Mother-Love Certificate
"Mother-Love Certificate" by Martha Witt
Issue 3.14
Along with the middle school graduation ceremony announcement, the New York City Department of Education (NYC DOE) sent out the list of sites for The Fire Walking Test (FWT). Mothers are asked to please check—and double-check—test dates and sites, assigned according to zip code. Make-ups are approved only in extreme situations. Mothers need only compete once: in the spring semester of the eldest child’s eighth-grade year. The certificate, once bestowed, applies to all children in a household, even those not yet born at the time of test-taking. Please find the definition of “household” on the DOE’s website.
Each year, the New York Times publishes only the names of the few who complete the 62-yard walk. Ever since the DOE started using softwood—pine, which burns hotter, leaving fewer finishers, most seats at the city’s top schools have been filled by children whose mothers only came close to finishing. This is the United States, though, where all have the right to an education, and there is a good and appropriate high school for every child in the city, no matter a mother’s ranking. Over the next few weeks, we will visit the schools highest on our son’s list. Paulu has his sights set on one of the city’s most competitive—LGA, which is where we are tonight.
Sitting in the packed auditorium with all the other hopeful families as LGA’s Parent Coordinator (PC), we watch a voluptuous, open-faced woman, the kind a 19th-century British novelist would have described as “handsome,” takes the stage. She stands before us, clearly enjoying the spotlight. We all know her name, published in the Times last year. As soon as the principal hands her the mic, a hush falls. First, she congratulates us: “Look, this June, your kids will graduate middle school! That’s an accomplishment on its own. Give yourselves a pat on the back.” She winces out a smile. “But before diving into all the hard work ahead for you mothers, let’s just take a minute to recognize that getting into the city’s top schools doesn’t just happen; it truly takes a village.”
Time for the business at hand, she says, “I’ve been asked to talk to you specifically about The Fire Walking Test, exactly three months away. From now until then, you mothers need to prepare. Do not wait. Start tomorrow!” Beaming as she searches our faces through the dark, the PC goes on to refer to the FWT the way we mothers do in casual conversation as ‘The Love Test.’ “If these mothers are going to really train, they will need support,” she warns. “Time for you partners to step up to the plate. Be ready to pick up the slack. Be understanding, empathic. No mother succeeds alone!” Hundreds in this auditorium, but you can hear the proverbial pin drop.
The Q&A draws out the usual bone-headed questions. One woman asks about kids who have two mothers or two fathers. Someone asks about provisions for trans people. What about women with disabilities? Children whose mothers are deceased? Why aren’t fathers subject to the test? Do you really believe that those with resources to go to a Mother-Love Center in this city love their children more than less-resourced mothers? How quickly it becomes clear who of us could not be bothered to complete the pre-orientation reading. Any families requiring further support are welcome to call 311. They will find a dedicated 24-hour hotline. Accommodations for every possible human condition have been addressed; no playing field has ever been more leveled.
Because this is New York, there’s an organized, vocal group of protestors threatening to derail proceedings each year: MATFW (Mothers Against the Fire Walk). The group makes a big show of opting out of the test despite well-documented studies proving the lasting damaging psychological effects of such mothers’ actions on their children, from the firstborn to the last. MATFW publishes its own studies proving the damaging effects of the FWT on children and mothers. But a close look at who sponsors that research tells you everything you need to know about its validity.
The PC remains poker-faced as the questions come, rapid-fire. Transitioning from interactions with her small inner circle of other winners to speaking to this broad audience cannot be easy, but you’d never know from looking at her. She is all patience: “Advice and guidelines in the DOE’s bulletins and videos was compiled by a panel of experts. Everything is clearly laid out there. Those seeking extra support will find the phone number for our 24-hour hotline on the QR code on the screen behind me.” She stresses that there is absolutely no need to go the private route. “I never set foot in a Mother-Love Center. I simply took full advantage of DOE resources.”
Then, as though letting us in on a tightly held secret, the PC lowers her voice and brings the microphone close. “I want to remind you that 85% of the mothers whose children are accepted into LGA are in the top 10% of those tested. The remaining 15% are in the top 18% of test takers.” She pauses to sweep her gaze from one side of the auditorium to the other before delivering her pièce de résistance: “Love transcends class, race, and creed. Love does not discriminate.” She leaves us with this: “Our own inadequacy is not our deepest fear. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond limitation.”
