn’t hurt anyone. I won’t even talk to her anymore. Please! Please don’t put this in my file.”

“I appreciate that,” Ms. Gibson says, “but what I’m not understanding is why you’d put your selfish desires before your mothering.” Loneliness is a form of narcissism. A mother who is in harmony with her child, who understands her place in her child’s life and her role in society, is never lonely. Through caring for her child, all her needs are fulfilled.

What problems can possibly be solved by running?

“You people are going to take my kid anyway,” Margaret says. “Why don’t you admit that instead of pretending like we have a chance? My kid’s foster parents want to adopt him. They won’t admit it, but I know they do. They’re already looking at kindergartens. You’d love that, wouldn’t you? You want us to fail so you can take them.”

Frida tears at the rim of her coffee cup. She no longer cares about kissing. She’s thinking about the bell tower, wondering how fast she could climb the steps, whether the tile roof is slippery, how the pavement would feel against her face.

When it’s her turn, she speaks to Ms. Gibson like a penitent confessing to a priest. “I should have done a better job protecting her today. That’s the part that upsets me the most. She was in pain. And I could have prevented it. I also regret my tone. But when I asked Tamara’s son to apologize, he laughed at me. It was an evil laugh. A cackle. I found that very troubling. I don’t know where he learned to behave like that. I’m sorry. I am a narcissist. I am a danger to my child.” Frida pauses. “But so is she.”

The mothers stare at Tamara.

“Frida, there’s no need to be passive-aggressive,” Ms. Gibson says.

Tamara is sitting opposite Frida in the second ring of the circle. Her original crime was spanking. Her ex-husband reported her. She admits that her doll has a hitting problem, but Frida should have been paying attention.

Tamara points at Frida. “I saw her looking away.”

“I looked away for one second.”

“One second is all it takes. Haven’t you learned anything? You were letting your doll play by herself. If you’d been watching her—”

“Ladies!” Ms. Gibson says. “Control yourselves.”



* * *



“Dude, you look awful.” On the bus, Meryl drops her voice to a whisper, tells Frida that Tamara has been talking shit. “That lady is calling you a cunt.”

Frida smiles. “I’m not a cunt, I’m a bad mother.”

“Good one,” Meryl says.

“I try,” Frida replies. They bump fists. “I’m worried about her.”

“Harriet?”

“Emmanuelle.” The doll’s bruise looks like a case of ringworm. A perfect circle, purple in the center with a ring of yellow, then green. The bruise pulses when she cries. This morning, the instructors found her crying in the equipment room. They didn’t know crying in sleep mode was even possible. Frida asked if she needed to be repaired. Ms. Russo said the bruise would heal on its own.

“The more serious injury is here,” she said, pointing to Emmanuelle’s heart. “And here.” She pointed to Emmanuelle’s forehead.

Ms. Gibson said the way Frida spoke to Tamara’s son was indefensible. Tamara made mistakes, but Frida yelled. Nothing justifies yelling at a child. Nothing justifies scaring him. Frida acted impulsively. She escalated. She didn’t give Tamara space to mother.

The family court judge should know that yelling at Tamara’s son is one of the most maternal things Frida has ever done. She’d always wanted her parents to yell on her behalf, remembers being pushed face-first into a chain-link fence when she was eight, telling her parents about it, her parents doing nothing.