July 19, 1932

"They're arguing," Unity said.

She was at the window of the playhouse library, looking out from between the tangles of ivy and honeysuckle that squeezed the building.

"Who is?" Victory asked.

"Father and Faye."

Victory joined her sister at the window and looked out. They couldn't hear what was being said, but the gestures made it clear. Phillip was indicating the water. Faye was bundling a crying Max in a blanket and moving him back toward the house.

"Another failed swimming lesson," Victory said.

"Not a failure," Unity replied. "Max is a difficult student."

"Look at Faye's face. Look at Father's. That's failure."

"That's just Faye giving up," Unity corrected her.

They were supposed to call Faye "Mother," and they did in front of their elders, but when it was the six of them, she was always called Faye. Sometimes it was still so odd that she was here.

For the first ten years of her life, Victory didn't have a mother. Like her siblings, she had been adopted almost from the very moment of her birth. She came into the world and went directly into the hands of Phillip Ralston. She would ask her friends at school what mothers did, and she got vague answers about planning meals and parties and taking care of the house and telling them to listen to their father. The Ralstons had a housekeeper to take care of the running of the house. They had a cook, and servants who made their beds and laid out their clothes. They had their aunt Dagmar to sit silent and knowing at the opposite end of the dining table and weigh in on domestic matters. There were loads of women in their houses who sounded like they did things mothers did, so Victory felt herself perhaps a little superior to people who had only one woman to do all of that. Plus, she had her five siblings to talk to, to help her when she had problems, to support her. She needed nothing else.

Then, when they came home for the winter break from school six years ago, their father sat them all down in the living room of their Fifth Avenue house. Next to him was a woman. In Victory's memory, she was like a picture of a goddess from a story—tall, finger-curled and bobbed hair that looked like it was spun from platinum. She was wearing a stunning green velvet dress.

"This is Faye," he said. "Faye Anderson."

"You were in that film we saw," William said. " The Silver Cuckoo ."

"You have a good memory," Faye said, smiling.

"Faye has been in many films, and many shows here in the city. Children, I am so very glad to tell you that Faye has agreed to be my wife, and your mother."

Victory took this in stride. So another woman was joining the staff. Not everyone felt the same. Clara came to her room that night, wrapped in her red dressing gown and clutching a pillow.

"She's going to be our stepmother," Clara said.

"So what?"

"So what? Our mother, Victory. Our stepmother . Stepmothers are always mean in stories."

This was an unusual display of distress from the normally fearless Clara—the Clara who pinched out matches with her fingertips and dove in any body of water she saw. The same Clara who saw a group of boys abusing a stray cat and punched the ringleader in the face, knocking out his two front teeth and rescuing the animal. (Father paid for the boy's dental work and privately elevated Clara to the highest rank within the household for her courage. The lucky cat went to live with their neighbor, Mrs. Elsmore, who named him Lorenzo, installed velvet cushions on every windowsill for his comfort, and fed him poached salmon twice a day.

"She's not our stepmother," Victory replied.

"Of course she will be. She's marrying Father."

"But you have to have had a mother for someone to be a stepmother, and we've never had one, so she can't be. She'll just be Mother."

Victory had no idea if what she'd just said was true, but it sounded solid. Clara calmed a bit and thought it over.

"Whatever," Clara finally replied, letting that part go and hugging her pillow closer. "She's still going to be mean. She won't like us."

But Faye Ralston was not mean. In fact, she was kind. She had presents for each child that reflected their interests. Faye loved sport as much as the Ralston family did. She was an excellent skier and swimmer. When they fell ill, she sat by their bedsides if they were sent home from school. She was nothing at all like the stepmothers in fairy tales. Victory thought Faye was entirely acceptable, and she seemed to make Father happy. This may have been heightened by the fact that they only spent school holidays and summers together, but those summers were idyllic.

Two years into the new arrangement, Faye started throwing up after breakfast, and then she got a little bump at her belly. Phillip Ralston, being a man of science, did not dance around the subject with his children. There was a child growing inside Faye—his child, their new sibling. He pulled out a medical textbook and showed them what was going on inside Faye's body.

"Faye is working hard right now," he went on. "She is growing organs and systems. She is providing nutrition to the new child through the food she eats."

"The baby eats nut cutlets?" Benjamin asked.

"Not exactly. But the nutrients in the nut cutlets are transformed into the material the baby needs to grow and develop. So we must all be very good and kind to Faye and thank her for working so hard. It is not easy. That's why she feels tired and ill sometimes. But she is perfectly healthy. You have no reason to fear."

Unity burst into tears. Unity was like that.

