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several laptops. “Ollie, you said you had a paper to finish.”
    â€œPaper,” Oliver mumbled. His eyes opened and he propped himself up. “Right.”
    â€œAre you awake?”
    â€œYeah, up.” He stood and picked his way across the floor to the bathroom. “I’m going to shower.”
    The bathroom door closed and seconds later, the sound of running water could be heard. Andy stepped into the room, looking for . . . what? Clues to his son’s evident unhappiness? He made his way over to the desk, stepping on something disgustingly slimy that turned out to be part of a red pepper and mozzarella sandwich that had probably been here for a week. Jesus. He picked up the offending mess and stuffed it into a plastic bag he plucked from the clutter. He’d have to speak to Oliver about leaving food around; it really wasn’t sanitary. On the desk, along with all the gadgets, he saw open boxes of LEGOs, wooden trains, and a very elaborate helicopter he seemed to recall Rachel buying when Oliver was about eight.
    Andy stumbled toward the bed—this time his foot had an unfortunate encounter with something molten that turned out to be a chocolate bar, its wrapper haphazardly torn open—to investigate an odd lump he spied behind the pillow. The chocolate joined the remains of the sandwich in the bag. Moving the pillow, Andy found a stuffed elephant that was more than a decade old. Once blue, it was now a soiled gray, and missing an eye besides. Buster, that was the name Oliver had given it. Andy tugged Buster’s outsized ear by way of greeting and tucked him back under the pillow.
    Then he felt something else odd. Andy pulled out a small plastic bag filled with rolling papers and, damn it, marijuana; even without sniffing the contents, he could tell by the dry, twiggy look of it. The discovery explained a lot of things—the way Oliver seemed to burn through the money Andy gave him, his erratic performance in school, the maddening funks into which he seemed to slip so easily. It was troubling too that his son could be so casual, even brazen, about his recreational drug use. Lucy changed his sheets on a regular basis; didn’t he care if she found that bag? Andy checked his watch. The shower was still running and anyway there was no time to deal with this now.
    He pocketed the bag. Oliver would not ask him about it; of that he was sure. Then he went back down the hall, to the exercise room on the other side of the apartment. The trainer, Cassie, was now four minutes late and her lateness annoyed the hell out of him. But he tried to subdue his irritation with a few deep squats and a stretch. Then he walked to the window, where he stood forty stories above the city, gazing out at the sparkling ripples and toylike boats of the East River.
    When the concierge buzzed—
finally!
—Andy turned away from the view. The fitness room boasted an elliptical trainer in one corner, StairMaster in another. A wall of free weights, each set color coded. A bench press. Mats. He viewed this room as a necessary sanctuary; while he was here, he tried to keep the outside world at bay. As soon as Cassie came in, they began; he knew the basic drill—stretch, warm up, quick cardio blast followed by the core work she favored. Planking, her core technique du jour, was a bitch. He’d worked his way up to just over three minutes and was trying to reach four today. He assumed the position with his arms along either side his body, his toes flexed and sustaining his weight. At 90 seconds he was still in command; at 120, the strain was apparent.
    â€œYou’re doing great.” Cassie’s upbeat voice provided the necessary encouragement. Andy had just passed the three-minute mark when Oliver came charging into the room despite having been told, numerous times, not to bother his father while the trainer was here.
    â€œI have to see you,” he said in response to Andy’s