Frida and Roxanne used to imagine what trials awaited them: running over hot coals, being shot out of cannons or thrown into snake pits, swallowing knives. She misses Roxanne’s needy questions and dream giggling, talking about Isaac.
Roxanne would be angry at her for finishing third in Unit 7. Frida won’t have phone privileges until October at the earliest, maybe not until they leave. The dance was only a week ago. She feels as if she’s in mourning, ridiculous since they never kissed, let alone met under the bleachers. At night, she’s been imagining Tucker holding her. She’d rest her head on his shoulder. On the shoulder of the man whose son fell out of a tree, she’d weep and he’d comfort her. They’d know how their children were sleeping.
* * *
It is early September, one year since Harriet was taken away, eleven months since Frida last held her, three weeks since their last phone call. Frida barely remembers what her life was like a year ago, doesn’t remember the article she was writing, the elderly professor’s name, the dean’s name, why the deadline felt urgent, how she ever thought leaving the house without Harriet was possible.
In class, having covered fire and water safety, they learn how to rescue their dolls from oncoming cars. They practice in the parking lot beside the football field. Meryl would have enjoyed being outside with her doll, Frida thinks. She liked the campus more than she let on. Meryl often said she should’ve been born on the West Coast. She thought she would’ve become a different person if she’d grown up near mountains, believed that where you grew up determined your destiny, that growing up in South Philly doomed her.
“Why do you think I named my kid Ocean?” she said.
The driver starts his engine. Emmanuelle wants to know who the man is. She’s unsatisfied with Frida’s promises that the man won’t hurt her.
The school has hired professional drivers. The instructors have marked the driver’s target with an X, giving him room to accelerate across the parking lot.
“You have to pretend we’re crossing the street,” Frida tells her. “Streets are full of cars. Cars are dangerous. They can kill you. You have to hold my hand, okay?”
She tells Emmanuelle that crossing the street carefully was one of her father’s great obsessions. “I have a father. And I had grandparents. My grandfather died when my dad was little. In a car accident. My dad was only nine. Isn’t that sad?”
Emmanuelle nods.
“He still gets nervous when I cross the street. When we were traveling in China, he held my elbow at every single crosswalk. Like I was a kid. Parents always think their children are little kids, no matter how old they are.”
She was twenty-one when he last did that. She was once a daughter who traveled, whose father worried about keeping her alive.
She tells Emmanuelle that her father turns seventy tomorrow. Emmanuelle wants to know what China is, what seventy is, why Mommy looks sad.
“Because I wish I could see him,” Frida says. “And because I should have been nicer to him. We’re supposed to be nice to our parents. Seventy is a really big birthday.”
Beth has been listening. “Be careful,” she cautions. They’re not supposed to burden their dolls with too much personal information.
Frida thanks her for the warning. She returns to the subject of pedestrian safety. She shouldn’t have let her guard down. She must keep her real life separate, her real heart separate, must save her feelings for November.
* * *
In the house where the light comes in sideways, Frida adds rooms. In these rooms, the mothers will braid hair and tell stories. Tucker will serve them tea. Meryl will be there with Ocean. She’ll be a terrible houseguest. Roxanne will be there with Isaac. Roxanne’s mother will be healthy. Margaret will be alive. Lucretia will find them.
They should have a mother house. A mother town. She remembers reading about an island off the coast of Estonia that was all women, where women did the farming and carpentry. Women served as the fishmongers and electricians. They wore different-colored aprons depending on their roles.
“Wait for me,” she told Tucker at the dance. After November, she’ll need a new term of endearment for him. The man who let his son fall out of a tree will become the man who got his son back. Her one very bad day will be in the past.
In class, they watch videos of plastic children being run over by cars. Frida teaches Emmanuelle about opposites: danger and safety. Safety is with Mommy. Danger is apart from Mommy.
They continue practicing in the parking lot. One afternoon, a storm sends them back to Morris. They change their dolls into dry clothes, but themselves remain soaked. Emmanuelle plays with Frida’s wet hair. She laughs at Frida’s fogged glasses.