Gloria had based her career as a child psychologist on the theory that treating children like mere children was an insult to their intelligence and integrity, and that most would grow into happier and healthier adults if they weren’t forced to waste the first twelve years of their lives playing games and reading silly, witless books. Recently, she’d done a reversal of sorts by publishing a series of papers which attempted to prove that personality and adult behavior were largely the result of the genetic equivalent of Russian roulette and had almost nothing to do with parental influences on either nature or nurture. “Absolving herself,” Russell liked to point out, “of any responsibility for the way her children turned out.” That might have been the case, but Desmond had always felt that she was motivated most strongly by a terrible fear of receiving the endorsement of her peers; they, after all, had dismissed her early work and to prove to herself and everyone else that those initial attacks had been personal, she had to make sure they dismissed everything that followed. It wasn’t all that different from the stand Russell took with Gloria and Leon.

As Desmond sat politely listening to her describe the paper she was going to deliver tomorrow morning, it occurred to him that Gerald Cody-Miller was, in many ways, Gloria’s ideal child: a shrewd, sarcastic, self-possessed adult in an undeveloped body, a six-year-old who showed no discernible interest in childish things and was insulted by any suggestion that his opinions were less valuable than anyone else’s. Jane would undoubtedly take enormous comfort in Gloria’s harsh theories. He’d have to buy her a copy of Gloria’s first book as soon as he got back to Boston.

“I met a child I think you’d find interesting,” Desmond told her. “His mother claims he’s scoffed at every toy that was ever put in front of him, practically since birth.”

“Wonderful. And have they forced them on him?”

“No, I don’t think so. They buy him computers and pastry bags and food processors.”

Gloria clapped her hands together. “Just delightful. I’d love to meet him. Children are such extraordinary creatures.”

“As long as they’re not childish, right, mother?”

“As long as they don’t have childishness forced on them.” She reached across the table and patted Russell’s arm. “For some, it comes naturally.”

“Yeouch,” Russell said, as if her touch had burned him.