Mrs. Acklen had initially worried about the study being connected to the Acklen Super Stores brand. “My sons, honestly, would have a conniption fit if they knew I was fully funding a study to redefine traditional family values. They were, god bless them, raised with every need and want fulfilled. To them, things work just fine as they are. They don’t know what it’s like to be totally lost, to have no idea how to get from one day to the next.” In the end, however, it seemed advantageous to the project, and Preston’s ability to bring in talented people, if her name, and her money, were attached to The Infinite Family Project. Two days after she agreed, her publicity department had contacted the New York Times and an article had been written. “The sons are not happy,” Mrs. Acklen had reported to Preston by e-mail. “Oh well.”
Mrs. Acklen’s lawyers created the Early Childhood Foundation, which would house The IFP, and transferred an initial deposit of eighty million dollars into the account. More would come, Mrs. Acklen assured Preston, as needed. Almost immediately after he was able to utilize the money, he hired these three fellows, all incredibly talented and perceptive and willing to enter into this unconventional study because he could offer them three times what they would make elsewhere. And, of course, there was the chance to do something entirely unique, to make something brand-new and see if it worked.
“I don’t think, honestly, that the project has done enough to take into account the challenges that face single mothers,” Kalina said. Kalina’s research at Harvard had focused on the implications of attachment parenting for feminism. She had argued, and her study had supported, that attachment parenting actively inhibited the agency of mothers from a societal, philosophical, and emotional standpoint. She argued for cooperative child rearing as a more progressive model; she was the first fellow whom Dr. Grind sought out. “We’ve talked about low-income families, but at least those couples have each other. Single mothers are forced to navigate these issues entirely on their own; that’s coupled with the unrealistic expectations of modern parenting. I think we owe it to ourselves to include a single parent in the family.”
“Well, I think that’s a reasonable request, though it means one less parent involved in the day-to-day activities of the larger family.”
“That seems to be a fair trade-off,” said Jill, from Duke University, who specialized in gifted children, the markers of child prodigies, and Jeffrey agreed as well.
“So, why is Isabel the single parent that we choose?” Dr. Grind asked.
“She’s quite young, nineteen, but she scored a 138 on the Stanford-Binet IQ test, the highest score of all the parents that I screened. She has esoteric talents for someone so young, as well. Of all the parents with whom I corresponded, she was the most comprehensive in her answers.”
“What about the father?” Jeffrey asked.
“He committed suicide after Isabel became pregnant,” Kalina answered.
“Jesus,” said Jeffrey, shaking his head.
“Her mother also passed away when Isabel was thirteen.”
“Well, she’s certainly deserving of something good in her life after all that,” Preston replied. “But do you think someone so young, without a partner, would fit into the project?”
“Isn’t that the whole point of the project?” Kalina asked. “To provide a cooperative parenting model that would benefit people exactly like Isabel?”
“Let me see the folder,” Preston said, and Kalina slid it across the table. He looked at the data, her history. He remembered Dr. Horton Jackson’s insistence that Isabel be considered for the project before he agreed to help facilitate the search for prospective parents. Brenda Acklen had contacted Jackson early in the process; apparently Mrs. Acklen had been a vocal supporter of his congressional run and had been a prime donor, and he orchestrated Preston’s unfettered access to so many OB/GYNs in Tennessee. His name had opened doors and had given legitimacy to Preston’s project in the early stages. It wouldn’t hurt to take this girl, whom Dr. Jackson had referred to as a friend of the family, in order to show his appreciation.
He stared at the photo on the projector; the girl was quite pretty, tomboyish and freckled, though there was something mysterious, something serious and dark, behind her eyes, something beyond what a teenager would or should possess. Her eyes, emerald green and hypnotic, reminded him of his wife. He thought about Marla for perhaps the fifth or sixth time that day, and he smiled. He noticed then that the fellows were all staring at him in silence, waiting for his answer. Dr. Grind nodded in approval.
“Okay,” he said. “She’s in.” He placed her folder on the stack and then looked toward Jill. “Who’s next?” he asked, and waited for someone else to make themselves known to him.