The Murderer's Daughter (18 page)

“I wondered what you'd think. Piqued your interest?”

“Yes.”

“Sure, Grace, you can have any back copies I can scare up—you know, I think there might be some in the car.”

Grace tagged along as they left the house and walked to his brown Buick station wagon. A woman sat in the front passenger seat, thin-faced with what looked like snow-white hair.

Grace had never thought of Malcolm riding around with anyone.

Then she told herself that was stupid. He was a friendly person, probably had all sorts of friends. A whole world outside the ranch and magazines and psychological tests for fosters.

For some reason, that made Grace's tummy hurt, right under the middle of her rib cage. She looked away from the woman.

The passenger window lowered. A soft, kind of whispery voice said, “Hey, there.”

Grace, forced to turn and face the woman, noticed her eyebrows first. Perfectly shaped little half circles. The mouth smiling at her was coated with purple-red lipstick.

Straight white teeth. Pointy chin. A dimple on the left cheek. A really attractive woman; she looked like someone in
Réalités,
wearing haute couture, eating escargots, and drinking Bordeaux in Paris or Cannes or in a grand château in the Loire Valley.

Grace said, “Hi,” so softly she barely heard herself. The white-haired woman got out of the station wagon. She was about Malcolm's age and tall—nothing like Malcolm's skyscraper height but still one of the tallest women Grace had ever seen—and thin as a crane. She wore a gray sweater, black pants, and flat silver shoes with gold buckles. Her hair wasn't white; sunlight transformed it to really light blond, kind of gold at the same time it was kind of silver.

What
Réalités
called “ash blond.”

Bangs that looked as if they'd been cut with the aid of a ruler reached halfway down a smooth, pale forehead. The eyes beneath the bangs were kind of squinty, widely spaced, with tiny lines at the corners. Deep-blue eyes that settled easily on Grace, and even though the woman was still smiling, Grace felt there was sadness in her.

Malcolm said, “Ms. Grace Blades, this is Professor Sophia Muller. Professor, Grace.”

The blond woman held out her hand to Grace. “Ignore all that foofaraw, I'm his wife. Call me Sophie.”

Her fingers were long, smooth, cool, with pearly nails that shone like chrome on a car. She looked like a queen in a picture book. Like a
monarch.

Malcolm was big but he wasn't really monarch-y. More like Little John in Robin Hood. A kindly giant. Not like the one up the beanstalk…

Professor Sophia Muller said, “Grace is a pretty name.” Wider smile. “For a pretty girl.”

Grace felt her face go hot.

Professor Sophia Muller sensed she'd done something wrong because she looked briefly at her husband.

She's his wife, be nice to her.

Grace said, “Thank you for the compliment. Pleased to meet you, Professor Muller.”

She's his wife but she doesn't use his name?

No one talked for a moment then Malcolm said, “Oh, yeah,
Psych Today,
” and unlatched the station wagon's rear door, emerging with an armload of magazines.

Professor Sophia Muller said, “So he found a way to unload his collection. Grace, I should pay you for making next spring cleaning easier.”

Grace knew she was expected to smile and did.

Malcolm Bluestone said, “I'll bring these to your room.”

Grace said, “I can do it.”

“Kind of heavy, Grace.”

Sophia Muller said, “Let's all do it, three people will make it a snap.”

Dividing the magazines,
they beelined to the house with Grace leading, Malcolm and Sophie trailing as they curtailed their strides to avoid trampling Grace's heels.

Grace had no idea what they were thinking but she was thinking:
He introduced us.
So she didn't know my name before.

So he never told her about me.

Was that because he didn't talk about fosters?

Or Grace wasn't that important to him?

It was like
he'd read her mind because the next time he showed up, a week later, he said, “Enjoying the psych stuff?”

“Yes.”

“Sophie really enjoyed meeting you.”

Grace lied. “I enjoyed meeting her, too.” She had nothing against new people but didn't think much about them.

