The Third Twin - Ken Follett [36]
For a change it was a woman who spoke up. She was Donna-Marie Dickson, a nurse who had gone back to school in her thirties, bright but shy. She said: “What about the Osmonds?”
The class laughed, and the woman blushed. Jeannie said gently: “Explain what you mean, Donna-Marie. Some of the class may be too young to remember the Osmonds.”
“They were a pop group in the seventies, all brothers and sisters. The Osmond family are all musical. But they don’t have the same genes, they’re not twins. It seems to have been the family environment that made them all musicians. Same with the Jackson Five.” The others, who were mostly younger, laughed again, and the woman smiled bashfully and added: “I’m giving away my age here.”
“Ms. Dickson makes an important point, and I’m surprised no one else thought of it,” Jeannie said. She was not surprised at all, but Donna-Marie needed to have her confidence boosted. “Charismatic and dedicated parents may make all their children conform to a certain ideal, regardless of their genes, just as abusive parents may turn out a whole family of schizophrenics. But these are extreme cases. A malnourished child will be short in stature, even if its parents and grandparents are all tall. An overfed child will be fat even if it has thin ancestors. Nevertheless, every new study tends to show, more conclusively than the last, that it is predominantly the genetic inheritance, rather than the environment or style of upbringing, that determines the nature of the child.” She paused. “If there are no more questions, please read Bouchard et al. in Science, 12 October 1990, before next Monday.” Jeannie picked up her papers.
They began packing up their books. She hung around for a few moments, to create an opportunity for students too timid to ask questions in open class to approach her privately. Introverts often became great scientists.
It was Donna-Marie who came up to the front. She had a round face and fair curly hair. Jeannie thought she must have been a good nurse, calm and efficient. “I’m so sorry about poor Lisa,” Donna-Marie said. “What a terrible thing to happen.”
“And the police made it worse,” Jeannie said. “The cop who drove her to the hospital was a real asshole, frankly.”
“That’s too bad. But maybe they’ll catch the guy who did it. They’re passing out flyers with his picture all over the campus.”
“Good!” The picture Donna-Marie was talking about must have been produced by Mish Delaware’s computer program. “When I left her this morning she was working on the picture with a detective.”
“How’s she feeling?’
“Still numb … but jumpy, too.”
Donna-Marie nodded. “They go through phases, I’ve seen it before. The first phase is denial. They say: ‘I just want to put it all behind me and get on with my life.’ But it’s never that easy.”
“She should talk to you. Knowing what to expect might help her.”
“Any time,” Donna-Marie said.
Jeannie walked across the campus toward Nut House. It was still hot. She found herself looking around watchfully, like a nervous cowboy in a western movie, expecting someone to come around the corner of the freshmen’s residence and attack her. Until now the campus of Jones Falls had seemed like an oasis of old-fashioned tranquillity in the desert of a modern American city. Indeed, JFU was like a small town, with its shops and banks, sports fields and parking meters, bars and restaurants, offices and homes. It had a population of five thousand, of whom half lived on campus. But it had been turned into a dangerous landscape. That guy has no right to do this, Jeannie thought bitterly; to make me feel afraid in my own place of work. Maybe a crime always had this effect, causing the solid ground to seem unsteady beneath your feet.
As she