Frida, Beth, and Teen Mom return to Kemp and look for Lucretia in her room. They search the other floors. Teen Mom thinks they should have stopped Linda from mouthing off. Beth thinks they should go to Ms. Gibson’s office together. The instructors should have warned and corrected Lucretia when she took off her doll’s hat. They notice every mistake. Why didn’t they correct her?
They walk to Pierce and spend the next hour wandering the building, knocking on doors, trying to find Ms. Gibson. They head back outside. Beth spots Lucretia standing next to a security guard’s SUV in the rose garden circle. Lucretia is dressed in her personal clothes, a green-and-white ski jacket over a pleated skirt and knee-high burgundy heeled boots, a fedora. She looks commanding and regal.
They run to her, catching snow in the cuffs of their uniforms. The guards tell them to leave.
Beth says, “We won’t cause any trouble. We just want to say goodbye.”
Linda is nowhere to be seen. More mothers arrive. For once, there’s no gawking or whispering or rumormongering. Frida, Beth, and Teen Mom apologize to Lucretia and offer condolences as if her child has died. They blame themselves. They saw Gabby take off her hat. They should have said something.
“I’m so sorry,” Frida says. “I should have helped you.”
“Yeah, well.” Lucretia shrugs.
Frida is surprised to find Lucretia calm, but she may be past tears. Tears will come later, when she thinks back on this one terrible day, following this one humiliating month, when all her life, she mourns her lost daughter.
Frida holds Lucretia for a good minute. It could have been any of them. She wants to ask where Lucretia will go tonight. “It wasn’t your fault,” she whispers.
“It doesn’t matter. Listen, all of you better finish. Except Linda. I don’t care what happens to her. But the rest of you. Don’t you dare fuck this up. If I hear of any of you causing trouble—”
“Enough,” Ms. Gibson says. She sends Frida and the others back to Kemp. Lights-out will be early tonight. Tomorrow is Christmas Eve.
9.
THEIR CLASS IS NOW KNOWN as the one with the dead doll. Other mothers keep their distance on the walk to Morris. Frida wishes she could tell Lucretia about the whispers, the staring. How they left her seat empty this morning as a tribute. How they banished Linda from the table. How some Black mothers took her expulsion personally. The ordeal has bonded Teen Mom and Beth. They’ve promised each other that if one gets expelled, the other will quit.
The instructors don’t mention Lucretia or her doll Gabby by name, but begin class with a freestyle hug sequence, no counting necessary.
Emmanuelle points to the spot next to the window where Lucretia and Gabby usually sat. Frida says Gabby has gone to the equipment room in the sky, maybe to the equipment room in a doll factory in China.
“I won’t let that happen to you,” she says, trying to sound convincing. She turns away and yawns. Roxanne kept her up late with impossible questions. Why isn’t Linda being punished too? What if the foster parents don’t want to keep Brynn? How will Lucretia find a job? Parents who get expelled are automatically added to the registry. She’ll never be able to teach again. When does she have to start paying the school back? Does she still have to pay them back if they’re taking her kid?
“Lu should go get Brynn,” Roxanne said. “Take her. There are ways. It doesn’t have to end like this. I’d do it.”
“Right,” Frida said. “And then what? Your kid visits you in jail? Brilliant plan.”
“And you wonder why I don’t tell you things.”
The instructors are wearing Santa hats with tinkling bells. They’ve set up the classroom with four mothering stations, each with a changing table, a diaper pail, a rag rug, and a basket of toys and books. Having honed their tenderness skills, the mothers will now incorporate this tenderness into basic childcare tasks. First diapering, then sleep.
Ms. Khoury shows them how to unfold a clean diaper with a flick of the wrist, how to roll the dirty diaper into a tidy cylindrical bundle so that it will take up less space in a landfill.
The dolls hate being on their backs. They can’t lie flat because of their blue knobs. The instructors tell the mothers not to stare. The dolls’ genitalia are remarkably lifelike. Blue liquid of different consistencies pours out of each hole. The make-believe urine and feces smell more pungent than the real thing. Beth and Teen Mom are caught saying “Ew.” Linda doesn’t seem bothered.
Emmanuelle’s body is sleek and cheerless. It feels wrong to be looking at her labia. It feels wrong to part her vaginal folds to check for blue specks. Frida hates that Susanna knows Harriet’s body this intimately. Harriet’s diaper rashes sometimes lasted for days. Susanna thought Frida’s preferred rash cream was full of chemicals that would increase Harriet’s risk of Parkinson’s and other degenerative diseases. She repeatedly suggested that both households use plant-based creams. Arguments about rash cream so often spiraled into fights about love and faith and what kind of person Harriet would become. It shocks Frida to think she ever felt so passionately about consumer products.