Helen tries to chat with Frida on the way over. She complains about the mothers mocking her. “Every parent is different,” Helen says. “Every child is different.”
“I’m sure you had your reasons for babying him.” Frida doesn’t like how Helen is walking so close. She doesn’t like Helen’s aggressive eye contact. Helen seems like one of those friendship vampires who’ll take and take if given the slightest opportunity. She can imagine Helen kissing her son on the mouth, holding hands with him, watching him shower.
She longs to be alone, to chew her fingers until they bleed, to call her parents and Will. In their report, the men from CPS noted her lack of friends. Had they asked, she would have explained that she lost touch with her college girlfriends years ago. Most had babies around thirty and disappeared from her life. She grew tired of trying to get them on the phone, weekend visits canceled at the last minute, conversations that were always interrupted. Baby comes first, they said. She swore it wouldn’t be like that for her.
There’s a pink satin ribbon wrapped around the light pole at the entrance to Kemp. The K in the sign has oxidized. The building is more civilized than Frida anticipated, made of the same shimmering gray stone as the rest of the campus. There are hydrangea bushes beneath the first-floor windows, the flowers now brittle and brown, a blemish on the school’s otherwise immaculate landscaping. There’s a fruit basket on a table inside the foyer, one pear remaining. Frida and Helen’s room is on the third floor, overlooking a field. Frida tests the windows, relieved that they open. They each have a wooden desk and chair, a reading light, a chest with two sets of towels and two plaid wool blankets. The cupboard contains four navy blue cotton jumpsuits, two for each of them. The forms Frida filled out had asked for her dress size and shoe size, and though they’ve given her a pair of black boots in size seven, the jumpsuits are one-size-fits-all. There are plastic-wrapped packets of white bras and underwear, five bras and ten panties; three white cotton tank tops and two long-sleeve thermal shirts; seven pairs of socks; a kit containing a toothbrush, toothpaste, shower gel, lotion, and a comb.
Helen laughs as she opens her packet of government-issued underwear, happily noting that the garments seem to be new and don’t have any stains.
Frida stuffs her coat and shoes into the canvas sack and fills out the tag. She’s unreasonably attached to her things, would have liked to bring the wood Buddha from her dresser, her grandmother’s gold bracelet, her wedding rings. She doesn’t know how she’ll fall asleep tonight if she can’t look at Harriet’s picture.
She turns her back to Helen and changes into a jumpsuit. She rolls up each pant leg three times. There are no mirrors. She must resemble a sack of potatoes with a head. In the cupboard, there’s a scratchy gray wool cardigan that hangs to her knees, an oversize navy blue parka, a navy blue wool cap, and a gray acrylic scarf.
Please, she thinks, let me not catch anything. Let there be no bugs, no lice, no airborne diseases. She hopes they can wash their own underwear. She hopes they can bathe daily. Someone needs to give them dental floss and tweezers, razors and nail clippers.
There’s a camera above the doorway, cameras trained on each bed. At least they have doors. At least there are no bars on the windows. At least they have blankets.
“Focus on the positives,” Will said. She has a family. She is loved. She is alive. She knows where her child is living.
* * *
The mothers are free to roam the campus until dinnertime. Ms. Knight encouraged quiet reflection as well as contemplating the sky. The dinner bell will ring at six. A woman in a pink lab coat comes by to collect their personal items. Frida asks to take a last look at her things, sticks her hand back inside the sack and touches her scarf, likely the last soft thing she’ll touch until next November.
“Can I walk with you?” Helen asks. “I’m feeling antsy.”
“I’m sure we’ll get plenty of quality time later.” Frida runs downstairs before Helen can pressure her, taking off at a brisk pace.
Some mothers are walking together. A few are jogging. Others, like Frida, are guarding these last precious hours alone.
Frida has to slow down. The boots hit her instep at the wrong angle. They’re too heavy. She keeps tripping on the hem of her jumpsuit, has to hold up the pant legs as she walks. The hat is too big; the parka is too big. The wind is picking up, and the jumpsuit is a wind tunnel. She may never be warm here. She needs another sweater, another undershirt, long underwear. She sticks her hands deep in her pockets, cursing the school for not providing any gloves.