“So?” I ask. My dad likes to enumerate all the things he’d do to the guy who tipped off the feds as payback for ruining our lives.

I couldn’t care less who the informant is.

I think it’s pretty clear we ruined our own lives.

“That’s Charles.” Two pictures of Charles, Aunt Candy’s husband, who we’ve never called Uncle even though we’ve known him forever, fill the screen. In the picture on the left, he’s smiling with his arm around George W. Bush. In the one on the right, he’s ringing a bell at the New York Stock Exchange. In both, he looks tanned and tired, the kind of dude with manicured nails and an ulcer.

“CNN has learned that Charles Bonaparte, billionaire president and CEO of the hedge fund Napoleon, tipped off prosecutors to the college admissions scandal a year ago. Reports say that he offered the information in exchange for leniency in his own legal troubles, as he is facing charges of tax evasion and money laundering,” the silver-haired reporter says. “Apparently, Bonaparte became aware of the nationwide scheme when Dr. Wilson, the mastermind behind the scandal, offered to bribe a tennis coach at Yale to help Bonaparte’s son get into the university. Bonaparte claims that he turned the offer down, using Dr. Wilson only for his legitimate college admissions services, and that his son gained entry to Yale on his own merits.”

“Mom’s going to freak,” I say, my heart sinking. “Also, ‘own merits’ my ass.”

“Sources report that Yale is currently reviewing all transcripts and applications of students who may have been illegally admitted, and at least one student has been expelled,” the reporter continues.

“No wonder Aunt Candy hasn’t even called,” Isla says.

“Were we set up? I mean, if he tipped them off a year ago, Aunt Candy knew exactly who Dr. Wilson was. Did she recommend him knowing that the feds were listening?” This is, of course, a silly question, because though Isla usually has all the answers, there’s no way she can have this one. As I’ve come to learn from my mom’s middle-of-the-night murmurings, it’s not like Candy has the happiest of marriages. Who knows how much she knew?

As I understand it, the biggest piece of evidence the feds have against my mother is a wiretapped conversation between her and Dr. Wilson in which he manipulated her into reciting their plan out loud. My dad happened to have a meeting that day, which is the only reason he isn’t facing charges too.

I decide it truly doesn’t matter why Aunt Candy connected us to Dr. Wilson. That feels too much like looking for a loophole to our own culpability.

“I don’t know,” Isla says. “Maybe Aunt Candy didn’t know.”