“Frida, there’s no need to be passive-aggressive,” Ms. Gibson says.
Tamara is sitting opposite Frida in the second ring of the circle. Her original crime was spanking. Her ex-husband reported her. She admits that her doll has a hitting problem, but Frida should have been paying attention.
Tamara points at Frida. “I saw her looking away.”
“I looked away for one second.”
“One second is all it takes. Haven’t you learned anything? You were letting your doll play by herself. If you’d been watching her—”
“Ladies!” Ms. Gibson says. “Control yourselves.”
* * *
“Dude, you look awful.” On the bus, Meryl drops her voice to a whisper, tells Frida that Tamara has been talking shit. “That lady is calling you a cunt.”
Frida smiles. “I’m not a cunt, I’m a bad mother.”
“Good one,” Meryl says.
“I try,” Frida replies. They bump fists. “I’m worried about her.”
“Harriet?”
“Emmanuelle.” The doll’s bruise looks like a case of ringworm. A perfect circle, purple in the center with a ring of yellow, then green. The bruise pulses when she cries. This morning, the instructors found her crying in the equipment room. They didn’t know crying in sleep mode was even possible. Frida asked if she needed to be repaired. Ms. Russo said the bruise would heal on its own.
“The more serious injury is here,” she said, pointing to Emmanuelle’s heart. “And here.” She pointed to Emmanuelle’s forehead.
Ms. Gibson said the way Frida spoke to Tamara’s son was indefensible. Tamara made mistakes, but Frida yelled. Nothing justifies yelling at a child. Nothing justifies scaring him. Frida acted impulsively. She escalated. She didn’t give Tamara space to mother.
The family court judge should know that yelling at Tamara’s son is one of the most maternal things Frida has ever done. She’d always wanted her parents to yell on her behalf, remembers being pushed face-first into a chain-link fence when she was eight, telling her parents about it, her parents doing nothing.
The bus rides have lost their novelty. For the rest of the trip, Frida and Meryl play their usual game, trying to guess which drivers are cheaters, which are alcoholics, which are mean to animals, which are bad parents. Meryl undoes her ponytail and shows Frida the bald spot on the back of her head. It’s the size of a quarter, perfectly smooth. When she can’t sleep, she pulls. She scratches. She’s given herself so many scabs. She’s nervous about next month’s brain scan.
“I don’t want them looking into my head. It’s so fucking creepy.”
“It’s going to be okay,” Frida says, though she’s nervous too. They haven’t been told what the procedure will involve, only that the scan will be part of their mid-year evaluations, that their dolls will also be interviewed. Supposedly, the counselors will issue a prognosis for their child’s return.
* * *
Having completed “Preventing Home Alone,” this week’s anti-abandonment lessons address the epidemic of children being left in hot cars. Four black minivans are staggered across the warehouse parking lot. The mothers are given headsets with a screen that fits over their right eye. No matter what distracting image is on-screen, they must rise above the distraction and stay focused on their doll. They will strap the dolls into car seats and load them in. Once that’s complete, they’ll have ten minutes to remove the car seat and run to the goalpost at the end of the parking lot.
The headset plays images of war, couples having sex, animals being tortured. The mothers stagger and weave. Linda trips and scrapes her hands. Beth collides with a side mirror. Meryl gets caught resting her head on the steering wheel.
Days later, practice continues in the rain. The mothers try not to slip on the wet asphalt. Frida is in the back seat tending to Emmanuelle when the video begins. Harriet’s birthday party. Five children she doesn’t recognize. Their parents.
Frida stops breathing. She stops hearing Emmanuelle’s shrieks. The video was taken on someone’s phone. Gust’s. He’s narrating.
“Frida, we miss you,” he says. “Here’s Will. Will, say hello.”
Will waves. He’s there with his arm around a young woman. Susanna is holding the cake. Harriet appears in close-up wearing a paper party hat, white with rainbow stripes. The guests sing to her. Gust and Susanna help her blow out her number two candle.
The video switches to Gust and Harriet sitting in his office. On the bookshelf behind them, there’s a 3D model of a green roof he worked on in Brooklyn. Harriet is rubbing her eyes. Seems to have just woken up from a nap. Gust asks Harriet to tell Frida about the cake. An almond cake with blueberries. Who came to the party? Friends. Uncle Will. Harriet received a balance bike from Daddy and Sue-Sue.