After Will finds a condom, they begin the first of many attempts at fitting part to part. They try with Frida on top, Frida on her knees, Frida on her back, her feet on Will’s shoulders. She’s embarrassed by the limitations of her little-girl body. It takes another handful of lube and many deep exhales before he can enter her, his penis not a third leg but an arm, an entire arm digging up to the elbow.
“I feel like my dick is in your skull.” Will marvels at his good fortune. “God, you’re tight as fuck.”
Built like a teenage girl, Gust used to say. Tighter than Susanna.
Frida wraps her legs around Will’s waist. She remembers the hands at the hospital. Five different hands in thirty-four hours: three residents, two OBs. Her torturers. Their hands would go in and up and root around, checking the position of the baby’s head. Against Gust’s wishes, she had an epidural at hour fifteen. At hour thirty-two, she was cleared to push. Two hours later, the baby’s head was in the exact same position. Failure to progress, they said. The baby’s heart rate began dropping. More doctors and nurses appeared. Her body, still convulsing, was rushed to the operating room, where a dozen masked faces greeted her. Someone strapped her arms down. Someone else pinned up a blue curtain. Her body became a sterile field.
The lights were unbearably bright. The anesthetic made her teeth chatter. Can you feel this? A touch on the cheek. Or this? A touch on the belly. No? Good.
“Sweetie, are you okay?” Will asks.
“Keep going.”
The doctors were chatting about movies they’d seen. She listened to their instruments clicking. Gust sat beside her head, mute with exhaustion, not looking at her. She told him she should have tried harder. She waited for him to say no, to call her brave. Someone placed his hands on her shoulders. She loved the man’s gravelly voice, the calm weight of his hands. She would have done anything for that man. He kept touching her, smoothing her hair. He said, “You’re going to feel some pressure.”
* * *
Frida shields her eyes and looks up at Gust and Susanna’s bay window. She’s twenty minutes early. Last year, they bought a spacious condo in Fairmount, a few blocks from the art museum, on a newly gentrified stretch of Spring Garden. Susanna comes from an old-money Virginia family. Her parents paid for the condo in cash and give her a monthly allowance. Whenever Frida comes over, she can’t help but compare. Their home has abundant natural light and high ceilings, Moroccan rugs in every room. A set of midnight-blue velvet couches. Plants on every windowsill, vases of fresh flowers on reclaimed wood tables. Paintings by Susanna’s friends, furniture that’s been passed down through two generations. She used to check Susanna’s Instagram feed late at night to torment herself. There was her beautiful chubby baby nestled on sheepskin throws or cradling designer blankets, the perfect accessory.
The social worker is four minutes late, then five, then nine, then twelve. This morning, she’ll see that Gust and Susanna’s home is always spotless. She won’t know that they have a cleaner come every week.
Gust texted last night to say that Susanna is sorry to be away. She’s at a silent retreat in the Berkshires. She sends Frida her love and support. You got this, Susanna texted.
Frida checks her reflection in a car window. In movies she’s seen about mothers seeking redemption, the bad mothers hide their wickedness beneath modest silk blouses tucked into dowdy skirts. They wear low-heeled pumps and nude hose. She’s wearing her best approximation of this costume: a gray silk shell, a jewel-neck lavender cardigan, a knee-length black skirt, kitten heels. Her bangs are freshly trimmed, her makeup subdued, her hair pulled back in a low ponytail. She looks demure and inoffensive and middle-aged, like a kindergarten teacher or a stay-at-home mom who finds blow jobs a necessary evil.
Sustained face-to-face interaction, the social worker said. One hour of play and conversation. Frida can’t be alone with Harriet, can’t take her outside, can’t bring presents. The social worker will ensure Harriet’s physical and emotional safety.
There’s a tap on her shoulder. “Good morning, Ms. Liu.” The social worker takes off her mirrored aviators. She looks marvelously healthy. Her pale pink sheath shows off her copper skin and cut arms and narrow waist. She’s wearing nude, patent-leather stilettos.
They exchange pleasantries about the weather, which is sunny and dry, nearly eighty-five. The social worker has been circling for ages, had to park four blocks away. “I don’t usually come to this neighborhood.”