"But you'll still love us?" she asked. "Won't you?"

"Unity! Come here." He reached out his arms to his daughter. "Everything will be the same. It will only improve."

Unity did not budge. Her concern began to affect the others. Clara also began to cry. William patted her shoulder and looked extremely concerned. Edward looked askance, and Benjamin appeared mildly terrified. Only Victory was unmoved, but this was mostly because she was still digesting the anatomical implications of what she'd just learned. It was fascinating stuff, growing babies.

"What's wrong?" Phillip said, saddened by the response of his children. "What is it?"

"The baby will be different," Unity said. "Everything will be different. If the baby comes from you and Faye, that means he will be more connected to you than we are. You said that's how heredity works."

"Ah." Phillip Ralston nodded. "Yes, of course. We have discussed the concept of heredity. Of breeding. Animals have offspring, and we, as humans, are animals. We are simply the highest form of animal. And when we breed selectively, we produce the highest form of human. But our case..."

He indicated all the children and himself.

"Our case is quite special," he began. "I delivered you all. I knew your mothers, and I also knew who your fathers were. All died in the war—all good, strong men. The women who gave birth to you were also strong and good. It was the war that made it impossible for them to care for you, the loss of their husbands, the struggle to feed their families. I took you all with me, one by one, because I had the resources to care for you."

Unity sniffled and stopped crying, and the mood calmed.

"You promise we're just as good?" she asked.

"My dear Unity, do you think that I—an established expert of eugenics, who understands the importance of biological purity—would be careless? No. I met you at your birth. I knew you all to be quite magnificent. I chose you. Isn't that wonderful? You are all quite, quite perfect."

Unity nestled her head into her father's chest. Victory watched, unsure of how she felt.

"That means that some babies are not as good," she said.

"Exactly so."

"How can you tell?"

"Through looking at the parents. Race, of course. Their economic state..."

"You just said they couldn't afford to keep us."

"I did, and well spotted, Victory." He nodded approvingly. "That was because of the war. Wars cause scarcity. Come now. I think you all could use some cheering up. I think a trip to the pictures is in order. And perhaps we'll stop at FAO Schwarz and see what new toys they have."

All was made right with that. Everyone jumped up and cheered at the thought of movies and toys. Victory did as well, but her mind always lingered on the idea that some people might not be as good as others. It didn't make sense to her, no matter how many times her father explained the science (which was constantly). After all, they were Americans, and they were always told how this was the land of the free and everyone was equal. She saw many people on the street in New York, and they all seemed fine to her. Father had to be right, because he was a doctor and knew about these things, and yet she was dissatisfied. She was young and knew little, but she knew her heart, and her heart said no to this idea.

Eugenics was wrong. She kept this thought locked away. It was hers, and hers alone, because it might be taken from her if she showed it to the others. She would keep it and grow it. A little seed.

Max was born in New York City in February on a freezing-cold morning during an early frost. Phillip had kept the children home from school for the last two weeks of the pregnancy so they could be there when their new sibling was born. There was a frantic happiness all around the house, then the high wail of a baby. This little thing—red, almost purple at times, eyes screwed shut and tiny fists—this was Max.

Things were not the same. It was like the Ralstons had been living on a finely balanced platform that was, ever so slightly, starting to tip. Max was Faye's baby, always in her arms. There was a connection there that was unlike any other in the house. Faye was good to all, but Max was small and needed her and her alone. He needed her milk, her warmth. He needed to be carried from room to room and held. On the piano in the music room (the one that was really for guests and show—William mostly played the one in the playhouse), there was a lace cloth and an array of framed photographs. There were two group family photos, three of Clara, Unity, and William by themselves. Two of Edward, Benjamin, and Victory. One of the three sisters and one of the three brothers. There were eight of Max.

Right now, Max was nearing the house, wrapped tight in Faye's embrace, his arms around her neck, letting out a piercing wail that sent the birds scattering. Victory and Unity stepped back from the window so they would not be seen staring out.

"He's going to be a nightmare today," Clara said, coming into the room, sweat dripping down her face. "God, listen to that. They should stick him on a lighthouse island to warn off ships."

"He didn't want to swim," Unity said.

"Clearly. He never does. And now someone's going to pay."

Victory turned away from Clara. She was right, of course, but Victory didn't like talking about it. Talking about it made it more real, more immediate. She peeled back a bit of curtain and watched the sobbing Max go inside with Faye. Father stood alone for a moment, hands on hips, staring up at the sun. He had a look on his face that Victory had never seen there before: defeat. The wriggling, screaming four-year-old had defeated him.

"Lock your doors," Clara said as she went back toward the stairs.