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Priest Lake, Idaho

I t’s four p.m. and Ethan Chapin is finishing up his shift as a server at the Hill’s Resort restaurant, nestled on beautiful Priest Lake up in the Idaho mountains. The sparkling water with its snow-crested surroundings got its name from the Jesuit missionaries who once lived near there.

The Chapins have two homes, one in Mount Vernon, near Seattle, and a summerhouse on Priest Lake. His mom came here as a little girl, and he and his family have been coming here all his life. There’s nowhere Ethan would rather be.

He yells to Hunter, and the two head to his favorite place within his favorite place: the resort’s sand volleyball court, right on the shore, in front of the resort’s bar and restaurant. The community is tight. No one locks their doors. People call one another by their first names.

Ethan knocks on the door of cabin 101, which belongs to the Zylak family. It’s a running joke that the Zylaks are über-competitive. Ethan’s ideal matchup is the six Zylak kids versus everyone else. Whatever the numbers, he finds a way to make a game of it.

Once on the volleyball court, he strips off his shirt and takes his position.

He and Hunter hit the ball back and forth over the net while a little crowd, including their parents, Jim and Stacy, and, this summer, Xana, gathers to watch the magnificent sight of Ethan in full athlete mode.

He jumps, he sets, he dives, he spikes—a mythic Greek god in action.

Ethan made varsity basketball as a high-school freshman, but COVID restrictions deprived him of crucial competitive seasons that would have prepped him to play at the college level.

Over the summer, the Chapin triplets worked at Hill’s Resort, which was full to bursting with people wanting a rural escape.

This time together made the trio realize that they wanted to attend the same college, and they needed it to be east of the mountains.

And they wanted to be involved in Greek life, to keep the small-family feeling that they were used to at home.

UI was an easy decision. WSU felt vast when they visited. By comparison, Greek Row at UI felt so small and bucolic, it was like a private school.

Their mom, Stacy, a former school principal and a Greek life alum at the University of Puget Sound, was relieved that her children would experience the safety net and type of community that had been such a welcome part of her own college years.

Now, as Stacy watches her son leap around on the volleyball court, she’s filled with pride. UI has been exactly the nurturing place she wanted for them. They’re thriving. Her husband, Jim—who believes Stacy’s judgment is consistently rock solid—agrees.

After the game, Jim, Stacy, Hunter, Maizie, Ethan, and Xana sprint to the boat Jim recently bought to satisfy his kids’ love of the water.

They turn the music up high, blasting out Morgan Wallen’s latest album, and Jim drives the boat while the kids take turns wakeboarding and sipping drinks from the cooler.

Ethan and Hunter love boarding so much that early every morning, they stuff their work clothes into their backpacks and go out on the water, coming back with only five minutes to spare before their shifts. Jim drops them at the dock, and they sprint, barefoot, to their posts.

This summer, Ethan has been inseparable from Xana, who’s been staying with the Chapins most of the time. Stacy can see immediately that her son is serious about this carefree young woman. The Chapins happily welcome her as one of their own.

Changes are ahead for the upcoming fall semester.

Xana is moving from the Shark Tank into a rental house on King Road.

Stacy and Jim have rented Ethan an apartment in Moscow.

The Sigma Chi president told Ethan that frat brothers who are double deficient—that is, with a GPA below 2.

75 for two consecutive semesters—have to live outside the house.

Stacy’s only concern about her oldest triplet is how far his grades have slipped. Though she suspects Ethan will stay most nights with Xana, she knows that the forced separation from his fraternity brothers will motivate him to raise his grades high enough to return to the Sigma Chi house.

In the boat, the wind whips up and the sun slowly starts to redden and sink low into the horizon. Jim turns the boat toward the shore. Ethan turns the volume one notch higher, and they head home listening to Morgan Wallen’s “Heartless.”

If this isn’t paradise, Stacy thinks, then what is?