“Too, as in also. As in Mom might go to jail, and Dad might go too. What do you think I mean?”

“I think you’re getting ahead of yourself. Mom’s not going to jail. Neither is Dad.” I sit up, yawn, smile at my sister as if she is blowing this out of proportion. I pat her hand, and she pulls away.

“Have you even read the complaint?”

“No one is going to jail,” I repeat, avoiding her question, because no, I have not yet read the complaint. It’s two hundred terrifying pages long. According to the New York Times, the vast majority of it deals with the charges against the forty-five other people who’ve also been caught up in Dr. Wilson’s shenanigans. All of their kids are waking up today, like me, with their whole worlds shattered. I wish I could talk to them and ask, What do we do? Isla is not blowing this out of proportion. It’s just that she’s usually impossible to scare or to ruffle, always calm and collected, and so I will take this single opportunity for a role reversal. I’ll rise to the challenge. “Everything is going to be okay.”

“Stop playing stupid, Chloe.”

“I’m not. You’re freaking out.”

“Wake the hell up. Read the complaint. Find out what we’re dealing with here. The only reason why they haven’t pressed charges against Dad yet is because they don’t have as much clear-cut evidence against him. But there’s a ton on Mom. Apparently, there is a phone call between Mom and Wilson—”

“Dr. Wilson,” I correct.

“Oh my God! Fine. Dr. Wilson. That call was wiretapped. Dad wasn’t there that day, so for now, at least, he’s in the clear. According to this legal blog I was reading last night, the prosecution will likely put pressure on Mom to plead guilty by offering not to charge Dad,” Isla says. She looks tired, and it occurs to me that when she went upstairs last night, it wasn’t to sleep. It was to research in private.

I wonder if Isla went to bed at all.

Of course, Isla would have been trying to find a way to help, unlike me, who spent most of last night weeping on the couch and staring at the ceiling. It hadn’t even occurred to me that I could be useful.

“You’re not a lawyer,” I say. It’s not fair that I’m angry at her. If anything, it should be the other way around. She has every right to be mad at me. I didn’t only blow up my reputation, but probably hers too. She’s in her junior year, on the cusp of this process.

Still, her competence feels cutting.

“You don’t actually know how any of this works,” I say.