Some minds are too loud to ignore.

I was born to parents who didn't want me. They never said so, of course, but it was written across their foreheads in clear furrowed lines, and I learned to read very early.

Some people spend their whole lives wondering how loved they are compared to their siblings. I never wondered. It was obvious my sister was loved more. To know exactly by how much, I invented the "Mili-Hug" index, which measured the amount of love in a parental hug. Over time I came up with other measures too, with better names, all designed for a single purpose: to grasp, quantify, and feel at least a little of the most essential love in the world. It's not that I didn't know. But for the record, I had to measure. And I say "for the record" because I'm an obsessive recorder. I document everything. I have a thick notebook, crammed with pages, where I draw graphs, score columns, and fill in details with painstaking care. From childhood, I decided I was this kind of scientist, someone who examines and tests things, and because I was so very different, that angle suited me.

My father was a thin man with a gloomy face and dispirited, coal-black eyes. Inside those eyes was a ragged farmer hunched over a rusting plow, turning the soil of eternal fallow fields. That was what my mother saw whenever I secretly watched her searching his gaze for reassurance and not finding any. He worked for the police in a clerical position, after a heart murmur slammed the door on his chance at operational training and stripped the heavy gun from his belt. My father could, in theory, have had a sensible path of advancement, even on the tiled floors of the regional station, but it never seemed in a hurry to lay itself out beneath his feet. In fact, the longed for promotion wasn't interested in coming at all, and the frustration in his forward-fixed gaze drew a thin, beautiful black line along his lashes.

In his first year of life, a baby looks like his father. The man sees himself in his son and understands that his wife has been faithful to him and that his offspring really is of his seed. This resemblance is critical; evolutionary biology made sure of it. That confirmation helps the baby survive, keeps him protected, fed, and safe. After a year, even if the baby's features change, the emotional bond has already formed. I didn't resemble my father in any way. Not even on my first day.