Deal

Deal hadn't always loved the shuffle. When she was small, she'd felt oddly bothered that she and her sister came from the same parents but were so different — as if one of them must be the "wrong" mix.

Then her uncle, a card-sharp of the old school, sat her down with two decks. "Feeling like you and your sister should've come out the same, little one?" he said. "Watch this." He shuffled the two decks and dealt her a hand, then dealt another. "Same two decks. Two totally different hands. Neither one's wrong — they're just different deals." He fanned out the cards. "That shuffle is the best thing about you. If everyone got the exact same hand, one bad card and we'd all be stuck with it. But because every hand is fresh, the whole family — the whole world — ends up full of different mixes. Different is the point." Deal had shuffled and dealt all afternoon, and the bothered feeling turned into something warm and proud. "I'm not a wrong copy of my sister," she liked to say. "We each got our own fresh hand. And a world of fresh hands is a strong, lucky world."

A soft knock came at the lab door. "Come in!" Deal called, cards riffling.

Pip slipped in, watching the cards fly. "Deal? My brother and I have the same mom and dad, but we're really different, and someone said that's weird. Is it weird?"

Deal barked a laugh. "Weird? It's the opposite of weird — it's how it's supposed to work." She patted the stool. "Come deal with me. My uncle taught me why you and your brother got different hands from the same deck, and once you see it, you'll be glad of it."

Deal set two decks in front of Pip — from Mom, from Dad. "Shuffle them together," she said, and Pip mixed them. "Now deal a hand." Pip dealt out a colorful mix. "That's you — some genes from Mom, some from Dad, shuffled fresh." Then Deal had Pip shuffle and deal again from the same two decks. A completely different hand came out. "And that's your brother," Deal said. "Same parents. Same deck. But the shuffle-and-deal happens fresh each time, so he got a different mix than you." Pip stared at the two different hands from the same decks. "Neither one is the 'right' hand," Deal said. "They're just different deals — and that's the good part. A family, a whole world, full of fresh, different hands is stronger than one where everybody got the same cards. Your particular mix, the one nobody else got dealt — that's yours alone. That's not weird. That's the whole beautiful trick."