Jonathan Kellerman - The Murderer's Daughter

Ramona had only asked the one time, after that she’d just done it, and Sophie asking probably meant she didn’t want to do it but was being polite.

So rather than make Sophie put out a special effort, Grace said, “No, thank you, I’m fine.” And she was. Enjoying the quiet of the magnificent room they were letting her stay in. Though once in a while, she wouldn’t have minded a tuck-in.

Sophie said, “As you wish, dear,” and Grace put herself to bed.

As far as she could tell, being a professor was easy; Malcolm would drive to the university but not really early, and sometimes he’d come home when it was still light outside. Some days, he never left at all, working in his wood-paneled study, reading and writing.

Grace thought: I’d like this job.

Sophie was a professor, too, but she never went to work, just puttered around the house, cooking for herself and Grace, supervising Adelina, the nice but not-speaking-English cleaning woman who came in twice a week and worked hard and silently.

Sophie also went on shopping “excursions,” which could mean anything from buying groceries to coming home with boxes and bags of clothing for herself and for Grace.

She was probably doing some kind of work because she had her own study — a small room off her and Malcolm’s bedroom with no paneling, just a desk and a computer. Other than pictures of flowers on white walls, nothing fancy. When she did go in there, she kept the door open but she’d remain at the desk for hours, reading and writing, usually with classical music playing softly in the background. When mail came to her it was addressed Prof. Sophia Muller or Sophia Muller, Ph.D.

Reading and writing was what Grace was already doing, what kind of deal was this professor stuff? Grace started to think she should really learn to be one.

Three months after Grace’s arrival, Sophie cleared up the mystery. “You probably wonder why I’m here all the time.”

Grace shrugged.

“Next year, I’ll be back on campus like Malcolm — teaching, supervising grad students. But this year I’m on something called a sabbatical, it’s kind of a racket for professors, once we get tenure — once the university figures it wants to keep us around — we get a year off every seven years.”

“Like Sabbath,” said Grace.

“Pardon?”

“Work six days, rest on the seventh.”

Sophie smiled. “Yes, exactly, that’s the concept. Not that I’m supposed to be loafing, the understanding is I’m to do independent research. This is my second sabbatical. During the first, Malcolm and I traipsed around Europe and I churned out papers that no one read. But I’m older now, prefer to basically be a homebody and get paid for it. You won’t tell on me, will you, dear?”

Laughing.

Grace crossed her heart. “It’s a secret... you do read and write.”

“I’m writing a book. Allegedly.”

“What on?”

“Nothing that’s going to hit the bestseller lists, dear. How’s this for a catchy title: Patterns of Group Interaction and Employment Fluctuation in Emerging Adult Women. ”

Grace thought that sounded like a foreign language, she’d never pick up a book like that. She said, “It’s pretty long.”

“Way too long. Maybe I should call it something like Chicks and Gigs. ”

Grace’s turn to laugh.

Sophie said, “The title’s the least of my concerns. It’s excruciating for me, dear, I’m not a natural writer like Malcolm — so what would you like for dinner?”

Malcolm kept bringing Grace harder and harder lessons. When she hit pre-calculus she needed some help and he was able to explain things clearly and she thought, His students are lucky.

Most of the other stuff was easy, floating into her brain like iron to a magnet.

Life at the big beautiful house was mostly quiet and peaceful, everyone reading, writing, eating, sleeping. Malcolm and Sophie never had guests over, nor did they go out and leave Grace alone. Once in a while a thin white-haired man in a suit would stop by and sit at the kitchen table with them, going over paperwork.

“Our lawyer,” Malcolm explained. “His name is Ransom Gardener. The only things he grows are fees.”

Every so often, Gardener showed up with a younger man named Mike Leiber. Unlike the lawyer, who always wore a suit and looked serious, Leiber had long stringy hair and a beard, arrived in jeans and untucked shirts, and never said much. But when he spoke at the kitchen table, everyone listened to him.

Malcolm and Sophie never explained who he was but after his visits they were a strange combination of seriousness and relaxation. As if they’d just taken a hard exam and had done well.

Twice a month or so, Malcolm and Sophie took Grace to nice restaurants and Grace wore clothes Sophie bought for her that she’d never have chosen.

She stretched to try new foods when Malcolm and Sophie offered them to her. Even if something looked unappealing, she didn’t complain, just the opposite, she smiled and said, “Yes, please. Thank you.”

Same for the clothes. They came wrapped in tissue paper and bore the labels of stores that sounded expensive, some with French names, and she could tell Sophie had taken a lot of time finding them.

Grace thought of them as costumes. Dressing up for the part of Good Girl. She began to wonder when the play would end but got bad stomachaches when she thought too much about that. Chasing those thoughts out of her brain, she concentrated on the good things happening right now. Sometimes concentration gave her a headache.

As part of fitting in and being easy to live with, she began brushing her hair a lot, until it shined like Sophie’s and one day Sophie gave her a brush from England that she informed Grace was made from “boar bristles” and guess what, it made Grace’s hair even shinier so she resolved to pay special attention to what Sophie said.

Being clean and smelling good was important as well, so she showered every morning and sometimes a second time before she went to bed. Flossed her teeth and brushed twice a day, the way she’d seen Sophie do. When a few hairs sprouted in her armpits and she detected faint odor coming from them, she looked in her medicine cabinet and found a brand-new container of roll-on deodorant and began to use it regularly.

Somehow, someone — no doubt, Sophie — had known what to do.

Shortly after she began living with them, they brought her to a woman pediatrician who examined her and gave her shots and pronounced her “fit as an Amati.”

Same for an extremely old dentist who cleaned her teeth and told her she was doing “an excellent job with your oral hygiene, most kids don’t.”

When her shoes grew tight, Sophie took her to a store on a street called Larchmont where the salesman treated her like a grown-up and asked her what style she preferred.

She said, “Anything.”

“That’s a switch, usually kids are demanding.” This remark aimed more at Sophie than Grace.

Sophie said, “She’s an easy girl,” and hearing that, Grace filled with warm, sweet feelings. She’d passed her own test.

When the three of them were together, she made sure to look into their eyes when they spoke, pretended to be interested in what they talked about when she wasn’t. Mostly she was interested. In their discussions of history and economics, of how people behaved alone and in groups. Usually they began including Grace in the conversation, but soon they were talking past her, allowing her to just listen, and she didn’t mind that one bit.

They talked about art and music. About how bad certain governments were — Nazism, communism, Malcolm pronouncing that any kind of “collectivism is simply a way to control others.” They discussed what kinds of societies produced what kinds of artists and musicians and scientists and how there wasn’t enough “synthesis between art and science.”