The concluding aphorism draws a hearty round of applause, which accompanies her as she walks off stage. The principal takes the mic again, thanks her, and begins his speech. I allow my mind to drift. Sitting there next to Louis, I struggle to come to grips with the fact that Paulu will be a high school freshman next year. In four years, he will be a graduating senior—a reality that is simply beyond me. I lean against my husband, stopping short of reaching for his hand. As Louis takes notes on his phone, I sift back to Paulu’s toddlerhood. Inexplicably, the thought of his colorful little xylophone releases a clew of feeling that nearly brings me to tears. Louis squeezes my knee, and I think perhaps he, too, has begun struggling with time’s stranglehold. But it turns out my husband wants to show me the instructions he’s downloaded for constructing an at-home firewalking bed. He whispers, “Here’s where living in Queens proves a real advantage. You’ve got a backyard, Maria. I’ll construct a practice bed first thing tomorrow.”
True to his word, Louis spends the entire next day building a rectangular construction with small moats on either side and a deeper pool at the end—a miniaturized version of the real thing. My practice firewalking bed aligns neatly with the fence separating our yard from our neighbor’s. It is a lovely October evening. Before grilling our burgers, Louis heats two bags of coals, which he spreads throughout the bed. The kids and I set the table outside. As we sit down to dinner, Louis tells me, “After dinner, those embers will be smoldering, just right for your first practice. It will feel crunchy, like walking on snow.” He clears his throat and squeezes ketchup onto his plate. “The DOE uses pine. That’s a whole other level. One day at a time, though, Sweetheart.” He puts down the ketchup bottle, and the four of us join hands to pray. Before he’s even taken two bites of his meal, my husband goes over to spread a layer of ash over his bed of embers. “It’s all about controlling heat conduction.”
Our daughter, Agnese, who’s in fifth grade, announces that she is learning about heat conduction. “Oh, great,” Louis enthuses, “you will be a big help to your mom and me, Agnese. It takes a village!” Louis winks at me conspiratorially, then asks if I don’t want to just try a few steps. When I ignore his invitation and begin clearing the dishes, he inhales sharply. Right there, in front of both our kids, he says, “Maria, you need to start practicing.” I turn around and stare at him as he goes on to say, “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take!” Turning from the bed of embers, I remind my family that I twisted my ankle during our hike a few weeks ago. Better to avoid practicing until I am completely healed. Surely, best to wait.
The days speed by. Every morning, Louis asks about my ankle. He wants us to call the DOE Support Center together. It’s been two weeks since he built the practice bed. “Let’s create a calendar and commit to an hour a day,” he suggests. But by the time we celebrate Thanksgiving, I have made only one change to my daily routine: After getting off the train on my way to work, instead of continuing down Lexington Avenue, I walk straight up 59th Street, just to avoid the city’s largest Mother-Love Center shining under the sunlight on the corner of Lexington and 53rd. Within those sparkling silver and glass walls, for $200 an hour and a minimum of twenty hours, mothers are trained in proven strategies for successfully walking the embers. This center’s ads on the subway promise real results. Outside the door hangs a banner plastered with pictures of those mothers who, over the past ten years, have had their names in The New York Times. Oh, and a full refund to any mother who takes at least ten classes and still experiences major burning or blistering during the test. Though this is the best-known center, and, therefore, a regular target for the MATFW group, all five boroughs are peppered with similar versions. Four are in Queens.
By the time the kids begin their winter activities, Agnese at a camp hosted by the Queens Zoo, and Paulu interning with our church’s Chaplain at Mt. Sinai Hospital, all our conversations somehow return to the test. At dinner one evening, Paulu tells us that Jill, a girl he knew in elementary school, lost her mom. “She passed away last night.” Jill wasn’t one of Paulu’s close friends, but I recall having met her mother at Parent-Teacher Night. A nice lady. Louis feels so sorry for Jill’s loss. Softly, he explains how the city handles the Mother-Love Test for kids whose mothers have either passed or who suffer from a debilitating illness. With surprisingly little bureaucracy, a substitute is appointed.
Stupidly—oh, so stupidly—I blurt, “How fair is that? The rest of us compete against professionals?” My family stares at me. I shake my head, immediately realizing. “Oh, Paulu. I am so sorry. How devastating for poor Jill.”
