Hastiin Sani, as Kevin Cohoe’s grandfather was known by the tribe, stood near the door waiting for her. Although she’d been scheduled to meet with Kevin’s parents, they’d been called away on an emergency. Hastiin Sani had volunteered to attend the conference on their behalf. Things had gone smoothly and they’d discussed arrangements for Kevin to transfer to a more advanced math class.

“It seems like only yesterday you were the age of my grandson,” he said. “Your mother would always bring you along when she came to my home to visit.”

Dana smiled, straightening up her desk, then looking around the room one more time to make sure everything was in order. “I liked going to visit you,” she said, remembering how self-conscious she’d been back then. Unlike her, Nancy Seles had been a free spirit who’d thrived on chaos. Nothing had ever been routine at home. “But I hated some of the other places she took me.”

“I never approved of her bringing you along to those backroom card games, you know. I told her more than once. But your incredible memory was too much of a temptation, especially when your mom was falling on hard times.”

Dana sighed softly. From the day Nancy Seles had discovered that her own daughter had a photographic memory, things had gone totally crazy-and that was saying a lot, since their lives had never been anything even remotely close to normal. “We’d only stay until she’d won enough hands to pay for the rent or groceries, then leave,” Dana said, surprised to hear herself defending her mother.

“She wasn’t always like that,” Hastiin Sani said. “She changed after your father’s death. She’d depended completely on him and when he wasn’t around anymore, she fell apart.”

“I was too young when my dad passed away to remember much about him. What I know is mostly from stories I’ve heard-that he was a good cop, and would never have allowed Mom to raise me the way she did,” she said, and shrugged. “But all that’s ancient history.”