Frida has never asked if the counselor has children, though she’s certainly wondered. None have ever been mentioned. What would she do in Frida’s place? Frida shakes the counselor’s hand and thanks her for her guidance. She atones for her shortcomings one last time.
The counselor prompts her. “You are a bad mother for desiring.”
“I am a bad mother because I desired. I am a bad mother because I was weak.”
Today is Thanksgiving. Her mother must be shopping for Harriet’s Christmas present. She’ll buy clothes as usual. When Frida was pregnant, her mother said that having a daughter would be like having her own real doll.
“Your daughter will be beautiful,” her mother promised. “Even more beautiful. Like you are more beautiful than me.”
For the rest of the morning, Frida paces the stone courtyard. She thinks of Harriet in winter, the house with sideways light, pulling her front door closed, driving away. Tucker’s son stepping out of the tree house. The school needs to see that she’s changed, but does survival count as progress? Harriet deserves more than a mother whose greatest achievement is keeping herself alive.
Once, she scratched Harriet’s cheek by accident and drew blood. Once, she clipped Harriet’s thumbnail too short.
“You are bad,” Harriet said. When she’s older, she’ll say more: Why did you do it? Why did you leave me?
Frida hears screams coming from Pierce. Doors being slammed. She sees mothers marching down the hill. They continue across the lawn, past the amphitheater. When they reach the tree line, they begin howling. They’re beginning to understand. Beginning to mourn. They sound like Lucretia on the day of her snow-angel disaster. Like the dolls on the day they were hit. The only word Frida can make out is no. She waits and listens, then decides to join them.
* * *
The alarm sounds at midnight. The mothers line up in the hallway for a headcount. As soon as the guard leaves and the lights go off, they start whispering. Meryl is missing again.
“No.” Frida tries to shout, but her voice is ragged. She pushes her way through the group to find Meryl’s roommate. Her roommate says there was a note, but she didn’t get a chance to read it before it was confiscated. Ms. Gibson comes upstairs and tells everyone to return to their rooms.
That night in bed, Frida remains awake, praying there won’t be an ambulance. Meryl might be hiding somewhere. She might have found another guard to help her.
When she went to the tree line to join the mourning mothers, she shouldn’t have asked Meryl to come too. Meryl’s prognosis was poor. Her social worker disapproved of Meryl’s mother, didn’t think she provided good care for Ocean, had already rejected Ocean’s father as a possible guardian. After Meryl’s final hearing, Ocean would likely be placed in foster care.
Meryl screamed so hard she burst blood vessels on her neck. Many mothers screamed until they lost their voices. They held each other. Some knelt. Some prayed. Some bit their hands.
Frida thought of her father. Her father and uncle must have screamed like that on the night Ahma was almost shot. A body could produce pure fear. Pure sound. Sound that eclipsed thought. Meryl screamed louder still. Frida gripped Meryl’s arm so she wouldn’t pitch face-first into the snow, felt something lift from her as she howled, as if she were jumping out of her own skin.
She should have checked on Meryl after dinner, should have asked if Meryl could sleep in Roxanne’s bed, just for tonight. Meryl wanted to teach Ocean to ride a bike next year. Not a tricycle. A bike. She said Ocean’s love language was motion. She imagined Ocean growing as tall as her father, becoming a hurdler or high jumper, throwing a javelin. If her girl was a runner, she’d get a scholarship. If she got a scholarship, she wouldn’t get pregnant.
“I can break the fucking cycle,” Meryl said.
* * *
They leave her seat empty at breakfast. As mothers pass their table, they deposit bagels and muffins and packs of saltines in front of the empty chair. They build a bread shrine. Frida makes a pile of sugar packets in Meryl’s honor. Beth refuses to eat. She’s scratched open a scab on her cheek, continues scratching it all through breakfast.
Linda takes Beth’s hand. She dips her napkin into a glass of water and cleans Beth’s face. Ms. Gibson gets on the microphone and says grief counseling services are available. She asks the mothers to bow their heads and observe a moment of silence. Someone is sobbing loudly. Frida looks up and sees Charisse in the far corner. Even from this distance, she can tell the tears are fake.