Chapter 9 — Family Protocol

“I don’t think so,” she said.

And with an unhurried, theatrical calm, she drew a pair of pristine white gloves from her handbag, and began, slowly, to pull them on.

“When a Vance child is born,” she said, “family protocol requires a formal acknowledgment.

Especially,” and here her cold eyes moved to my daughter, “when that child carries the distinct Sterling-Vance genetic trait.”

She gestured, with one gloved hand, toward Fiona’s face, toward a tiny detail I had noticed at birth and thought nothing of: a small, distinct, crescent-shaped birthmark, sitting just behind my daughter’s left ear.