“You're moving fast,” she said.
He nodded. “That's what's nice about having a good team.”
And a lot of subjects, she thought. Not to mention building on earlier research.
“We've also found that there is direct correlation between a child's winning or losing the millennium race and her perception of herself as a success or failure, independent of external evidence.”
Her mouth was dry. “Meaning?”
“No matter how successful they are, the majority of Millennium Babies—at least the ones we chose for this study, the ones whose parents conceived them only as part of the race—perceive themselves as failures.”
“Including me,” she said.
He nodded. The movement was slight, and it was gentle.
“Why?” she asked.
“That's the thing we can only speculate at. At least at this moment.” He wasn't telling her everything. But then, the study wasn't done. He tilted his head slightly. “Are you willing to go to phase two of the study?”
“If I say no, will you tell me what else you've discovered?” she asked.
“That's our agreement.” He paused and then added, “I would really like it if you continued.”
Brooke smiled. “That much is obvious.”
He smiled too, and then looked down. “This last part is nothing like the first. You won't have test after test. It's only going to last for a few days. Can you do that?”
Some of the tension left her shoulders. She could do a few days. But that was it. “All right,” she said.
“Good.” He smiled at her, and she braced herself. There was more. “I'll put you down for the next segment. It doesn't start until Memorial Day. I have to ask you to stay in town, and set aside that weekend.”
She had no plans. She usually stayed in town on Memorial Day weekend. Madison emptied out, the students going home, and the city became a small town—one she dearly loved.
She nodded.
He waited a moment, his gaze darting downward, and then meeting hers again. “There's one more thing.”
This was why he had called her here. This was why she needed to see him in person.
“I was wondering if your mother ever told you who your father is. It would help our study if we knew something about both parents.”
Brooke threaded her hands together, willing herself to remain calm. This had been a sensitive issue her entire life. “No,” she said. “My mother has no idea who my father is. She went to a sperm bank.”
Franke frowned. “I just figured, since your mother seemed so meticulous about everything else, she would have researched your father as well.”
“She did,” Brooke said. “He was a physicist, very well known, apparently. It was one of those sperm banks that specialized in famous or successful people. And my mother did check that out.”
Your father must not have been as wonderful as they said he was. Look at you. It had to come from somewhere. “Do you know the name of the bank?”
“No.”
Franke sighed. “I guess we have all that we can, then.”
She hated the disapproval in his tone. “Surely others in this study only have one parent.”
“Yes,” he said. “There's a subset of you. I was just hoping—”
“Anything to make the study complete,” she said sarcastically.
“Not anything,” he said. “You can trust me on that.”
Brooke didn't hear from Professor Franke again for nearly a month, and then only in the form of a message, delivered to House, giving her the exact times, dates, and places of the Memorial Day meetings. She forgot about the study except when she saw it on her calendar.
The semester was winding down. The mid-term in her World Wars class showed her two things: that she had an affinity for the topic that she was sharing with the students; and that at least two of her graduate assistants had a strong aversion to work. She lectured both assistants, spoke to the chair of the department about teaching the survey class next semester, and continued on with the lectures, focusing on them as if she were the graduate student instead of the professor.
By late April, she had her final exam written—a long cumbersome thing, a mixture of true/false/multiple choice for the assistants, and two essay questions for her. She was thinking of a paper herself—one on the way those wars still echoed through the generations—and she was trying to decide if she wanted the summer to work on it or to teach as she usually did.
The last Saturday in April was unusually balmy, in the seventies without much humidity, promising a beautiful summer ahead. The lilac bush near her kitchen window had bloomed. The birds had returned, and her azaleas were blossoming as well. She was in the garage, digging for a lawn chair that she was convinced she still had, when she heard the hum of an electric car.
She came out of the garage, dusty and streaked with grime. A green car pulled into her driveway, next to the ancient pick-up she used for hauling.
Something warned her right from the start. A glimpse, perhaps, or a movement. Her stomach flipped over, and she had to swallow sudden nausea. She had left her personal phone inside—it was too nice to be connected to the world today—and she had never gotten the garage hooked into House's computer because she hadn't seen the need for the expense.
Still, as the car shuddered to a stop, she glanced at the screen door, wondering if she could make it in time. But the car's door was already opening, and in this kind of stand-off, fake courage was better than obvious panic.
Her mother stepped out. She was a slender woman. She wore blue jeans and a pale peach summer sweater that accented her silver and gold hair. The hair was new and had the look of permanence. Apparently her mother had finally decided to settle on a color. She wore gold bangles, and a matching necklace, but her ears were bare.
“I have a restraining order against you,” Brooke said, struggling to keep her voice level. “You are not supposed to be here.”
“I'm not the one who broke the order.” Her mother's voice was smooth and seductive. Her courtroom voice. She had won a lot of cases with that melodious warmth. It didn't seem too strident. It just seemed sure.
“I sure as hell didn't want contact with you,” Brooke said.
“No? Is that why your university contacted me?”
Brooke's heart was pounding so hard she wondered if her mother could hear it. “Who contacted you?'
“A Professor Franke, for some study. Something to do with DNA samples. I was to send them through my doctor, but you know I wouldn't do such a thing with anything that delicate.”
Son of a bitch. Brooke hadn't known they were going to try something like that. She didn't remember any mention of it, nothing in the forms.
“I have nothing to do with that,” Brooke said.
“It seems you're in some study. That seems like involvement to me,” her mother said.
“Not the kind that gets you around a restraining order. Now get the hell off my property.”