The School for Good Mothers(67)

The bus rides have lost their novelty. For the rest of the trip, Frida and Meryl play their usual game, trying to guess which drivers are cheaters, which are alcoholics, which are mean to animals, which are bad parents. Meryl undoes her ponytail and shows Frida the bald spot on the back of her head. It’s the size of a quarter, perfectly smooth. When she can’t sleep, she pulls. She scratches. She’s given herself so many scabs. She’s nervous about next month’s brain scan.

“I don’t want them looking into my head. It’s so fucking creepy.”

“It’s going to be okay,” Frida says, though she’s nervous too. They haven’t been told what the procedure will involve, only that the scan will be part of their mid-year evaluations, that their dolls will also be interviewed. Supposedly, the counselors will issue a prognosis for their child’s return.



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Having completed “Preventing Home Alone,” this week’s anti-abandonment lessons address the epidemic of children being left in hot cars. Four black minivans are staggered across the warehouse parking lot. The mothers are given headsets with a screen that fits over their right eye. No matter what distracting image is on-screen, they must rise above the distraction and stay focused on their doll. They will strap the dolls into car seats and load them in. Once that’s complete, they’ll have ten minutes to remove the car seat and run to the goalpost at the end of the parking lot.

The headset plays images of war, couples having sex, animals being tortured. The mothers stagger and weave. Linda trips and scrapes her hands. Beth collides with a side mirror. Meryl gets caught resting her head on the steering wheel.

Days later, practice continues in the rain. The mothers try not to slip on the wet asphalt. Frida is in the back seat tending to Emmanuelle when the video begins. Harriet’s birthday party. Five children she doesn’t recognize. Their parents.

Frida stops breathing. She stops hearing Emmanuelle’s shrieks. The video was taken on someone’s phone. Gust’s. He’s narrating.

“Frida, we miss you,” he says. “Here’s Will. Will, say hello.”

Will waves. He’s there with his arm around a young woman. Susanna is holding the cake. Harriet appears in close-up wearing a paper party hat, white with rainbow stripes. The guests sing to her. Gust and Susanna help her blow out her number two candle.

The video switches to Gust and Harriet sitting in his office. On the bookshelf behind them, there’s a 3D model of a green roof he worked on in Brooklyn. Harriet is rubbing her eyes. Seems to have just woken up from a nap. Gust asks Harriet to tell Frida about the cake. An almond cake with blueberries. Who came to the party? Friends. Uncle Will. Harriet received a balance bike from Daddy and Sue-Sue.

Frida returns to the driver’s seat. Harriet looks thin and sullen. They’ve had her ears pierced. She’s wearing gold studs. New clothes. Black and gray.

Gust shows Harriet a framed picture. “Who’s this? This is Mommy. Remember we talked to her a few days ago? She looks a little different now.”

“No,” Harriet says. “Not Mommy. Not home. Mommy not come back! I want Sue-Sue! I want to play!” She slides off Gust’s lap.

When the whistle blows, Frida remains seated. Even if the car were on fire, she wouldn’t be able to move. Gust and Harriet disappear offscreen. Gust offers Harriet another piece of cake if she’ll talk to Mommy. He asks her to please stop hitting him.

“I know you’re upset,” Gust says. “It’s okay to be upset. I know this is hard for you. I don’t like it either.”

Frida ignores Emmanuelle’s increasingly desperate flailing in the back seat. The video plays on a continuous loop. She notices new details each time. Harriet’s eyes narrowing as she focuses on the candles, shutting them tight when Gust and Susanna show her how to make a wish. The adults laughing, the children reaching for pieces of cake. Their messy faces. The streamers. The balloons, gold this time. Will’s new girl. Asian. Japanese, maybe. The girl’s chic black dress. Susanna with her hair in braids. Harriet smiling at Susanna. The image blurring as Gust hands his phone to someone else. Gust and Susanna standing behind Harriet, kissing.

Several times, when Frida looks up, expecting to see her classmates racing in the rain, she finds them stuck in the driver’s seats too.



* * *



Frida’s was the only birthday party, but her classmates watched their daughters brushing their teeth, eating breakfast, at the playground, playing with friends and foster parents. Linda’s daughter cried as soon as Mommy was mentioned. Beth’s daughter ran from the camera. Ocean wouldn’t speak.

They want to know how the school obtained the videos, what their children’s guardians were told, if they knew how the videos were to be used. Frida says Gust would never have consented if he’d known. “He wouldn’t do that to me. They must have told him it would be a gift.”

Roxanne’s video showed Isaac standing by himself. Isaac feeding himself steamed carrots and string beans. His first teeth have come in. His foster mom filmed him cruising along the furniture in her living room. He’ll take his first steps any day now. Soon, he won’t be a baby anymore.

Isaac’s foster mother is a white woman, a Drexel professor in her fifties.

“She has him in full-time day care,” Roxanne says. “What’s the point of her having him at all if he’s with other people for forty fucking hours a week? I wouldn’t have had him in day care. I’d be taking care of him myself. How do I even know what kind of place she chose? He’s probably the only Black boy.”