It had been thrilling when Professor Hardiman contacted him—but he’d also felt like a fraud. Couldn’t anyone see who he was? The best student of an elderly high school teacher from a village in the middle of nowhere. We’d be delighted to consider you for admission next year: this, from a man who, even if he was as old as Miss Atkins, had once been to the Bridger Basin and explored the Niobrara Chalk, uncovered bones of the Elasmosaurus and the gigantic Camerasaurus, worked among the skulls and talons and boxes of bones. The professor wrote that vast amounts of material came into his laboratory from the expeditions of former students and friends, and that Charles (he called him Charles, which instantly made Charlie feel more serious) might be able to join such an expedition, even as a freshman.

That had been encouraging, and although his father argued for Cornell—so much closer, which mattered in more ways than his father knew—and his mother for Yale, he’d nearly decided to go to Penn on the basis of that one letter. He wrote back promptly, saying he was free after his graduation at the end of June—and then the professor didn’t write back. And didn’t write back, and didn’t write back.

“Why don’t I write him myself, and see what’s happening,” Miss Atkins said. “I expect something came up for him at work.” As she spoke, Charlie’s uncle materialized behind her. “Jasper!” she said happily.

“You look very festive,” he said, bending to kiss her cheek. “As do you, young Alice.” At his elbow a man Charlie recognized as the new chemist at the winery nodded at all of them. “What word of Caroline?”

“She’s thinking of coming back east,” Miss Atkins said. “Some flying school on Long Island caught her eye, but there’s another in Florida—she still isn’t sure.”

The front door opened again; an ornament fell off the tree. As Jasper listened to Miss Atkins’s speculations about Alice’s older sister, Charlie, seeing an opening, moved toward Alice. But before he could reach her, his uncle turned and intercepted him.

“Have you been upstairs?” Jasper said.

Charlie shook his head, hoping Alice would stay put. Already the three Vandenberg sisters, red-haired and freckled, were moving intently her way.

“It’s a while since anyone’s visited Nana,” Jasper said. “Why don’t you bring your great-grandmother a few things to nibble on, and a glass of wine?” Obedient, for the moment, Charlie headed upstairs.