“We have your daughter.” 

It’s the first Tuesday in September, the afternoon of her one very bad day, and Frida is trying to stay on the road. On the voice mail, the officer tells her to come to the station immediately. She pauses the message, puts down her phone. It’s 2:46 p.m. She meant to get home an hour and a half ago. She pulls onto the first side street off Grays Ferry and double-parks. She calls back and begins apologizing, explaining that she lost track of time.  

“Is she okay?”  

The officer says the child is safe. “Ma’am, we’ve been trying to reach you.”  

Frida hangs up and calls Gust, has to leave a message. He needs to meet her at the station at Eleventh and Wharton. “There’s a problem. It’s Harriet.” Her voice catches. She repeats the officer’s promise that their daughter is safe.  

As she begins driving again, she reminds herself to stay under the speed limit, to avoid running red lights, to breathe. All through Labor Day weekend, she felt frantic. Last Friday and Saturday, she had her usual insomnia, sleeping two hours each night. On Sunday, when Gust dropped off Harriet for Frida’s three and a half days of custody, Harriet was in the throes of an ear infection. That night, Frida slept ninety minutes. Last night, an hour. Harriet’s crying has been relentless, too big for her body, too loud for the walls of their tiny house to absorb. Frida did what she could. She sang lullabies, rubbed Harriet’s chest, gave her extra milk. She laid on the floor next to Harriet’s crib, held her impossibly perfect hand through the bars, kissed her knuckles, her fingernails, feeling for the ones that needed to be trimmed, praying for Harriet’s eyes to close.  

The afternoon sun is burning as Frida pulls up to the station, located two blocks from her house in an old Italian neighborhood in South Philly. She parks and rushes to the reception desk, asks if the receptionist has seen her daughter, a toddler, eighteen months old; half Chinese, half white; big brown eyes, curly dark brown hair with bangs.  

“You must be the mother,” the receptionist says.  

The receptionist, an elderly white woman wearing a smear of pink lipstick, emerges from behind the desk. Her eyes flick over Frida from head to toe, pausing at Frida’s feet, her worn-out Birkenstocks.  

The station seems to be mostly empty. The receptionist walks with halting steps, favoring her left leg. She leads Frida down the hall and deposits her in a windowless interrogation room where the walls are a cloying mint green. Frida sits. In crime movies she’s seen, the lights are always flickering, but here the glare is steady. She has goose bumps, wishes for a jacket or scarf. Though she’s often exhausted on the days she has Harriet, now there’s a weight bearing down on her chest, an ache that has passed into her bones, numbing her.  

She rubs her arms, her attention fading in and out. She retrieves her phone from the bottom of her purse, cursing herself for not seeing the officer’s messages immediately, for having silenced her phone this morning after getting fed up with endless robocalls, for having forgotten to turn the ringer back on. In the past twenty minutes, Gust has called six times and sent a stream of worried texts.  

Here, she writes finally. Come soon. She should call back, but she’s afraid. During her half of the week, Gust calls every night to find out if Harriet has new words or motor skills. She hates the disappointment in his voice when she fails to deliver. But Harriet is changing in other ways: a stronger grip, noticing a new detail in a book, holding Frida’s gaze longer when they kiss good night.  

Resting her forearms on the metal table, Frida puts her head down and falls asleep for a split second. She looks up and spots a camera in the corner of the ceiling. Her mind returns to Harriet. She’ll buy a carton of strawberry ice cream, Harriet’s favorite. When they get home, she’ll let Harriet play in the tub as long as she wants. She’ll read Harriet extra books at bedtime. I Am a Bunny. Corduroy.  

The officers enter without knocking. Officer Brunner, the one who called, is a burly white man in his twenties with acne at the corners of his mouth. Officer Harris is a middle-aged Black man with a perfectly groomed mustache and strong shoulders.  

She stands and shakes hands with both of them. They ask to see her driver’s license, confirm that she’s Frida Liu.  

“Where is my baby?”  

“Sit down,” Officer Brunner says, glancing at Frida’s chest. He flips his notebook to a blank page. “Ma’am, what time did you leave the house?”  

“Maybe noon. Twelve thirty? I went out for a coffee. And then I went to my office. I shouldn’t have. I know. It was so stupid. I was exhausted. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to . . . Can you please tell me where she is?”  

“Don’t play dumb with us, Ms. Liu,” Officer Harris says. 

“I’m not. I can explain.” 

“You left your baby at home. Alone. Your neighbors heard her crying.” 

Frida spreads her palms on the table, needing to touch something cold and solid. “It was a mistake.” 

