Stanford

Stanford is the central educational and geographical reference point in the Doss family’s life, binding together Richard and Joanne’s courtship, Eric’s exceptional academic career, and Stacy’s unsettled plans for the future. It stands for opportunity and achievement, but also for inheritance: the family’s loyalty to the university can make a personal choice look like an obligation.

Family History and the Campus

Stanford first enters the narrative through Richard Doss’s photographs. One shows a young couple on campus, amid a green lawn, large trees, and imposing beige buildings. Alex Delaware recognizes the setting from a research project he once conducted with a Stanford professor. Richard explains that he was a senior and Joanne a sophomore when the photograph was taken, shortly after their engagement. The campus is therefore not merely an institution the Dosses later recommend to their children; it is part of the beginning of their marriage.

The photograph also gives the family’s academic history a visible form. Richard describes himself as a Stanford undergraduate and MBA, while Joanne earned her first doctorate there, in English. She had already received an appointment as a lecturer at the university the family later refers to as the U. when they moved to Los Angeles. Her education did not follow a single fixed track: while pregnant with Eric, she returned to study science, eventually earning a doctorate in microbiology and running her own research lab before becoming ill. Stanford belongs to the family story as a place where both parents began distinguished careers, even though Joanne’s later work took her into another field and another city.

Richard’s appearance in the campus photograph sharpens the contrast between student life and the adult success that followed. Rather than the long hair and countercultural clothing associated with many students of the 1970s, he wears a close haircut, pressed gray slacks, a white shirt, horn-rimmed glasses, and polished black shoes. The remembered image presents him as markedly conventional, a young man already dressed for the disciplined, achievement-oriented life that his later identity as a self-made millionaire would suggest.

A Family Tradition and a Future Choice

For Eric, Stanford is both an inherited destination and a place where his talents have flourished. He is back there after his mother’s death, earns terrific grades, and works with an economics professor on an honors paper. His father reports that Eric is doing well academically, reinforcing the image of him as the family’s assured high achiever. Stacy, by contrast, sees her brother’s direction as having been clear from childhood. She recalls that at five he picked up The Wall Street Journal, read an article about supply and demand in the soybean market, and lectured his kindergarten class about it the next day. In her telling, his precocious certainty makes her own lack of focus seem more pronounced.

Stacy’s relationship to Stanford is less settled. Her parents attended, and she calls the family’s connection a tradition. She believes Richard would be thrilled if she went there, while remaining unsure whether she would be admitted. Later, Richard describes her application prospects as strong: her grades have risen since she began seeing Delaware, and she is taking a full course load, Advanced Placement classes, and an honors track. Because early-admission deadlines fall in November and Stanford and the Ivy League schools take many students early, the choice carries practical pressure as well as emotional weight. Richard wants her to revisit the campus and asks Delaware to help her make a decision in time.

A later change in Stacy’s outlook makes the possibility more concrete without resolving the question of where she will enroll. At the beginning of her twelfth therapy session, she says she has finally decided that she may want a future and declares an interest in studying architecture at Stanford. She presents that aim as a choice that might satisfy her as well as please the family. The distinction matters: the university remains a family tradition, but Stacy is beginning to imagine a field of study that could make it personally meaningful. The evidence does not establish that she applies, is admitted, or ultimately attends.

Eric’s Disappearance and Return

Stanford becomes a site of crisis when Eric disappears from his dorm. After Stacy misses a therapy session to go to her father’s office, Milo Sturgis learns that Richard has told Delaware his son has run away from Stanford. Milo calls the campus and speaks with Eric’s roommate, Chad Soo. Eric had seemed depressed for several days and then failed to return to his room. He had also missed a major test, an unusual break from his established academic performance. Chad waited before reporting the absence, worried that Eric might get in trouble, but called the Doss home after the second day and spoke with Stacy.

The timing unsettles Milo: Eric’s depression and disappearance follow the killing of Eldon Mate by about a week, although Joanne had died nine months earlier. That sequence raises questions about the pressures and grief surrounding Eric, but the available account does not settle what he was thinking or why he left. Stanford is where the absence becomes visible through the routines of dorm life: a roommate notices he has not returned, and a missed test turns private distress into a reason to seek help.

Richard later tells Delaware that Eric is on his way back to Stanford, having been given a flight out of Van Nuys. Delaware questions whether Eric is ready to return, but Richard answers as though the decision is straightforward. Delaware also urges Richard to take a more active role in securing help for his son. Richard responds that Eric is uncomfortable with Delaware, distinguishes his son’s needs from Stacy’s, and says he will handle Eric himself. The return to Stanford thus does not settle the crisis; it exposes a disagreement about whether resuming college is enough or whether Eric needs support beyond his academic setting.

Legacy, Separation, and Narrative Significance

Stanford connects the Dosses through a shared history, but that connection does not mean they experience the university in the same way. For Richard it is an achievement already secured, part of the educational background behind his later success. For Joanne it marks the beginning of a scholarly life that expanded from English into microbiology. For Eric it is the setting of conspicuous academic promise, followed by an unexplained departure and a rapid return. For Stacy it is at once an appealing possibility, a family expectation, and a decision she is still learning to make for herself.

Delaware’s advice brings the tension between inheritance and independence into focus. He tells Richard that Stacy needs to separate from her family and establish an identity of her own, and argues that she should go anywhere but Stanford because Richard and Joanne attended and Eric is there. This is a therapeutic judgment, not a report that Stacy has rejected the school; her own stated interest in architecture at Stanford remains. The contrast leaves the choice unresolved while clarifying what is at stake. The campus may offer education and opportunity, yet its meaning within the family can also pull the children toward a ready-made version of success. Stanford’s recurring presence makes that conflict tangible: it is both a place the Dosses have made their own and a legacy the younger generation must decide how to carry.