“Sad, why sad?” Emmanuelle asks.
“She’s in shock.” Frida has never heard an adult scream like that. She might have screamed even louder. If it had been her. If it had been Emmanuelle.
Ms. Russo leaves to help Ms. Khoury. Left unsupervised, the mothers surround Lucretia, each placing a hand on her. The dolls wedge themselves into the tangle of limbs. Even Linda asks Lucretia if she’s okay.
“Lu, what happened?” Frida asks.
“We weren’t playing for that long. She said she was hot. And we’re supposed to listen to them, right? I wasn’t going to let them ride me about the crying. I swear I’m not stupid. I wouldn’t let my baby play like that, but they’re not—” She stops herself before she says, They’re not real.
Lucretia looks at the four doll faces. They’ve been listening. The dolls look at the desk. At childless Lucretia. They begin to cry.
* * *
Lucretia’s doll won’t be coming back. Her doll was sent to the technical department, which operates out of the college’s former center for civic and social responsibility. The technicians found that essential components malfunctioned. The blue liquid froze. Lucretia will need to reimburse the school for damages. She’ll have to start over with a new doll. The instructors will work with her during special evening sessions, weekends too. But there’s no guarantee she’ll catch up. Bonding may take weeks.
The instructors prompt Lucretia to begin her atonement. “I should have known better,” Lucretia says. “I’d never let Brynn…” At the mention of her real daughter, she starts to cry.
The instructors tell her to control herself. They feed her the lines.
“I am a bad mother, because I let the snow touch Gabby’s bare skin. I am a bad mother, because I prioritized my fear of my child’s meltdown above her safety and well-being. I am a bad mother, because I looked away.”
Ms. Russo interrupts. “If Lucretia hadn’t looked away, she would have noticed that Gabby wasn’t moving. If Lucretia hadn’t looked away, Gabby could have been saved.
“A mother must never look away,” she continues. She pauses and repeats herself, asks the mothers to repeat after her. They bow their heads in a moment of silence for the departed doll.
They hear about the state of Lucretia’s finances at dinner. Student loans, credit card debt, legal fees. If she owes money to the school too, she’ll have to declare bankruptcy. Who’s going to give her custody after that? Maybe she should quit. Maybe she should allow the foster parents to adopt Brynn. Seems like that’s going to happen anyway.
Linda says, “Stop talking like that. Think about your kid.”
“Do not tell me what to do.”
“What? You’re going to be a quitter? Like Helen? You’re going to let your baby get adopted by some white people?”
“I’m just talking. I didn’t mean it.”
“You said you’d give her up. I heard you say that. We all heard you.”
“I was processing my feelings. Just drop it, Linda.”
Mothers nearby are listening. Teen Mom tells Lucretia to calm the fuck down. Frida tells Linda to stop picking on Lucretia. She reaches for Lucretia’s cutlery and moves it out of the way. If it was her, she’d be tempted.
Linda won’t stop browbeating Lucretia.
“If you say one more word to me, I swear,” Lucretia says. “Need I remind everyone that you’re the one who put your kids in a fucking hole? You should be in real jail.”
Frida touches Lucretia’s arm. “Don’t.”
Linda pushes her chair back, comes to Lucretia’s side of the table. She tells Lucretia to stand up. Mothers at surrounding tables go silent. Someone whistles.
Lucretia looks on in disbelief. “What? I am not fighting you. This isn’t high school. What are we? Fourteen?”
Linda pulls Lucretia to standing. A tug-of-war ensues, with their classmates telling both of them to stop. Linda is nearly twice Lucretia’s width and several inches taller, could win easily.
Mothers shout, “Go, Lu!”
As she resists, Lucretia pushes Linda away. The women in pink lab coats see the push. They see Linda fall.
All the guards and women in pink lab coats rush over. Frida, Beth, and Teen Mom shout. Lucretia was defending herself. They’re willing to testify on her behalf. Lucretia tells them to watch the footage. If they watch the footage, they’ll see that Linda started the whole thing.
Ms. Gibson takes Lucretia away while everyone is still arguing. Dinner ends early. The mothers wonder aloud what will happen, though they know. Violence leads to expulsion, expulsion leads to termination of parental rights.