Frida returns to the driver’s seat. Harriet looks thin and sullen. They’ve had her ears pierced. She’s wearing gold studs. New clothes. Black and gray.
Gust shows Harriet a framed picture. “Who’s this? This is Mommy. Remember we talked to her a few days ago? She looks a little different now.”
“No,” Harriet says. “Not Mommy. Not home. Mommy not come back! I want Sue-Sue! I want to play!” She slides off Gust’s lap.
When the whistle blows, Frida remains seated. Even if the car were on fire, she wouldn’t be able to move. Gust and Harriet disappear offscreen. Gust offers Harriet another piece of cake if she’ll talk to Mommy. He asks her to please stop hitting him.
“I know you’re upset,” Gust says. “It’s okay to be upset. I know this is hard for you. I don’t like it either.”
Frida ignores Emmanuelle’s increasingly desperate flailing in the back seat. The video plays on a continuous loop. She notices new details each time. Harriet’s eyes narrowing as she focuses on the candles, shutting them tight when Gust and Susanna show her how to make a wish. The adults laughing, the children reaching for pieces of cake. Their messy faces. The streamers. The balloons, gold this time. Will’s new girl. Asian. Japanese, maybe. The girl’s chic black dress. Susanna with her hair in braids. Harriet smiling at Susanna. The image blurring as Gust hands his phone to someone else. Gust and Susanna standing behind Harriet, kissing.
Several times, when Frida looks up, expecting to see her classmates racing in the rain, she finds them stuck in the driver’s seats too.
* * *
Frida’s was the only birthday party, but her classmates watched their daughters brushing their teeth, eating breakfast, at the playground, playing with friends and foster parents. Linda’s daughter cried as soon as Mommy was mentioned. Beth’s daughter ran from the camera. Ocean wouldn’t speak.
They want to know how the school obtained the videos, what their children’s guardians were told, if they knew how the videos were to be used. Frida says Gust would never have consented if he’d known. “He wouldn’t do that to me. They must have told him it would be a gift.”
Roxanne’s video showed Isaac standing by himself. Isaac feeding himself steamed carrots and string beans. His first teeth have come in. His foster mom filmed him cruising along the furniture in her living room. He’ll take his first steps any day now. Soon, he won’t be a baby anymore.
Isaac’s foster mother is a white woman, a Drexel professor in her fifties.
“She has him in full-time day care,” Roxanne says. “What’s the point of her having him at all if he’s with other people for forty fucking hours a week? I wouldn’t have had him in day care. I’d be taking care of him myself. How do I even know what kind of place she chose? He’s probably the only Black boy.”
Roxanne says she’ll die if that lady keeps him.
“You don’t mean that. She’s not going to get him, okay?” Frida warns her to stop. Mothers who voice negative thoughts are placed on a watch list and required to attend extra counseling. Any hints of suicidal ideation are added to their files.
But soon after home video day, the watch list grows. Mothers in love become careless. A couple is caught cuddling in a supply closet. Another is caught holding hands. Weeks earlier, Margaret and Alicia’s foiled escape attempt sent ripples through the other romances. Couples either grew closer or broke up. There are rumors that the school is developing an evening seminar on loneliness. How to manage it. How to avoid it. Why it has no place here, or anywhere, in the life of a mother.
* * *
Inside the warehouse, the drills are combined into obstacle courses. Frida and her classmates now carry their dolls from house to car to house to car. They must run and narrate, run and deliver affection.
Frida’s counselor thinks she doesn’t care anymore. Her best time is third place. The only reason she’s not in fourth is because Meryl started having panic attacks.
“I’m not going to leave my daughter to die in a hot car,” Frida says. “I’d never do that.” And why is the school allowed to torture them? With videos of their own kids?
“Torture is not a word to use lightly,” the counselor says. “We’re putting you in high-pressure scenarios so we can see what kind of mother you are. Most people can be good parents if they have absolutely no stress. We have to know that you can handle conflict. Every day is an obstacle course for a parent.”