The officers arrived around two, entering through the breezeway. The sliding glass door between Frida’s kitchen and backyard was open, with only the flimsy screen door protecting the child.  

“So your toddler . . . Harriet is her name? Harriet was alone for two hours. Is that right, Ms. Liu?”  

Frida sits on her hands. She’s left her body, is now floating high above.  

They tell her that Harriet is being examined at a crisis center for children. “Someone will bring her—”  

“What do you mean, examining her? Look, it’s not what you think. I wouldn’t—”  

“Ma’am, hold on,” Officer Brunner says. “You seem like a smart lady. Let’s back up. Why would you leave your kid alone in the first place?”  

“I got a coffee, and then I went into work. I needed a file. A hard copy. I must have lost track of time. I was already on the way home when I saw that you called. I’m sorry. I haven’t slept in days. I need to go get her. Can I go now?”  

Officer Harris shakes his head. “We’re not done here. Where were you supposed to be today? Who was in charge of the baby?”  

“I was. Like I told you, I went to work. I work at Wharton.”  

She explains that she produces a faculty research digest, rewriting academic papers as short articles with takeaways for the business community. Like writing term papers on subjects she knows nothing about. She works from home Monday through Wednesday, when she has custody—a special arrangement. It’s her first full-time job since Harriet was born. She’s been there for only six months. It’s been so hard to find a decent job, or any job, in Philly.  

She tells them about her demanding boss, her deadline. The professor she’s working with right now is eighty-one. He never sends his notes by email. She forgot to bring his notes home with her last Friday, needed them for the article she’s finishing.  

“I was going in to grab the file and then come right back. I got caught up with answering emails. I should have—”  

“This is how you showed up to work?” Officer Harris nods at Frida’s bare face, her chambray button-down, stained with toothpaste and peanut butter. Her long black hair tied in a messy bun. Her shorts. The blemish on her chin.  

She swallows. “My boss knows I have a baby.”  

They scribble in their notebooks. They’ll do a background check, but if she has any prior offenses, she should tell them now.  

“Of course I don’t have a record.” Her chest is tight. She begins to cry. “It was a mistake. Please. You have to believe me. Am I under arrest?”  

The officers say no. But they’ve called Child Protective Services. A social worker is on her way.  

Alone in the mint-green room, Frida gnaws at her fingers. She remembers retrieving Harriet from her crib and changing her diaper. She remembers giving Harriet her morning bottle, feeding her yogurt and a banana, reading to her from a Berenstain Bears book, the one about a sleepover.  

They’d been up off and on since 4:00 a.m. Frida’s article was due last week. All morning, she went back and forth between Harriet’s play corner and back to the living room sofa, where she had her notes spread out on the coffee table. She wrote the same paragraph over and over, trying to explain Bayesian modeling in layman’s terms. Harriet kept screaming. She wanted to climb onto Frida’s lap. She wanted to be held. She grabbed Frida’s papers and threw them on the floor. She kept touching the keyboard.  

Frida should have put on a show for Harriet to watch. She remembers thinking that if she couldn’t finish the article, couldn’t keep up, her boss would rescind work-from-home privileges and Harriet would have to go to day care, something Frida hoped to avoid. And she remembers that she then plopped Harriet in her ExerSaucer, a contraption that should have been retired months ago as soon as Harriet started walking. Later, Frida gave Harriet water and animal crackers. She checked Harriet’s diaper. She kissed Harriet’s head, which smelled oily. She squeezed Harriet’s pudgy arms.  

Harriet would be safe in the ExerSaucer, she thought. It couldn’t go anywhere. What could happen in an hour?  

Under the harsh lights of the interrogation room, Frida bites her cuticles, pulling off bits of skin. Her contacts are killing her. She takes a compact from her purse and examines the gray rings under her eyes. She used to be considered lovely. She is petite and slender, and with her round face and bangs and porcelain-doll features, people used to assume she was still in her twenties. But at thirty-nine, she has deep creases between her brows and bracketing her mouth, lines that appeared postpartum, becoming more pronounced after Gust left her for Susanna when Harriet was three months old.  

This morning, she didn’t shower or wash her face. She worried the neighbors would complain about the crying. She should have closed the back door. She should have come home right away. She should never have left. She should have remembered the file in the first place. Or gone in over the weekend to grab it. She should have met her original deadline.  

She should have told the officers that she can’t lose this job. That Gust hired a mediator to determine child support. He didn’t want to waste money on legal fees. With Gust’s rewarding but poorly paid position, his student-loan debt, and her earning potential, and the fact that custody would be shared, the mediator suggested that Gust give her $500 a month, not nearly enough to support her and Harriet, especially since she gave up her job in New York. She couldn’t bring herself to ask him for more. She didn’t ask for alimony. Her parents would help her if she asked, but she can’t ask, would hate herself if she did. They already funded her entire life during the separation.  

