The School for Good Mothers(72)

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Evaluations must be completed in pairs. There are three stations, one toy per rug. Station one has a frog puppet. Station two has a bag of DUPLO blocks. Station three has a toy laptop. The two dolls must complete ten consecutive minutes of peaceful play at each station. Their mothers must manage emotional upset, break up fights, set appropriate limits, impart wisdom about sharing, turn-taking, patience, generosity, and community values.

Beth is paired with Meryl, Frida with Linda. Frida can’t let Linda win. Empathy will doom her chances. Gabriel was found a few days ago. He got himself arrested while shoplifting from a gas station. Linda is worried that he’ll be tried as an adult, that he’ll get into a fight in juvie and land in solitary, that he’ll get moved to adult prison. That he’ll keep fucking up and stay in the system forever.

Emmanuelle clings to Frida’s leg. She’s sensitive. A weather vane. A mood ring. She can sense Frida’s nervousness.

Frida and Linda and their respective dolls move to the center. Ms. Khoury holds the frog puppet high so neither doll can reach it.

Frida tells Emmanuelle not to be afraid. She says, “Mommy believes in you. Mommy loves you.”

She whispers, “I love you galaxies.”

She looks away, horrified. She was supposed to guard this part of their life. How hard would it have been to honor their secret, their magic word? Even Gust and Susanna don’t say it. If she could trade places with Margaret, she would. It should be her body hitting the pavement, her body being carted away from this place.

“Gala-seas?” Emmanuelle tries out the new word.

Ms. Russo asks if Frida is ready. Linda strokes her doll’s head like she’s preparing to unleash a pit bull. Meryl and Beth mouth words of encouragement.

Frida bows her head and holds Emmanuelle close. “I am a bad mother,” she says. “But I am learning to be good.”





14.


BENEATH WHITE TENTS ON THE lawn outside Pierce, there are long tables with red-and-white-checked tablecloths and folding chairs. One tent for doll food. One for human food. The school has set up activity stations: horseshoes, beanbags, Frisbees, Hula-Hoops.

They’ve been calling it the bad parents’ picnic. Officially it’s a Fourth of July barbecue. They’ll finally meet the fathers, their comrades. Though the school couldn’t have anticipated this sequence of events, the picnic is a well-timed morale boost after Margaret’s suicide.

Supposedly, they can relax. They’ll have a rare afternoon without lessons. They’ll still be filmed, but words won’t be counted, and the dolls’ internal cameras will be switched off.

“Our gift to you,” Ms. Khoury said this morning, noting that some mothers have responded to pressure in incredibly selfish ways. Today is only an icebreaker. Tomorrow, they’ll be bused to the fathers’ school to begin Unit 6: Socialization.

Everyone watches eagerly as buses pull into the parking lot on College Avenue. Frida is reminded of those MGM musicals from the 1950s. Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. But there are only two buses. They outnumber the fathers three to one. Like them, the fathers wear navy blue uniforms and work boots. Most fathers are Black and brown. Most look to be in their twenties and thirties. One is a teenager holding an infant.

They’re younger than Frida expected. If she saw most of them on the street, she’d never guess that they had children. In New York, she once went on a blind date with a twenty-five-year-old grad student whose invitation she’d accepted on a whim. She’d been only six years older at the time, but men liked to tell her things, and as the boy told her about his dead twin and running away from home at fourteen, she wanted to put a blanket around the boy’s shoulders and give him cookies. She feels the same protective impulse now.

“Who they?” Emmanuelle asks. Frida reminds her that they’ve seen fathers in books. Father raccoons and father bears and father bunnies. These are human fathers. She tells Emmanuelle about two-parent households.

Ms. Knight mills through the crowd in a stars-and-stripes dress. Her counterpart, Ms. Holmes, is also in attendance. The two executive directors hug and exchange air-kisses. From a distance, Ms. Holmes, also white, also statuesque, seems to have allowed herself to age naturally. She has a Susan Sontag–like white streak in her dark hair, wears no makeup, no jewelry, has her pink lab coat draped loosely over her shoulders. The fathers’ minders are all female, all in pink lab coats. Some fathers and instructors look suspiciously close.

The younger mothers and fathers gravitate to one another. Parents line up at the doll food tent and cautiously begin mingling, everyone looking over their shoulders and whispering. Some parents introduce themselves by name and offense before realizing they don’t have to.

No one mentions Margaret. Frida has been thinking about Margaret’s son, wondering whether he’s been told yet, who will bring him to the funeral, if he’ll be allowed to attend, if the casket will be closed. She hasn’t spoken to Harriet in four months. Someone needs to tell Harriet that Mommy will be calling soon—this weekend, if the counselor allows it. She finished second in yesterday’s evaluation for Intermediate and Advanced Play, but she knows it’s too soon to get excited.

She carries Emmanuelle to the doll food tent.

“Mommy, I feel nervous.” Emmanuelle hides her face.

Frida tells her not to worry. To distract her, Frida waves to the boy doll in front of them in line, who’s sitting on his father’s shoulders.