“Why are you doing this?”
“Because we have to train you.”
Emmanuelle cowers behind Frida. “It’s only going to hurt for a second,” Frida says. “It’s just pretend. I’m here. Mommy will take care of you. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” She winces as Ms. Khoury slaps the doll across the face.
Emmanuelle’s cries are sharper than Harriet’s, more insistent and threatening. Frida increases her hugs to five seconds, then ten. For Harriet, she’ll let the doll scream in her ear. For Harriet, she’ll let the doll damage her hearing. She’s amazed by the sheer volume of liquid issuing from the doll’s eyes, nose, and mouth, a feedback loop with no obvious source, as if her body contains a secret fountain.
The collar and placket of Emmanuelle’s uniform are soon soaked with tears. The dolls cry longer and louder than real children. They cry without pause. They don’t get tired. Their voices don’t become hoarse. They push themselves out of their mothers’ embraces, discovering the basic animal pleasure of pure release. Cries of physical upset segue to cries of passion as they stretch their voices to full capacity, creating a dome of sound that makes Frida want to cry tears of blood.
Hours pass. The instructors wear headphones. At lunchtime, they pause the dolls mid-wail, their mouths stretched open, their throats red and wet and pulsing. They resume the same high pitch of grief when the mothers return.
The mothers aren’t making their dolls feel safe. If the dolls felt safe, they’d stop crying. The instructors tell them to manage their frustration. By staying calm, they’re showing their child that a mother can handle anything. A mother is always patient. A mother is always kind. A mother is always giving. A mother never falls apart. A mother is the buffer between her child and the cruel world.
Absorb it, the instructors say. Take it. Take it.
* * *
Each cohort thinks they have it the worst: the most badly behaved dolls, the harshest instructors. The tactics are inhumane. The explanations make no sense. Nothing they’re learning relates to real life.
Beth thinks the school hired social workers who have the souls of Nazis. If the dolls can feel real feelings, they’re going to feel real feelings about being abused.
“Social workers are Nazis,” Lucretia says. “They’re Nazi-adjacent. At least mine was.” She thinks Ms. Khoury must be a fascist in a brown lady’s body. There are more of those these days.
The infant dolls were made to cry just by setting them on the ground; the older dolls were slapped repeatedly by instructors. The teenage dolls yelled hateful phrases: “Rot in hell!” “Die, witch!” “You don’t understand me!” “You’re not my real mother! Why should I listen to you?” Helen’s doll has been sent to storage.
At dinner, Frida and her classmates talked strategy. Pacifiers. Toys. Board books. Videos. Songs. Their real daughters need distractions when they’re upset. Why can’t they use pacifiers? They dared Lucretia to ask tomorrow.
Frida is exhausted from crouching and squatting and chasing and listening and giving and trying to channel frustration into love. She climbs into bed before lights-out, excited to have the room to herself. Then she remembers that Helen is home. Helen will sleep in her own bed tonight.
Ms. Gibson does final checks. The evening bell rings. The lights go off.
Aside from the business with Helen and the hitting and crying and her own desperate thoughts, the day started on a good note. The instructors said, “Find your mother,” and Emmanuelle came to her right away. Most dolls couldn’t do it. Teen Mom’s doll went to Beth. Beth’s to Lucretia. But Emmanuelle recognized Frida. She pointed at Frida’s chest and said, “Mommy,” and Frida felt a vague something. Tenderness, maybe. Pride. The doll is not Harriet. She can never be Harriet. She is simply a stepping-stone. Frida will step on the doll’s head, her body, whatever is necessary.
* * *
For Thanksgiving dinner, the dining hall is lit with candles. The executive director, Ms. Knight, flits between tables, shaking hands and squeezing elbows, asking the mothers for their names and offenses.
“How are you enjoying the program? Have you settled in? Aren’t the dolls fun?”
Once everyone is seated, Ms. Knight takes the microphone and leads the mothers in a moment of silence for their missing children.
The mothers don’t appreciate the tribute. They know where they are and where they should be. The festive touches make them feel worse than if the school had done nothing. The candlesticks are wobbly, made of cheap plastic. Each table has a bowl of miniature pumpkins, which they’ve been warned not to use as weapons. There are paper garlands of Pilgrims and turkeys taped to the walls. They’ve been served dry, barely seasoned turkey, chalky stuffing, runny sweet potatoes.