grow cold, and become prone to sociopathy.
His next foster parents, though, loved him dearly, and had asked to adopt. But the State of Utah, in its wisdom, did not want to encourage a child to bond to foster parents when the biological parents might return to stake a claim. Though his mother had abandoned him, a memo at the time showed that someone in the state hierarchy was worried that a father might still appear—and so Bron had been moved again.
Olivia didn't believe that this had been done maliciously, only that the administrator had made a terribly bad call. Similar policies had been the norm for state adoption agencies throughout the 6o's, 70's and 8o's. The administrator's memo showed that her attitudes were unfortunate holdouts from an unenlightened age.
Strike two for Bron.
A third family kept him only for a few months before rejecting him, claiming that he was "strange" and "possibly schizophrenic." A battery of tests showed that Bron was only a normal five-year-old who was retreating into a dream world to escape reality.
He stayed with his next family until he was eight, at which time his father apparently committed suicide after a fight with the mother.
The next family had complained of a child who was distant, "spooky." He'd gone through an EMO phase, dressing in black and secretly piercing body parts, before he was eventually sent to the Stillman's, where initial letters referred to him as a "good hard worker" and a "lone wolf."
That combination of descriptions terrified Olivia.
Bron had gone through a string of terrible bad luck when it came to foster care.
Here was a broken child, someone who needed to be fixed.
Olivia took one last look at the distant, poorly focused image of what her husband Mike was calling her "mail-order" son, and then turned off her computer monitor.
She felt ready for school; she just hoped that she was ready for Bron. Mike hadn't even wanted to come meet the boy, but Olivia knew that Bron needed them both. She couldn't turn this one away.
So she hurried down the familiar beige halls, past the tastefully decorated atrium. She halted outside the office door, smoothed her tan skirt, and listened as Allison, the administrative secretary, recited the school's praises. "You're just going to love this school," she told Bron. "You know we won an award for Charter School of the Year, last year? And Olivia is everyone's favorite teacher. All of the students adore her—"
Olivia felt embarrassed by that word, adore. Yet it was probably close to the right word. There would be 274 students at the school, and Olivia believed that each one was important. Puberty was perhaps the roughest time that any of them would have in life. They suffered through raging hormones, love affairs, manic episodes, teen pregnancies, drug addiction. Olivia helped kids "grow through" their problems. She believed in them, she loved them, and in return most of them would respect and care for her the rest of their lives.
Olivia spotted Bron standing taller than the social worker, Mr. Bell. Bron instantly made the hair stand up on the back of her neck. Though she'd only seen five other people like her in her entire life, she recognized him as one: he was a masaak.
She felt bewildered. The fuzzy photograph hadn't let her see him well enough. She realized now that his long hair hid the odd boxlike shape of his skull.
He was taller than she'd imagined, or perhaps a thick head of wavy hair made him seem taller than five-eleven. His hair was the same shade as hers, when she didn't bleach it blonde. He was broad-shouldered, with an impressively wide chest. His skin was supernaturally smooth, almost luminous, and he had a strong chin, pronounced brows, and a face that was perfectly symmetrical.
Olivia found her heart pounding. He looked more than human. She was all but certain.
He spotted her through the glass, and Olivia stopped. She held up her left hand, fingers splayed wide, as if to say "Hello!" then counted to three.
Among the masaaks it was called a "display," and was a way of identifying one's species.
Bron just smiled weakly in return, like a naive human.
Am I wrong? Olivia wondered, doubt twisting her stomach. Is he one of us, or one of them?
She strode up to him, feeling unsure how to treat him—as a new student, as a stranger, as a masaak... or as a son?
She decided that there shouldn't be any difference.
Mr. Bell was muttering pleasantries when Olivia reached out to shake Bron's hand. As she grasped it, she folded her left hand over the top of his, so that she held his hand with both of hers. It was also an old sales trick: by touching a person in a way that was both modest yet familiar, it helped build trust quickly. If this boy had been deprived of touch all of his life, she'd need to break down his walls.
Allison sat behind her desk, staring at Bron through thick glasses, smiling as if at a shared joke. He was handsome, her smile said. If he'd been a puppy, he'd have been a keeper.
Bron finished shaking, and tried to pull away, but Olivia took his hand more firmly.
It was big-boned, and she felt roughness along the ridge of his palms, calluses that could only come from hard labor—digging in a garden or mowing lawns. She touched the inside of his fingertips, pressed into them firmly, and found some harder lumps, ones that were more interesting.
She turned his palms up to get a better look. The thick skin on his fingertips was as hard as pebbles. "You play the guitar?" She studied his calluses, looking for something elusive.
"A little," Bron admitted.
"Not enough," Olivia said. She flipped her own hand up for him to see. Her calluses were heavier, more rigid. He peered at them in surprise. "I teach musical theater," she said, "but I also teach guitar. We're starting classes in it this year."
Bron opened his mouth a fraction in surprise. She suspected that he was beginning to understand just how perfect she might be as his foster mother, but if her guess was right, even he didn't have a clue how perfect they might be together.
"I want to thank you for agreeing to meet with Bron," Mr. Bell said. "He's one of my favorite kids, and I know that this could be a great opportunity."
Bron smiled weakly, like a patient preparing for heart surgery. Olivia flashed a reassuring smile.
She needed to be sure of this boy. She reached up and tilted Bron's chin high, appraised him. It was an eccentric thing to do, but she'd had acting teachers study her this same way in college.
Yes, she could see the slightly enlarged brain cavity in the anterior, with the pronounced bulge, creating a "box-like skull." His skin color had an olive cast, with a bronzed look that made his ancestry hard to classify. Mediterranean, one might guess, with a hint of Arab blood? Olivia sometimes saw humans who could pass as masaak, but this boy....
When guaging an actor's look, most directors looked for opportunities to praise their features so that the actor wouldn't feel defensive. She asked the secretary, "What do you think, Allison? He's got nice thick lips. A lot of girls will want to play Juliet to his Romeo. The hair and chin gives him a Greco-Roman look. I can't decide which features I like better."
His nose was a bit hawkish. With his distinctive chin, he looked like he might someday become a banking magnate or a politician. Or a movie star.
"Where do you think your people come from?" Olivia asked.
Bron shrugged. "I've never met my parents."
He tried to sound bored, as if he had no interest.
Olivia knew that masaak mothers sometimes abandoned their children, much as a cuckoo will abandon its eggs in another's nest. It was called brood parasitism. They'd leave their children for humans to raise, hoping that the children would learn to mimic human behavior, pass themselves off as humans. From ancient times, such children had been called "nightingales."