Later, though, sitting in the living room after the kids have gone to their rooms, Louis informs me that the substitutes are not professionals but volunteers. My husband, who really is a dear, has this irritating habit of lifting his chin when discussing a topic about which he considers himself an expert. He inhales, apparently drawing a vast reserve of patience. “There’s a reason that people, throughout all ages and cultures, have fire walked.” Leaning against a gray couch cushion, he crosses one leg over the other. “Fire walking forges a common identity amongst participants, reinforces group dynamics and even creates a physiological foundation for a healthy community.” His blue eyes settle on my face. “I wish this test had existed when I was little.”
“Oh, your mom definitely would have been in the finisher’s pool.” I say this thinking it’ll make him smile, but he keeps staring at me.
A few days later, Louis tells me that studies show a synchronized heart rate between Fire Walkers and family members watching from the sidelines. Aside from all the benefits accrued for the child-parent relationships, mothers who perform well on the test—regularly practicing mothers—bolster their partnerships in meaningful and surprising ways. He hesitates, perhaps understanding that he’d pushed too far with this last data point, the stakes now encompassing our partnership as well.
“Jesus, Louis!”
But my husband raises a hand. “Quiet, quiet!” I turn around. Both kids are standing there on the staircase; how much had they heard? “Why don’t you join MATFW, Mommy?” asks poor little Agnese, leaning on the banister, so young she cannot possibly understand the implications of her question.
“Oh, sweetheart.” I try to smile. I want to tell my kids how much I love them, but—of course—actions speak louder than words.
“Mom would never do that!” Louis assures them, jumping to his feet, all play, gruffing out as he used to when they were much younger, “Back to bed now, back to bed, or I’ll eat you up!” My husband can turn any situation into big fun—a joke, almost. “I’m gonna eat you!” They squeal and laugh as he chases them back upstairs.
During the week that follows, Louis does not badger me. Not once. Though ludicrous, it crosses my mind that he’s having an affair. In fact, the next Monday, he marches right into the living room. I am sitting on the couch, Bible open on my lap. He takes a seat in the newly upholstered chair. In the most measured tone, the kind that the DOE should consider featuring as a model for their “How to Approach Recalcitrant Mothers” audio section, he asks, “How can I best support you at this point, Maria? We have missed the initial deadlines that you and I agreed on—the dates marked on our calendar—but there is still time to recuperate, still time to begin an effective training routine. This is your children’s education we are talking about. You love them! We need a plan.” I notice he’s grown a bit flabby around the jowls. When we were children, there was no such test. But had there been, Louis’s mother would have placed in the top 15%. No doubt about that. I have no idea about my own mother, an uncertainty that leaves me unmoored.
I slap the Bible shut. “Christ, Louis!” Off the couch in a jiffy, I march straight upstairs. Even if Louis eventually forgives me, our lives won’t return. And, worse, what about Paulu? What about Agnese? My failure will stock our daughter’s adolescence with all the ammunition a teenager needs to rebel against household rules and expectations. She’ll throw everything back in my face—my lack of diligence, my laziness, and irresponsibility. Why should we expect anything more from her?
The next week comes and goes. Poor Louis, who has tried all available tactics, spends his days in stunned silence. But in bed at night, after he thinks I’ve fallen asleep, I hear him softly praying. I do not tell him, or anyone, about my long stretches lying awake, staring up at the darkness, sweating and shivering, unable to speak to God, abandoned to my bleak future: Paulu and Agnese, all grown up, living far away, no compulsion to call or visit; Louis’s resentment solidified into an unscalable wall. My body aging, my mind enfeebled.
After one of these panics, I swear I’ll begin practicing the next day; I swear to do what needs doing. I try believing that my deepest fear is that I am powerful beyond limitation. I visualize myself finishing in the top 5%, becoming part of an elite group that meets regularly at one mother’s house or another’s. In that intimate little circle, we speak freely to each other. We are free.
But by daybreak, robust cup of coffee in hand, and plenty of paperwork to get through, my night-time ambitions recede. Winter passes. Spring arrives. Nineteen days before my test date, Louis comes home with an expensive-looking brochure, which he slides onto our coffee table. “Wombo. Here in Astoria.” He goes on to tell me that they offer expedited training. “Not cheap, but we have no choice now. We’ll dip into home equity. This is just where we are.” He’s not wrong to be angry. I pick up the brochure and study the picture of this place so exclusive it doesn’t even call itself a “Mother-Love Center.” For a few seconds, the sleek paper, heavy in my hands, infuses me with a feeling interchangeable with hope. Louis sits beside me. He’s figured it all out. As he gets into the nitty-gritty of financing, his eyes glaze over with tears.
