Her tongue stuck out of the gap where her front tooth should have been. Her red marker moved across the paper in rapt concentration. It had been forever since he’d been able to sit back and watch her play or draw. Most parents were prejudiced when it came to the talents and intellect of their children—but Quinn was absolutely certain Mattie was a prodigy. She could already suss math problems Quinn would have found difficult in junior high. Quinn was a linguist himself, fluent in four languages besides his native tongue. The fact that his little girl’s Chinese was already better than any of her nonnative teachers flushed him with pride. She’d inherited his ear for languages, but her gift for music came from Kim. Mattie had played the violin with the Anchorage Youth Symphony when she was only six. She’d been working on Vivaldi recently and now hummed the bouncing “Spring” concerto from The Four Seasons as she put the finishing touches on the art project. Finished, she held it up for her dad to see.
