Page 111 of The Paradise Problem

I’ve planned to have pancakes, bacon, and scrambled eggs ready for Dad, and when he walks into the kitchen around nine the next morning, that’s exactly what he gets.

Mostly.

“What’s this?”

“Breakfast,” I say, offended.

Dad sits at the breakfast bar, pulling the plate closer and sniffing it.

I used up all the eggs for the scramble that I overcooked and had to toss, and then forgot baking powder entirely in the batter, so without both ingredients, the pancakes are a little thin but obviously recognizable as pancakes. I huff out a breath.

Dad points at the bacon, looking up at me. “What happened?”

“I thought you liked crispy bacon.”

He grins. “This is bacon?”

I pull the plate away, saying, “Okay, Mr. Picky,” and pull out plan B: the doughnuts I DoorDashed from Winchell’s right after I burned the first batch of bacon.

“Now we’re talking.” Dad digs into the box and takes an enormous bite of a maple bar. I’m so happy to see him with an appetite that I can’t even pretend to be offended anymore. He glances down at the counter and then nods to me. “Viv’s calling,” he says through a mouthful. “Probably to tell you that burned food will give me cancer.”

“Oh my God,” I bark, horrified, snatching the plate and dumping everything into the trash. “That’s not funny!”

Dad laughs anyway and I give him the finger (my ring finger! It’s my dad!) and pick up the phone, swiping to answer. “Vivs! Hey!”

“Turn on the news,” she says.

Humor drains out of me at her flat tone. “What?”

“Turn it on. Turn on CNN.”

I jog into the living room, digging through the throw pillows on the couch to find Dad’s remote. “Dad, how do I turn on the news?” I ask, flailing.

“What?” he calls.

“The news! I don’t watch news! I just watch clips like five days later on Twitter. Help me!”

“Just turn on the TV.”

I hit a few buttons, finally ending up on an Apple TV menu that has nothing that looks at all newsy. I let out a garbled roar.

He walks in, taking the remote from me and laughing. A few seconds later, CNN is up and I’m staring in shock at the headline on the chyron:

Breaking News: Weston Foods Heir Apparent Liam Weston Stalked and Harassed Female Employees.

I don’t realize I’m sitting until the coffee table is beneath me. “Vivs, I gotta go,” I say, and drop my phone somewhere beside me.

“What’s this?” Dad asks, as Liam’s photo from the Stanford faculty website appears.

“Your son-in-law,” I say, and turn up the volume. “And… I don’t know.”

“Just eleven years ago,” Victor Blackwell is saying, “Liam Weston was embroiled in a scandal centered around the technology he developed for the company, called PISA, or Product Inventory Surveillance and Alignment. And now,” the anchor says dramatically, “it appears the scandal went deeper than anyone knew. We’ll get into it, after the break.”

I lean in, shouting at the TV. “What? No! This is no time for commercials!”

“Wait… I remember this,” Dad says quietly, and I look over at him while sports heroes enthusiastically crunch Doritos on the television. “There was some genius kid who created a program that was meant to keep track of inventory within the grocery network, but he programmed it to track employee activity, too.”

“What?” I ask. “That Liam programmed?”

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