When she and Malcolm had settled in the living room to complete the second part of the new picture-story test, he said, “You probably figured this out: I never told Sophie about you because of confidentiality—your privacy. Beyond that, I take what we do seriously, it's not a topic for casual conversation. Anyway, it's not about me, you're the star.”

“Star of what?” said Grace, even though she had a pretty good idea of what he meant. For some reason, she wanted him to talk more.

“Of what we do together, Grace. My goal is to optimize your education.”

Not explaining “optimize.” He was the
only
person who treated her like she wasn't stupid.

“I explained—about not discussing you, because I didn't want you to think you weren't important. On the contrary, you are, and that's precisely why I need to guard your privacy. Even though you have no legal right to confidentiality. Know why not?”

“Because I'm a foster?”

Soft brown eyes drooped sadly. “No, but that's a logical answer. The actual reason is
no
kids under eighteen have a right to confidentiality, even things they tell psychologists. I think that's absurd and terribly wrong, Grace. I think we need to respect children a lot more than we do. So I ignore the rules and keep secrets a hundred percent and don't write things down that kids wouldn't want written down.”

His words were tumbling out fast. Dots of pink colored his generous cheeks and one hand was a fist the size of a baseball glove.

Grace said, “Respect your elders but also respect your youngers.”

Malcolm stared at her. Broke out laughing. The fist bumped against the tabletop. “That's
brilliant,
Grace. May I borrow it so
I
can sound brilliant?”

“Sure.”

“You're exactly right. We need to look at all people as if they're respectable and intelligent. Even infants. There was a psychologist—a famous one named William James, he lived a long time ago, was considered important, anything he said people listened to. He was convinced babies lived in a ‘blooming, buzzing confusion.' Like they were insects, like there was no pattern to how they felt or thought or acted. In William James's day, that sounded pretty reasonable. Know why?”

“People didn't know any better.”

“Precisely, Grace, and the reason they didn't know any better was because they had no idea how to
measure
what babies were feeling or thinking. Then psychologists got smarter and developed tests and poof!”—he snapped his fingers—“wouldn't you know it, babies got smarter. And that trend continues, Grace. It's what makes psychology exciting, at least to me. We're learning so much all the time. Not just about human infants. Higher animals, too—whales, dolphins, monkeys, even birds—turns out crows are super clever. The smarter we get about understanding them, the smarter they get. So maybe we should start out assuming everyone's smart.”

He always liked to talk but even for him this was a lot of words.

Grace said, “Maybe.”

Malcolm crossed a tree-trunk leg. “I'm probably being tedious. Anyway, those are the reasons I didn't tell Sophie about you. Precisely
because
you're important.”

Grace's tummy began hurting again. The same way it had when Professor Muller told her she was pretty. She covered her mouth with her hand, not wanting something stupid to fall out.

Malcolm said, “Here's a new magazine you might want to take a look at.”

Out of his briefcase came a volume with an orange paper cover and no pictures, just words. At the top was the title:
Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology.

“Thank you.”

He laughed. “Don't thank me so soon, Grace. See if you like it. This isn't like
Psych Today,
which is for people who haven't studied psychology on a high level. This is for actual psychologists and to be truthful, some of it's rather hard to understand. I don't always understand everything. You may find it the essence of dull.”

Grace flipped a page. Lots of words, small letters, a bar graph at the bottom.

He took out the new picture test. “Okay. Let's get to work. And thanks for your continuing help.”

“With what?”

“The testing.”

“It doesn't bother me.”

“I know, Grace. For you tests are mental exercise. But even so, you've helped me. I have a new understanding of ultra-gifted kids in a way I didn't before I met you.”

Again, Grace had no idea what to say.

Malcolm ran a finger under the neckband of his turtleneck sweater. “Hot in here…what I'm trying to get across, Grace, is that while you're unique, you have much to teach about how extremely bright children cope with challenges.”

