Chapter 2 opens about two decades years in the future, when Teddy (age 20) and Tip (age 21) are college students. Tip waits for Teddy at Harvard; Teddy is running late from visiting the Regina Cleri Home (a home for retired priests) where their Uncle (John) Sullivan lives. The two plan to meet at Tip’s ichthyology lab and walk to Harvard’s Kennedy School where they’ll meet Doyle; Jesse Jackson, a politician, is giving a lecture. The brothers are not interested in the outing, but attend to placate Doyle, who is a lawyer and former mayor of Boston. Since their childhood, Doyle has tried pushing political careers on the brothers. Tip is a senior in college, devoted to his studies in marine biology, and Teddy, a less studious junior at Northeastern, is devoted to their Uncle Sullivan, an elderly and infirm Catholic priest. Dialogue between the brothers also suggests their Uncle Sullivan has received media attention for performing healing miracles.

Chapter 2 unfolds through Tip’s point of view, and on the brothers’ walk through the frigid night, he simmers over Doyle’s disapproval of his plans to become an ichthyologist, Teddy’s commitment to Uncle Sullivan over school, and missing an opportunity to study for finals.