The mock bedtime sequences give Frida too much time to dwell on Harriet’s weight loss, her daughter calling the wrong woman “Mommy,” how many months remain.
The instructors detect false tenderness when Frida peers into the crib. Data from the doll backs them up. If Frida’s performance doesn’t improve, if she doesn’t pass the next evaluation, the counselor will suspend phone privileges.
Ms. Russo thinks Frida’s bedtime stories lack depth. “You can’t just have the cow jump over the moon, Frida. You need to have the cow consider his place in society. If you’re telling the Red Riding Hood story, you need to talk about the kind of woods, the kind of food in her basket.”
She pantomimes Little Red Riding Hood’s journey with her hands. “How was Little Red Riding Hood feeling as she made that journey? Ask Emmanuelle open-ended questions about that. Engage with her thinking. You’re teaching her about being a girl. Remember, everything she’ll learn about girlhood will come from you.”
* * *
By late January, bedtime prep includes a diaper change, pajamas, a bottle of blue liquid, and toothbrushing. When the doll wakes up, her mother must soothe her nightmare and put the doll back to sleep in ten minutes, then eight, then five.
Harriet hardly spoke during the last call. No Mommy Sue-Sue, but also no Mommy. She wouldn’t look at the screen. Her cheeks were even smaller.
At the next call, Frida will tell Harriet that she’s remembering. She tests herself every night. What changes happened during which months. When Harriet’s eyes changed from slate-blue to blue-gray to hazel to brown. When her hair darkened and began to curl. At fourteen months, she started walking. At fifteen months, she learned to walk backward. She started speaking. Her first word was hi. At sixteen months, she started dancing. At seventeen months, she held a spoon. In Frida’s memory, Harriet gains sound and sense. She becomes human.
* * *
On evaluation day, Frida, Beth, and Teen Mom wait in the hall while Linda is tested. Beth asks them to huddle.
“Today is for Lucretia,” she says.
“For Lu.” They each put a hand in.
Frida takes her turn after lunch. She hands Emmanuelle to Ms. Russo and sits down in the rocking chair. Ms. Russo returns with the crying doll. Ms. Khoury starts the timer. Emmanuelle arches her back and screams with abandon. It is a cry of lost love, families torn apart by war, a cry for the earth and its natural disasters. The falsehood of her body and how she must suffer without growing up.
The mothers have one hour. Frida’s face reddens along with Emmanuelle’s. She too feels despair welling up. Susanna now refers to Harriet as our daughter.
“You have to stop treating me like the enemy,” Susanna said.
Frida calms Emmanuelle to a low, snotty gurgle. She completes the diaper change and pajama change. During the bedtime story, Emmanuelle flings her bottle to the ground. Frida forgets to clean the blue drips from her chin. When she has to brush Emmanuelle’s teeth, the doll bites down on the toothbrush and refuses to let go for five agonizing minutes.
Frida can’t get Emmanuelle to open her mouth. She thinks of the day before Christmas Eve. Lucretia running through the snow with her frozen doll. The instructors always tell them that motherhood is a marathon, not a sprint. Why, then, do they have to sprint?
Toothbrushing finally completed, she rushes through the story of Hansel and Gretel. She sings “Three Blind Mice” and “London Bridge Is Falling Down” and “Row Row Row Your Boat.” Emmanuelle won’t stop whimpering.
Frida gives up on nursery songs, begins to sing “Killing Me Softly.” The low tones of Roberta Flack’s melody finally quiets the doll. She sets Emmanuelle in the crib. She takes her place in the rocking chair. She closes her eyes and waits for Emmanuelle to wake up.
10.
GUST AND SUSANNA HOSTED LAST year. The even-number birthdays were supposed to be hers. Frida was going to make Harriet a flower crown from pink tissue paper and ribbon. She was going to throw a party and make flower crowns for all the children. She wonders what her daughter is learning about food and baths and nightmares. When she considers her doll’s dented arm and her recent zero, she pictures herself taking a daring leap off the roof of the school, imagines how she’d smile as the pavement rose up, but knows that with her luck, she’d just land in the bushes and be deemed more self-involved, a danger to herself and others.
It is February, and she hasn’t seen Harriet in over three months. Her phone privileges have been revoked, punishment for failing the second care-and-nurture test. After the disastrous evaluation day, Frida begins spending more time with Meryl and Beth. All three have lost phone privileges. She’s stopped thinking of Meryl as Teen Mom. She tries to be more tolerant of Beth’s possessive behavior toward Meryl, her constant interrupting. The girls have been inseparable since the night of Lucretia’s expulsion, affectionate as kittens.