His desperation almost breaks my heart. “Oh, Louis.” I put a hand on his knee, but he simply stares at me.
“I wasn’t going to tell you, but yesterday, Paulu asked me what’s going to happen to him. All his friends’ mothers have been practicing, Maria. Don’t you understand? What message are you sending our kids? We’re talking about our kids here.”
Without another word, I snatch the bulletin and go upstairs to our bedroom. Glancing out the window at Louis’s unused bed of coals neatly sitting lined to the fence, I wonder what I have done, what I am doing. At my small desk, I click on Wombo’s website.
The following day, work skyrockets to a crazy level. There is simply no time to enroll in rigorous, scheduled trainings on top of demands I am already struggling to meet. Paulu barely even joins us for dinner any longer. Whenever he does bother showing up, it’s only to gobble down his food and rush back to his room. Doesn’t bother clearing his plate. He’s stopped going to church. It’s his final stretch before high school, Louis and I reason, letting his chores slide, picking up the slack. In fairness to Agnese, we take over her chores as well.
As we enter the week leading up to the FWT, I stop awaking in night sweats. Instead, I lie in bed thinking about the past: the lovely church on 5th Avenue where Louis and I met and got married; how quickly I’d become pregnant with Paulu; the pain of giving birth, how I swore to myself I’d never do it again only to go on five years later and do it again; the day we brought Paulu home from the hospital; how I wore a baby sling, keeping him as close to my body as possible; without unstrapping him from my chest, I cooked and cleaned and even sat in front of the computer answering emails. The day he ate his first solid food, I cried.
The morning of the test, Louis and I awaken two hours before we need to leave. Aside from going through the checklist for the Prep Pack, making sure we have the tickets, forms, water, IDs, and vaccination cards, we say little to each other. While I dress, Louis gets the kids up and ready. In the DOE-issued outfit, I follow Louis and the kids out the front door and down the porch stairs. We settle in the car as though for a family road trip. Paulu immediately puts in his earbuds; Agnese leans against the headrest and falls back asleep. Louis talks about the traffic on the Queensboro Bridge. Due to the expected numbers, a large portion of the Upper East Side has been blocked off. Months ago, he reserved a parking space at the garage closest to the Armory, so that is where they will head after dropping me off.
I get out of the car, walk a few blocks, and join the crowd near the front entrance. We file through a gauntlet of roped-off, sign-waving MATFW protestors, their shouts vacillating between condemnation and hysterical invitations to join their ranks. I focus on my breath. Above the entryway hangs a big sign: “Be kind; you never know the battles others are fighting.” I suppose the words are meant to soften us toward each other, maybe even toward those mothers protesting. Inside the lobby, security guards hand us each a thick leather “safety belt” with a large metal hook on the back. If we fall, unable to jump into the moat on either side of the bed, a pulley will deploy, attach to the hook, and raise us from the coals. I strap on my belt, cinch it tight, then move to the guard for a safety and document check.
From above, enormous air conditioners blow full blast. Louis prepared by packing my ratty cardigan in my Prep Pack. I put it on only to take it off a few minutes later after our mass of mothers enters the main room where that enormous bed of embers overwhelms the cold from the air conditioners. Despite all DOE efforts to maintain a reasonable temperature in the testing room, we are all sweating. A big screen above projects the entire room. I search for myself in the pack standing before that bed of embers, lined on either side by moats filled with water, a chemical light blue. There I am in the middle of the crowd. I search the bleachers for Louis and the kids, but there’s no way to find them. The place is too packed.
Staring at that screen, trying to get a lay of the land, only now can I truly appreciate what a fine job Louis did recreating a miniature version of this bed. I feel the pinch of all my wasted opportunities. But negativity will only drag me down. A mother behind me mutters something about the DOE’s switch to burning pine. I close my eyes an instant and try to feel God in that echoey room. God, so full of mystery and mercy. Though the safety belt squeezes like a corset, I do not loosen it. Security guards shout at us to crowd closer together or we won’t all fit. I’m already shoulder to shoulder with a dark-haired woman to my right and a chunky blonde to my left, who bites her lip and stares straight ahead. The three women in front of me wear hijabs tied into complicated knots.
The loudspeaker crackles overhead, hushing us all to a murmur as the Chancellor welcomes us, telling us what a delight it’s been to work with our families throughout the middle school journey. “What talented, promising young people these rising high school freshmen are! Your presence here attests to your deep dedication to your children’s continued success. Nothing, after all, is more important than love. Nothing.”