The word “challenges” was like a branding iron in one of Steve Stage's western movies, turning the pain in Grace's belly to fire. She moved her hand from her mouth but something she couldn't believe still fell out: “You pity me.”

What was worse than the words was the anger in her voice. A bad girl, a demon, talking through her.

Malcolm held up his hands, as if he had no idea what to do with them.

As if he didn't want to be hit.

Grace began to cry. “I'm sorry, Professor Bluestone.”

“Sorry for what?”

“For saying that.”

“Grace, you can feel or say anything you want.”

He handed her a tissue. She snatched it and dried her eyes, disgusted with herself for acting like a demonic baby.

Now everything would change.

More tears trickled out. She slapped them away, pleased that she'd made her face sting.

Malcolm waited awhile before speaking. “I think I get why you're upset. You don't want me to see you as vulnerable. Am I right, Grace?”

She sniffed, dabbed. Nodded.

“Well, I don't see you that way, Grace. Just the opposite, I see you as resilient. So I'm sorry if I wasn't clear.”

He waited some more. Grace remained silent, the tissue compressed in her taut hand.

“I came here originally because Ramona told me how smart you were, she was concerned that the regular curriculum was useless. She also gave me your history. Because I asked her, that's what I do, it's part of being thorough. The more I learned about you the more I realized how remarkably you've developed. Nevertheless, I'd be dishonest if I pretended you hadn't faced challenges. We all do. But do I pity you? Absolutely not.”

Grace hung her head. She wished this day would end.

“Oh, boy,” Malcolm said. “I'm digging myself deeper…okay, give me another chance to explain.”

Silence.

“May I?”

Nod.

“I like to think of myself as a caring person but pity is
not
part of my repertoire because pity lowers people. However”—he cleared his throat—“I
am
interested in people who deal with tough situations well. How they make sense of their world when things get rough. Because I think psychology needs to be more positive. To learn about strengths as well as weaknesses. Maybe I feel that way because of Sophie, what her parents went through. They endured a terrible experience called the Holocaust—I can't recall if any of the curriculum materials covered that—”

“History, Module Seventeen,” said Grace. “World War Two and Its Aftermath. Hitler, Himmler, Nazis, storm troopers, Auschwitz, Bergen-Belsen, Treb…linko?”

“Treblinka. Sophie's parents ended up in a camp called Buchenwald. They survived and came to America and were blessed with Sophie and led wonderful lives. When I met them, their joyful approach to life surprised me because when you learn to become a psychologist it's all about problems and weakness and getting to know Sophie's parents taught me I'd missed a lot. Then they died—nothing to do with Buchenwald, they got old and sick and passed. That made me even more intent on understanding people who adjust and adapt well. What I call super survivors.”

Grace said, “She uses another name.”

“Pardon?”

“You're Bluestone, she's Muller. Is that because she wants to remember her family in a special way?”

Malcolm blinked. “Grace, I am privileged to know you.”

Again, the branding iron. Why couldn't she accept nice things?

Grace's eyes shot down to the table, fixed on the orange cover of the
Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology.
The articles inside were listed there and the first title she saw was about randomly truncated variable interval reinforcement in a sample of neurologically enhanced hooded rats.

This
was
going to be the essence of dull.

“Yeah, I know,” said Malcolm, smiling. “Still, you'll probably get more out of it than my grad students.”

Two months after
Grace's eleventh-birthday bash, three new fosters arrived at the ranch, in a strange and different way.

The first odd thing was they came at night, when everyone except Ramona and Grace was asleep. Ramona would probably have been sleeping, she'd been going in earlier and earlier, keeping medicine in her apron pocket, muttering about needing to get off her feet. Grace had been studying her intently, trying to figure out when the ranch would close and she'd end up exiled to a place she wouldn't like.

Grace was up because she tended to wake in the middle of the night, feel alert, and read herself back to sleep. That's what she was doing when she heard Ramona descend the stairs.