It’s four fifteen. Hearing voices in the hall, she opens the door and finds Gust and Susanna conferring with the officers. Susanna approaches and embraces Frida, keeps holding on as Frida stiffens, enveloped in Susanna’s lush red hair and sandalwood perfume.  

Susanna rubs Frida’s back as if they’re friends. The girl is on a mission to nice her to death. A war of attrition. Susanna is only twenty-eight, a former dancer. Before Susanna appeared in her life, Frida hadn’t understood that the gap between twenty-eight and thirty-nine could be so potent and deadly. The girl has a fine-boned elfin face, with huge blue eyes that give her a fragile, storybook quality. Even on days when she does nothing but childcare, she wears black winged eyeliner and dresses like a teenager, carrying herself with a confidence that Frida never possessed.  

Gust is shaking hands with the other men. Frida stares at the ground and waits. Old Gust would yell. As he did on the nights she hid in the bathroom and wept instead of holding the baby. But this is New Gust, the one who hugs her tenderly despite her delinquency, who’s been made placid by Susanna’s love and toxin-free lifestyle.  

“Gust, I’m so sorry.”  

He asks Susanna to wait outside, then takes Frida’s arm and leads her back into the mint-green room, where he sits beside her, cradling her hands. It’s been months since they were alone together. She feels ashamed for wanting a kiss even now. He’s more beautiful than she ever deserved, tall and lean and muscular. At forty-two, his angular face is lined from too much sun, his sandy, graying waves grown longer to please Susanna. He now resembles the surfer he’d been in his youth.  

Gust squeezes her hands tighter, hurting her. “Obviously, what happened today . . .”  

“I haven’t been sleeping. I wasn’t thinking. I know that’s no excuse. I thought she’d be fine for an hour. I was just going to go in and come right back.”  

“Why would you do that? That’s not okay. You’re not raising her alone, you know. You could have called me. Either of us. Susanna could have helped you.” Gust grips her wrists. “She’s coming home with us tonight. Look at me. Are you listening, Frida? This is serious. The cops said you might lose custody.”  

“No.” She pulls her hands away. The room spins.  

“Temporarily,” he says. “Sweetie, you’re not breathing.” He shakes her shoulder and tells her to take a breath, but she can’t. If she does, she might vomit.  

On the other side of the door, she hears crying. “Can I?” 
 

Gust nods. 

Susanna is holding Harriet. She’s given her some apple slices. It always kills Frida to see Harriet’s ease with Susanna, her ease even now, after a day of illness and fear and strangers. This morning, Frida dressed Harriet in a purple dinosaur T-shirt and striped leggings and moccasins, but now she’s in a raggedy pink sweater and jeans that are much too big, socks, but no shoes.  

“Please,” Frida says, taking Harriet from Susanna.  

Harriet clutches Frida’s neck. Now that they’re together again, Frida’s body relaxes.  

“Are you hungry? Did they feed you?”  

Harriet sniffles. Her eyes are red and swollen. The borrowed clothes smell sour. Frida pictures state workers taking off Harriet’s clothes and diaper, inspecting her body. Did anyone touch her inappropriately? How will she ever make this up to her baby? Will it be the work of months or years or a lifetime?  

“Mommy.” Harriet’s voice is hoarse.  

Frida leans her temple against Harriet’s. “Mommy is so sorry. You have to stay with Daddy and Sue-Sue for a while, okay? Bub, I’m so sorry. I really messed up.” She kisses Harriet’s ear. “Does it still hurt?”  

Harriet nods.  

“Daddy will give you the medicine. Promise you’ll be good?” Frida starts to say they’ll see each other soon but holds her tongue. She hooks Harriet’s pinkie.  

“Galaxies,” she whispers. It’s their favorite game, a promise they say at bedtime. I promise you the moon and stars. I love you more than galaxies. She says it when she tucks Harriet in, this girl with her same moon face, same double eyelids, same pensive mouth.  

Harriet begins falling asleep on her shoulder. 

Gust tugs on Frida’s arm. “We need to get her home for dinner.”

“Not yet.” She holds Harriet and rocks her, kissing her salty cheek. They need to change her out of these disgusting clothes. They need to give her a bath. “I’m going to miss you like crazy. Love you, bub. Love you, love you, love you.”  

Harriet stirs but doesn’t answer. Frida takes a last look at Harriet, then closes her eyes as Gust takes her baby.