Continuity mistake: The age gap between Eric and Cory decreases as the series progresses. At the start of the show, Cory is in 6th grade and Eric is a high school sophomore, meaning they are four years apart, give or take a few months. By season 3, Cory is in 9th grade (confirmed by dialogue mentioning that Shawn, who is in the same grade as Cory, is 15 years old), and Eric is a senior, leading to an age gap of three years. The first episode of season 4 takes place a couple months after the end of season 3, with Eric and Cory returning from a summer Road Trip, but just two episodes later, Cory mentions that he is in 11th grade, while Eric is still barely out of high school, leading to an age gap of two years.
Continuity mistake: When the house is shown from the front exterior, there is a window on the left, but when seen from the interior there is a hat rack there.
Other mistake: A lot of times in scenes in episodes taking place in high school, characters are shown walking up to their lockers and opening them without putting in the combination first.
Other mistake: When anybody leaves the house, you can always see that when they open the door, they turn left and go; you can also see bricks/part of a porch in front of the door. But when the house is shown from the front, the fences are on both sides of the door, but not in front of it. So there is no way that they could turn left when leaving.
Continuity mistake: Establishing shots of the Matthews' house show the doorknob on the exterior of their front door to be on the left-hand side, but shots from inside the house show it to be on the right-hand side.
Answer: I learned the answer to this one today. It is "Tree of Life" by Garé Barks.
Phaneron ★