Ned wondered if Harry—who’d gone from being a social worker to an archaeologist to a cop and back to an archaeologist—had begun to wish he were still a cop, so that he had more say in the search. The whole family bounced around between professions, but Polly, in particular, had excelled at not making up her mind. In grade school and high school, she’d wanted to be a veterinarian and a historian, a horse trainer and a botanist and an architect. She’d waitressed and worked on a grounds crew, babysat and sold tourist trinkets. As an adult, she kept zigging—cook to script girl to editorial assistant. She’d always minded the idea that she should stick to one thing. She’d loved drawing floor plans but hadn’t taken the physics that would have allowed her to become an architect; she’d toyed with the idea of graduate school but never applied. Though she’d loved science as a child, she failed Merle, a biology teacher, by taking English and history and art history because she thought of them as her family line. But Merle himself had wanted to be a poet.

Back when Polly had had two-year plans, instead of daily swivels, Jane had said, “You’ll be a late starter like me. And like Papa. A late second start, anyway.”

Or third. There were so many ways to count Polly’s forays. Despite having emigrated from Sweden with little money or formal education, Papa, Polly’s great-grandfather, managed a whole mysterious life before going to university in his late twenties, producing movies in his thirties, publishing books in his forties, and becoming a legend in mythology. He worked as an archaeologist throughout, chased by war after war, and taught at Columbia until his death at ninety. His life was all about telling echoing stories, whether he was digging them up or filming them or writing about them. He didn’t cash in like Joseph Campbell, but he was first and everyone knew it. Polly feared she hadn’t inherited enough of him.

And Jane was rare simply because she’d returned to school for a master’s in mythology and religion from NYU after Polly was born. She taught history for twenty years before abruptly producing a manuscript on the eternal nature of stories (The Inherited Dream) and another on ethnic and religious conflict (Ages of Rage) that somehow managed to give coherence to varieties of hatred. Both sold well and made the Times end-of-the-year lists.