But they’d already helped with grad school. They’d already helped with rent when she lived in Brooklyn. During the separation, they paid her attorney’s fees, gave her money for a car, money for furniture. She’s almost forty. By this age, her parents had tenure. They were homeowners. They were shouldering the responsibility for half a dozen relatives.
They’re waiting for news. They’ll come see Harriet as soon as it’s allowed. Frida watches people leaving the courtrooms in tears. She hears shouting. A father is escorted out in handcuffs. Couples are arguing. Guards are rude to social workers; social workers are rude to parents; lawyers are texting.
It’s getting dark outside. She watches her reflection emerge in the window. The room empties. Renee says it’s possible they’ll have to come back in the morning. Ms. Torres is called to testify several times on other cases. Gust brings Frida bottles of water and snacks from the vending machine, urges her to eat. He texts Susanna, finds out that Harriet didn’t nap. He calls his boss and asks if he can take the day off tomorrow too.
“Yes, the situation with my daughter,” he says.
Frida glances between the four sets of doors. She needs to know which courtroom she’s been assigned, which judge she’ll face, whether her judge will be strict or lenient, what Ms. Torres will say, what the child psychologist will say, what the state thinks they know about her. She needs to hold her daughter, needs to kiss her and tell her about the last two months. Her room is ready. The house is clean. The fridge is stocked. Soon, she won’t have to meet any more strangers. Mommy won’t miss any more days, any more weeks.
Frida continues to wait. She watches the clock. The building closes at five. At 4:17, the guard calls her name.
5.
WHEN FRIDA WAS A CHILD, she had no sense of direction. North meant up, south meant down into the ground, and east and west barely registered. She developed a fraught relationship with roads, only relearned to drive at age thirty-six after two decades of excuses about her lack of spatial coordination and paralyzing fear of lane changes. Not having to drive was one of the reasons she loved New York. She never thought she’d miss it, but on this bus ride, she’s been envying the drivers in the next lane: the woman with three screaming children, the texting teenager, the man in the delivery truck. It is late November, the Monday before Thanksgiving, four weeks since she last saw Harriet, twelve weeks since her very bad day, and Frida is about to change her life.
The family court judge said she has to.
The mothers departed before sunrise. They gathered at the family court building at 6:00 a.m., said goodbye to friends and relatives, surrendered their devices. With the exception of a single purse, they were instructed to show up empty-handed. No luggage or clothes or toiletries or makeup or jewelry or books or photos. No weapons or alcohol or cigarettes or drugs. They had their purses searched and bodies patted down. They passed through scanners. One mother had a bag of marijuana in her stomach. Another had swallowed a pouch of pills. Those two didn’t make it on the bus.
The mother sitting next to Frida asks to look out the window. “How much fucking longer?”
Frida doesn’t know. She’s not wearing a watch, but it’s light out now. She hasn’t been paying attention to the road signs, too preoccupied by her hunger and thirst and chapped skin and runny nose. Her thoughts of Harriet.
The mother next to her is a white woman in her twenties, a weary brunette with skittish blue eyes. The woman’s hands are tattooed with roses and spiderwebs. She’s been diligently picking off her nail polish, leaving a pile of red flakes on the tray table.
Frida takes her to-do list out of her purse and checks it again. She finds a pen and begins to doodle spirals and hearts. It’s her first time sitting still in days. In the past week, she’s quit her job and broken her lease and packed her house, moved her and Harriet’s belongings into storage, paid her bills, frozen her credit cards and bank accounts, given her jewelry and documents to Will for safekeeping, lent her car to one of Will’s friends, said goodbye to her parents.
Will accompanied her to the check-in this morning, held her until it was time to board the bus. She spent her last night of freedom on his couch, would have kissed him or slept in his bed if she’d been able to stop crying. She didn’t want him to undress her, to see that she’d broken out in hives. He wants to visit her, wants to send letters and care packages. But none of those things are allowed.
Last night, he cooked her a fish stew, made her eat bread with butter, a slice of chocolate cake. As if she could regain her lost weight in one night.