Mrs. O’Connor sighed. In more than twenty years of parenting, the one thing that she’d learned was that you had to deal with the child right in front of you, not the one you wished they would be. And her disappointment with Trip—or her inability to understand him, as she liked to think of it—was now tinged with fear. Fear that whatever had gotten hold of him and rooted him to this spot might still lay in wait for her other boy. Will had always been a little less charming and not quite as handsome as his older brother, but he’d nonetheless quietly and steadily proved himself the more likely to succeed.

“What happened on Friday night?” she asked Trip. “I thought you said you were just hanging out by the river.”

“Mom. We’ve already been over this. There’s nothing to worry about.”

“Nothing to worry about? Trip, I’ve got a police officer in my driveway. I’m worried.”

“Well, don’t be. Who knows what happened after Will and I left the river? But it can’t be that big of a deal if all the cops did was call you and Dad.” Trip flashed his crooked smile at his mother, and put his arm around her. “We’re lucky to have you, mother hen.”

Mrs. O’Connor felt annoyed rather than relieved by Trip’s nonchalance, and she pulled away. “Trip, whatever happened, I want you to keep Will out of it. He has a lot going for him right now, and he can’t mess it up. If there’s any kind of trouble at school or anything, it might affect his acceptance at Princeton.”

“Princeton.” Trip let the word hang in the air for a minute. “I know. I know how important this is to him, and to you. Don’t worry.”

Mrs. O’Connor couldn’t quite let it go. “It’s not just Princeton. If anything happens to that scholarship, there’s no way we can make up the difference. We just took out a big loan for all the new equipment. We won’t be able to cover any additional loans. You’ll look out for Will?”

When the kids were little, she was always so careful to treat them equally. They were constantly watching, trying to judge who got the bigger slice of cake, or who sat in the front seat of the car more often. She knew that it wasn’t reasonable that she was more worried about Will right now. Whatever happened on Friday night, it seemed to her that the boys had been in it together. But fair or not, the consequences would be much worse for Will. She wasn’t sure what, exactly, she was asking of Trip. But her sons were long past the point where she could ensure that life would be fair to them, and right now she needed Trip’s help, whatever that meant.