The test is taking place in twelve other centers throughout the five boroughs, each one presided over by a DOE representative. The Chancellor is proud and honored to be here to cheer us on. She so appreciates getting to work with such an incredible, diverse, and creative community of parents, students, and educators. “Next year, my own son will be graduating from middle school, so I will be standing precisely where you mothers stand now!” She wishes to congratulate us all. Nothing, she reminds us, nothing worth having comes easily.
I whisper a small prayer as the countdown begins. The whistle blows, and we mothers lurch forward. Though Louis warned me, I am not sufficiently braced for the wild screams of that first wave of mothers hitting the coals. I suck the sooty air into my lungs in a single long breath before stepping onto the coals. But the mass moves me forward, pushing me onto the bed, the sting riding up my legs. My instinctive scream—the worst kind—joins the sounds of all the other untrained. Louis was right about the coals having the texture and crunch of new snow. Newly fallen snow, I think, trying to recreate that cold but unearthing a memory frozen in time—the first camping trip we ever took as a family, the four of us roasting marshmallows around the fire.
The mother I’d pegged as one of the trained crosses in front of me yelling, “Fuck this shit!” as she hops into the ice-blue moat, splashing water into the bed. A few refreshing drops hit my leg, but I won’t let them be my siren’s song. Ahead of me, a woman stumbles, so I skip to the side just as a large hook threads her belt loop, hoisting her into the air to dangle above us. A trained mother won’t confuse heat with cold, numbness with pain, togetherness with separation, competition with collective embrace. A trained mother knows this is only the intensified confusion of our everyday lives. Nothing more.
I have no idea how far I’ve come, but at one point, I hear Louis’s voice cheering me through the crowd. I hear his relief and look up at the screen to see that I am far enough along for Paulu to get into a decent school. Agnese, too. Oh, not LGA, but even if I leave now, everything will be fine. They’ll be okay. My chest is vibrating, so I, too, must be emitting a sound. Keep going, I tell myself, but my body lurches from my control. With one unbridled scream, I jump sideways into the moat, my splash dousing the woman to my left, who lets out a moan of relief. The chemical in that extraordinary blue moat immediately softens the pain twanging through my legs. I try looking up at the screen to gauge my ranking, but three dangling mothers block my view. As they swing, I’m able to glimpse enough to assure myself that I’m around the 50% mark. We’ll be okay. Agnese’s teenage rebellion will only go so far. Paulu will be fine—an average child moving on to a decent school. Thank God.
The security guard walks down the sideline, pointing us toward a long dark corridor below a big red exit sign. “Please leave through the locker room on this side. You will find certificates and school choices in your DOE portal by 11:59 pm.”
I hear Louis call my name and turn to see him behind the gate, standing as close to me as possible. Getting through that crowd of spectators could not have been an easy feat. The big screen beams down from above showing the first mothers to finish, while my section of the moat grows increasingly crowded, mothers hopping in every few seconds. “You did it, Maria!” he calls, standing on the other side of the gate, arms akimbo, my average performance counting as triumph. How low had his expectations been? “Come out now. Let’s go home.”
But I turn away from him to splash in this moat of squealing mothers, their tear-stained faces bathed in the light from the screen. The test is over. After today, we will cool, solidify into our ranking, know precisely where we stand. The sooner we get out, the sooner we go back to our families, begin this next phase of our lives. But none of us leave, even as the moat keeps filling, even as more and more of us writhe together in the fresh pain of our raw, god-forsaken, average love.
—
Martha Witt is a translator and author. Her first novel, Broken as Things Are, was published by Henry Holt, 2004 and Picador, 2005. With the support of a Fulbright Award, she recently completed her current novel, The Truth Lies Between. Her flash and short fiction, some of which have been translated into Italian, have appeared in One Story, AGNI, Narrative Magazine, Boulevard Magazine, The Literary Review, Smokelong Quarterly, Southern Indiana Review, and elsewhere. In collaboration with Mary Ann Frese Witt, she has translated Luigi Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author (Italica Press, 2013) and Henry IV and The License (Italica, 2016), Cavalleria Rusticana (forthcoming in 2025), Grazia Deledda’s Ivy (Italica, 2019), as well as Deledda's novel Dance of the Necklace (Italica Press in March 2023). Her translation of Deledda’s The Mother was published by Italica Press in 2025. She is a professor of English and creative writing at William Paterson University.
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