Linda takes a long, satisfied look at her classmates, her gaze settling on Lucretia.
The mothers cross their arms and tilt their heads and bite their tongues. It had to be random. No child, not even a pretend one, is safe with Linda.
Ms. Russo has Linda explain her hug strategy.
“I have to think like an athlete,” Linda says. “It’s like we’re at the Olympics. Every day, we’re going for the gold. My family is the gold. I can’t have my kids growing up without me. I don’t want to just be some bitch—excuse me, some woman they hear stories about.”
When the rest of the dolls are unfrozen, they all run to Linda. She is the pied piper. The shepherdess. Mother Goose. The instructors ask her to give her classmates pointers, a shift in power that results in a frosty lunch hour. Lucretia goes so far as to dump salt into Linda’s coffee when her back is turned.
No one wants to take their cues from Linda, but with her success in mind, and the potential shame of being bested by the woman who supposedly put her six children in a hole, the mothers hug faster and faster. Some hugs resemble putting out a fire. Others resemble wrestling moves. Eventually, Lucretia quiets her doll, then Beth.
After each breakthrough, they reflect as a group. The instructors say they should interrogate themselves every night. They should ask: “What did I learn today? Where is there room for improvement?”
“A mother is a shark,” Ms. Russo says. “You’re always moving. Always learning. Always trying to better yourself.”
It’s almost goodbye time. Frida counts to six, counts to eight, thinks of Harriet running on the playground, Harriet weak from vomiting, Harriet’s nosebleed, the last time they touched. She says, “I love you. Please forgive me.”
Emmanuelle stops crying. Frida can’t believe it. She raises her hand, trying to catch Ms. Russo’s attention. She checks the doll’s face for moisture and dabs the remaining tears away. She kisses Emmanuelle’s forehead. Their eyes meet in kinship. Contentment has been achieved. It feels better than she imagined.
* * *
Six inches of snow fall overnight. The campus turns stark and enchanted. Frida, Teen Mom, and two mothers from a different cohort are assigned to shovel the walkways from Pierce to the science buildings. The mothers have seen the regular maintenance staff use snowblowers, but questions about snowblowers are rebuffed. Snowblowers are shortcuts, Ms. Gibson says, and shortcuts are not what cleaning crew is about.
Only white mothers and Frida have been assigned to snow removal. The Black and Latina mothers on bathroom duty grumble. With the uptick in bad behavior, cleaning crew has expanded. There are now mothers on laundry duty, mothers cleaning the kitchen and dining hall. Mothers who have avoided Saturday punishment, and who don’t have additional required training, must use the day for exercise and community building and writing in their atonement journals. Some staff members were hoping to start knitting and quilting groups, but the administrators decided that, after the Thanksgiving fire, the mothers can’t be trusted with needles.
Teen Mom insists Frida shovel beside her. Teen Mom is from South Philly, far south, almost to the baseball stadium. She thinks Passyunk Square, where Frida lived, is full of posers with stupid haircuts and expensive bikes and tote bags and little dogs. Frida is careful not to bad-mouth South Philly or the city in general. She’s curious if having a mixed baby in a white part of South Philly caused any friction, but doesn’t ask. They gossip about their roommates and instructors and Linda, every mother whom Teen Mom considers a basic bitch, whether anyone learned anything in class yesterday, whether anyone here is learning anything ever. Teen Mom thinks the instructors pick on her because she’s the youngest. Her counselor says she has anger issues, trust issues, depression issues, sexual-abuse-survivor issues, marijuana issues, unwed-mother issues, high-school-dropout issues, white-mother-of-a-Black-child issues. The data suggests that Teen Mom hates her doll. She doesn’t dispute this but clarifies that she hates everyone.
She asks Frida how it felt yesterday, doing something right. Teen Mom was the only one who couldn’t get her doll to stop crying.
“It hasn’t sunk in yet.” Frida doesn’t admit how much she enjoyed the instructors’ praise, how proud she was that Emmanuelle was extra clingy. When they said goodbye, Emmanuelle sighed and rested her head on Frida’s shoulder, a tender and surprising gesture that chipped away at Frida’s resistance.
She says the dolls are unpredictable. She doesn’t know how Emmanuelle will behave on Monday. The breakthrough came too late to count toward the week’s goals. The counselor thinks she’s falling behind. The counselor questioned her conduct during her Sunday call. She accused Frida of acting distant with Emmanuelle. Eye contact numbers were low. Affection ratings were inconsistent. Kisses were tepid. Motherese was stagnant.