Meryl now speaks of her week in the basement in a nostalgic tone. She didn’t know she’d be returning to a fucking fight club. At lunch, she says these lessons feel particularly stupid, cut-and-dried.
“Reductive,” Frida says. “The word you’re looking for is reductive.”
One morning when it’s Frida’s turn to play the pedophile, she gets knocked down by Beth and hits her head on the base of the slide. She can’t move. Her eyes won’t focus. Beth has knocked off her glasses. Frida worries that she’s paralyzed, that she’ll leave on a stretcher. She hears Emmanuelle crying. Her classmates are asking if she’s okay. Beth is kneeling beside her, patting her cheek and apologizing.
“Frida? Frida? Can you hear me?”
She wiggles her fingers, then her toes. She hears the instructors saying they should call the infirmary, hears Linda scolding Beth. Frida tries to move her legs, relieved that she can still bend them. She pats the ground, looking for her glasses. She hears Tucker’s voice, feels his hands lifting her head, then her torso. He props her to sitting. He helps her put her glasses back on, resting his hand on her cheek.
Their heads are almost touching. Everyone can see them. She says she’s fine. “I don’t think you should do this.”
He helps her stand. She tries to take a step and stumbles.
“Let me help you.” He takes her arm and leads her back to the group. She can barely feel the pain. She needs his touch. His care. He sets her down in the grass, handling her like a treasure.
Tucker takes both Jeremy and Emmanuelle onto his lap, and begins processing with them. “Mommy Frida is okay. See? She’s okay. When we fall, we get right back up. Mommy Frida is learning.”
Frida feels dizzy and seasick. Happy. Chosen. She may never see his house. She may never meet Silas, may not become the boy’s stepmother, may not have another baby. She may never kiss the man who let his son fall out of a tree, but today, she feels certain that she loves him. She tells him so when the group is shaking hands at the end of the day. She makes sure the instructors are occupied, then covers Emmanuelle’s ears, tells him to cover Jeremy’s.
She mouths the words.
“Yes,” he says. “Me too. I told you. A romance.”
* * *
Again, they pray. On the bus, Frida and her classmates bow their heads and whisper. They’re heading to the evaluation day for Unit 8. Yesterday, several cohorts practiced together. Danger stations were set up in a zigzag formation inside the warehouse. One station represented a burning building, another had a swing set, another featured a van with blacked-out windows.
Between stations, they had to run with their dolls. There was only time for each parent to run the course once. The school had new people play the kidnappers and pedophiles, supposedly trainee instructors and guards who’ll staff a school for mothers in California. They were stronger and faster than the parents themselves. When no one was able to finish, the instructors told them to expand their understanding of what’s possible.
Ms. Khoury said, “It doesn’t matter whether you’re fighting one person or twelve. A parent should be able to lift a car. Lift a fallen tree. Fend off a bear.” She stabbed at her chest. “You have to find that strength inside yourself.”
“You can’t let your bodies get in the way,” Ms. Russo added.
Today, Frida finishes early, emerging in the late afternoon with a cut under her eye. She thinks she’s broken a rib. She has trouble lifting Emmanuelle. When they walk outside, the cut throbs as the wind hits her cheek.
Emmanuelle is still crying. She touches Frida’s cut, then rubs her face, getting Frida’s blood on her. Frida tries to wipe the blood away. It seems to be staining Emmanuelle’s skin.
Today’s evaluation will be entered into her file as a zero. Parents deserve more than two chances, she’d like to tell the family court judge. They deserve more than this. The version of her future that includes Harriet now requires a miracle, and she’s never considered herself lucky.
She leads Emmanuelle to the circle of parents standing in the parking lot. Everyone is finishing early. They stay close for warmth. There’s frost on the ground. The dolls stand in the center, shivering and clinging to their parents’ legs.
Frida has asked the counselor what comes next. If there will be a probationary period, if she’ll need to check in with her social worker, Ms. Torres, if Harriet will still need to see the child psychologist, if there will be restrictions on her friendships or relationships, the kind of jobs she’s allowed to do, if CPS will still track her, if she’ll be able to leave the state, if she’ll be able to travel with Harriet. The counselor said it depends if she gets Harriet back. If she does, there will be further monitoring. If she doesn’t, no one will bother her. She won’t be a concern to them.