Mom stopped perusing uniforms, and I stopped imagining the tree-lined walkways at MIT, and we both looked at him. This comment was a little out of the blue, I thought. He hadn’t even mentioned the idea of his own car around his sixteenth birthday.

“Okay,” Mom said thoughtfully. “So how are you planning to acquire this car?”

His face fell. “I was thinking that maybe, between you and Dad, you might be able to—” He swallowed hard. “It wouldn’t have to be a very nice car.”

Mom was already shaking her head. “We don’t have that kind of cash right now, honey. I’m sorry.”

Because of the divorce, I thought and didn’t say.

Ty turned to me for support. I lifted my hands in surrender. “Hey, don’t look at me. I worked after school for three years to buy the Lemon. And it’s the Lemon.”

“Yes, that’s what you’ll have to do, honey,” Mom said. “You’ll have to save up.”

Ty nodded, but it was a resigned kind of nod. He knew there was no way for him to get a real job with all his extracurricular activities—basketball being the big one.

I tried to soften the blow. “But come on, what would you do with a car, really?”

His eyes flashed. “I’d drive to school. I have my license. I’d take girls out on dates. I’d take road trips, get out of the state of Nebraska for once in my stupid life.”

Mom and I exchanged worried glances.

Ty closed his eyes and sighed. “Anyway, it’s fine. I just thought I’d ask.”

And he went back to shoveling in his food.

I was thinking, as I finished up my own breakfast, that I could give him the Lemon. Once I got to MIT, of course. I wouldn’t need a car there.

It was the Lemon, but still. It was a car. Maybe Ty could do what I had never bothered to attempt: he could fix the Lemon up.

But I didn’t say any of that. I didn’t tell him.

Mom finished her coffee. “It’s off to work I go,” she said cheerily. She paused as she got up from the table to smooth down a tuft of Ty’s hair that was sticking up in back. “Have a good day, my beautiful children.”

I probably rolled my eyes. Ty and I finished eating, and I left him to wash the dishes. Because it was his turn. I was nearly out the front door when I stopped to call out something like, “Hey, you better get with it or you’ll miss the bus.”

Ty appeared in the doorway. “I’ve got a ride with one of my buddies,” he said.

A lie.

I didn’t know that it was a lie. So I said whatever it was that I said, and I left the house.

That was the last time I saw him alive.

The last time.

But in the past few months I’ve found a way to reconstruct the rest of December 20. I can put the pieces together. I can figure out what happened from there.

First, Ty finished the dishes and ran the dishwasher. Because it was his turn.

Then he waited for the school to call the house to inquire about his absence. He told the secretary that he was home sick, the stomach flu, he said, couldn’t keep anything down, he said, and that Mom forgot to phone it in but he’d get her to call from work later.

Then he walked 7 miles in the ice and snow to the nearest city bus stop.

He rode a bus into Lincoln and disembarked at the Westfield Gateway Mall.

This, according to a wad of receipts I found in his back jeans pocket in his clothes hamper, was what his next few hours looked like:

11:17 a.m. Foot Locker, Nike LeBron XI basketball shoes, $199.99

11:33 a.m. Lids, Trailblazers T-shirt, $24.00

11:49 a.m. Sunglass Hut, Ray-Ban polarized sunglasses, $149.95

12:14 p.m. Panda Express. Shanghai Angus Steak bowl, $7.95

12:36 p.m. MasterCuts, shampoo and cut, $25.00

1:02 p.m. American Eagle, Slim Straight jean, dark tinted indigo, $49.95

1:25 p.m. Precision Time, Toxic Area 51 men’s watch, $189.00

2:18 p.m. J.C. Penney

Hanes 4-pack boxer shorts, $40.00

Gold Toe 3-pack crew socks, $17.00

Levi’s reversible belt, $30.00

Dockers trifold wallet, $28.00

Dockers faux-leather black bomber jacket, $140.00

Brighton collage picture frame $60.00

All total, he spent $960.84, which we discovered later he stole from a jar that Mom had hidden in the back of her closet for emergencies. Almost exactly a thousand dollars, once you include the sales tax.

He could have almost bought a car for that.

Then he rode the bus back and walked the 7 miles so he could arrive home around 3:40 p.m., just in time to pick up the phone when Mom called to check on him, which she always did when he got home from school. He told her he had a good day.

Then, as far as I can figure, he spent the next 2 hours putting together the pictures in the collage out in the playhouse.

At 6:07 p.m., he ordered a pizza: Canadian bacon with pineapple, his favorite.

If it took the normal amount of time to be delivered, the pizza would have arrived by 6:45.

He ate three pieces, then wrapped the rest and stuck it in the fridge to save for Mom and me.

He put his plate in the dishwasher.

He spent some time doing regular stuff on the internet. He clicked on 3 fairly random links.

He set his new clothes—basketball shoes, socks, underwear, jeans, belt, wallet, Trailblazers T-shirt, bomber jacket, sunglasses—in a neat pile on top of his bed, for him to be buried in, we could only assume.

He made 2 phone calls, both to numbers that I don’t know and I haven’t had the guts to call to find out.