The mothers must keep an eye on the blue liquid. If the liquid coagulates, the doll’s face and body will dimple like cellulite, and the mothers will have to scrape out the blue mess. The liquid must be changed monthly. In addition to cooling properties, it helps their silicone skin remain supple and lifelike, gives their bodies the right texture and weight.
The doll pats Frida’s face. She pulls Frida closer until Frida can feel the doll’s hot breath on her cheek. Her touch is so different from Harriet’s, a blind groping. But the doll is warm and real, breathing, sighing. She has lifelines and fingerprints. Fingernails. Eyelashes. A full set of teeth. Saliva. How did they make saliva?
* * *
In the past, the instructors say, children were removed, then handed back to parents whose behavior hadn’t been corrected. Mistakes were made. Children suffered. Some died. Here, the mothers’ progress will be measured in a controlled environment. With this simulation model, their real children will be protected from further harm.
There’s a camera inside each doll. “You can see her, and she can see you,” Ms. Russo explains.
In addition to their role as proxy children, the dolls will collect data. They’ll gauge the mothers’ love. The mothers’ heart rates will be monitored to judge anger. Their blinking patterns and expressions will be monitored to detect stress, fear, ingratitude, deception, boredom, ambivalence, and a host of other feelings, including whether her happiness mirrors her doll’s. The doll will record where the mother’s hands are placed, will detect tension in her body, her temperature and posture, how often she makes eye contact, the quality and authenticity of her emotions.
There will be nine units of study, each composed of a set of lessons. The first, Fundamentals of Care and Nurture, will cover basic, intermediate, and advanced bonding, as well as feeding and health. Each unit will conclude with an evaluation day, and scores from those days will determine the mothers’ success.
It is assumed that, having kept their daughters alive this long, basic CPR training isn’t necessary, but there will be refreshers. Future units will include Fundamentals of Play, Dangers Inside and Outside the Home, the Moral Universe. The instructors write these units on the board, telling the mothers not to think too far ahead. They’re not providing the complete curriculum because the mothers must stay present, must put their faith in the program, trust that each unit will build on the one that came before, that with practice, they’ll rise to meet the school’s standards.
* * *
They begin the bonding process by naming the dolls. “With names come attachment,” Ms. Russo says. “And with attachment comes love.”
Frida smiles with her mouth, smiles with her eyes, makes her voice pleasant. She wipes her forehead, didn’t realize she was sweating. When the sun hits the doll’s face, she can see a metallic chip in each of the doll’s pupils.
The doll plays with the Velcro tabs on her sneakers. They only have ten minutes to choose a name, not enough time to assess the doll’s personality, if she has one, to find a name that suits her.
When she was pregnant, Frida kept a list of names in her desk drawer. Old-fashioned names. French names. She wanted Harriet to have a name she could grow into, might have named her after Marguerite Duras, her favorite author. She discussed these names with Gust on only one occasion, claimed that she wasn’t picky, let him decide. She’d always envied her parents for choosing their own names when they came here. Davis and Lillian. She would have liked to be a Simone. A Juliana. Something elegant and musical.
“I’ll call you Emmanuelle,” she says, thinking of that film with Emmanuelle Riva where she played a woman who’d suffered a stroke.
As they practice saying her new name, the doll stammers and drops consonants. Frida has chosen the most complicated name in the class.
“Emannnnn,” the doll trills. “Emmaaa-nana.”
Frida supplies the rest.
The instructors say, “How creative.”
And what would Frida like to be called? Mother, Mom, Mama, or Mommy?
“She can call me Mommy. Isn’t that right? I’m your mommy.”
* * *
The lunch bell rings at noon. The instructors freeze the dolls in place by entering a code on their tablets. Emmanuelle’s cheek becomes cold to the touch and completely rigid. Meryl taps on her doll’s head, squeezes her shoulders, pulls her ears. Her doll’s eyes are still moving.
“What the fuck?” she shouts. In her head, Frida names the girl “Teen Mom.” She seems too feisty to be a Meryl.