“She knew who I was,” Ema said. “She found Buck’s e-mails to me. She knew what I meant to him. And what he meant to me.”

“I don’t understand.”

“She said that she didn’t want me to live not knowing the truth. Or thinking Buck had just carelessly broken my heart. But I don’t think that was it. I think she needed someone to confide in. So she made me swear never to tell.”

“And you agreed?”

Ema nodded. “I agreed.”

“And that’s why you didn’t tell me about it yesterday?”

“No,” Ema said. “That had nothing to do with it.”

“But you said . . . wait, what did Buck’s mother tell you exactly?”

“She talked about how Buck had felt all that pressure. Your buddy Troy added to it. Buck needed to get bigger and stronger. So, yes, he took steroids. A lot of them. And then we met online—and he started to change. But, like Jared said, he was still torn between his two worlds.”

I swallowed. “What happened to him, Ema? How did he die?”

“His brother, Randy.”

“He killed him?”

“In a sense,” Ema said. “Randy thinks he understands how these drugs work. He doesn’t. I don’t know if Buck had a bad reaction to them. I don’t know if he took too many of them accidentally. I don’t know if he took too many on purpose.”

“He overdosed?”

Her tears came freely now. “Yeah,” she said. “He overdosed. He was alone and he shot this stuff into his veins and . . .”

“But his body,” I said. “It was buried in the woods. If it was an overdose . . .”

“Think about it, Mickey.”

I tried, but it wasn’t coming to me.

“The NFL draft was coming up,” Ema said. “Randy was already secretly fighting a positive steroid test. If this came out, if they found out Buck had overdosed because of Randy . . .”

I shook my head. My eyes went wide. “Parents would never do that.”

“You don’t get it.”

“What?”

“Of course they would. Buck’s mother said it clear as day. Buck was dead. There was nothing they could do for him. They had another son. He’d lose everything. He’d probably go to jail on drug charges and maybe even for manslaughter. She and I sat at her kitchen table, Mickey. She looked me in the eye and said, ‘We lost one son, but we didn’t have to lose two. What good would it do to destroy Randy’s life too?’”

I couldn’t believe it, but it all made a strange, horrible kind of sense. “So they buried Buck’s body,” I said. “They made up that story about him going to live with his mother. Who’d check a remote island? And even if they did, she could just say, what, Buck was at work or traveling.”

Ema nodded. “They hadn’t really thought it all out, but eventually she would move overseas. She’d tell people that she and Buck were living in Europe.”

“My God. That’s awful.”

“And yet it would work. Who’d question it? In a horrible way, it’s logical and even loving. They couldn’t save the one child—”

“So they tried to save the other,” I said, finishing the thought.

I thought about what Uncle Myron had said, about the mistakes that cost my father his life, about the ghosts that haunt him even now. “Still,” I said. “How do you live with that?”

“I’m not sure that she could.”

“So you think, what, you were, like, her confession.”

“I think she just needed to confide in someone. She knew I cared about him. She thought that maybe I even loved him. So she told me the truth and swore me to secrecy.”

We stood there, feeling the full weight of the moment.

“But now Buck’s body has been found,” I said.

“Yes.”

“Hours after you learned the truth and promised not to tell.”

“Yes.”

“That’s some coincidence,” I said.

“No coincidence. You see, that’s what Buck’s mom didn’t count on.”

“What?”

“She loved both her sons,” Ema said. “But I loved only one.”

The room grew very still.

“You called the police?” I asked.

“No. I stopped at the library after I left you. I sent an anonymous e-mail to them. I told them where Buck’s body was. I told them how he died. I told them the truth. With the clues I gave them, they’ll put it all together.”

We stood there. Upstairs I heard voices. Myron had come into the house after all. He was talking to Ema’s mom. They were right above us. And they were a million miles away. Everyone else was a million miles away. Right now, in this basement, there was only Ema and I and maybe the ghost of a teenage boy who was no longer buried alone in the woods.

Chapter 48

By noon, the media was all over the story.

Buck’s family was arrested. None were charged with murder. I don’t know what the charge is for hiding your own son’s body to protect your other son from prosecution. Whatever that was, that’s what the parents were both charged with. A search of the house found steroids and other banned substances in Randy’s room. I don’t know what charges were filed against him, but it sounded like a lot of them.

I only knew that it was over for me. Except, of course, it wasn’t.

Not even close.

• • •

A week later, Uncle Myron and I went to Buck’s funeral.

When we got back to the house, we sat in the kitchen.

We didn’t say a word for a very long time. We just sat in our dark suits and stared into space. Buck was dead. I couldn’t believe it. The finality of it was something I still couldn’t comprehend.

“So young,” Uncle Myron said with a shake of his head. “I know you’ve heard this before, Mickey, but you always have to be careful. Life can be so fragile.”

We sat in silence again. I loosened my tie. Time passed. I can’t say how much.

“I know it seems irrelevant now,” Myron said. “But do you know what you’re going to do about Troy and the basketball team?”

I nodded. “No choice really.”

He just waited.

“I’m going to tell Coach Grady the truth.”

“The truth will get you thrown off the team,” Myron said.

“Too bad,” I said.

“It’s not the end of the world.”