Deal and Nurture

Deal went first, because her half is the hand. She shuffled two decks — from Mom, from Dad — and dealt a fresh mix. "Before you were even born, your genes got shuffled and dealt into a brand-new hand," she said. "Some from each parent, jumbled fresh — a hand nobody else has ever been dealt." She dealt a second, different hand. "That's why you and your brother, same parents, got different hands. That's my half: the fresh, one-of-a-kind deal." She fanned the cards. "But here's what a hand isn't — it isn't the whole story of a person. Two people could be dealt very similar hands and still live completely different lives and turn out completely different. The hand is where you start. It's not where you end. What happens to the hand after it's dealt — that's Nurture's half."

Nurture grew the hand. She turned to her two seedlings — same seed, one thriving in the light, one small in the shade. "Deal gives you your hand of genes — I show what the world does with it," she said. "Same seed, same genes — but grown in a sunny, watered, cared-for place, it thrives; grown in a dark dry corner, it struggles. The food you get, the practice you do, the people who care for you, the place you grow — all of it shapes how your hand actually turns out." She warmed the little seedling. "That's my half: the life that grows the hand. But my half needs her half first — the world can only shape the hand you were dealt. There's no growing without a seed. Deal hands you the genes; I show that they're a possibility, not a sentence, and your whole life helps decide how they turn out."

Then they did the move that is theirs — the one neither can do alone. They turned to Pip together. "Why are you one of a kind?" Deal asked, and answered with the deal: "Because you were dealt a fresh hand of genes nobody else has ever held." And Nurture answered with the seedling: "And because that hand has been grown in your particular life — your food, your care, your practice, your place — which nobody else has ever lived." They showed how neither alone was enough: identical twins get the same deal, yet grow different because their lives (Nurture) differ; and two very different hands (Deal) raised in the very same home still turn out different people. The deal and the growing. "My fresh hand alone doesn't finish a person," Deal said. "My growing alone has nothing to grow without a hand," Nurture said. "Together — your genes and your whole life make a you that has never existed before and never will again." And Pip sat between a raccoon and a hen, understanding, for the first time, exactly how they came to be no copy of anyone.