“I did,” he said. “But it wasn’t worse than what I didn’t do, which was stop ’em from happening.”

Billy raised a hand, as if they were all in class, and he were asking permission to speak.

“Are you sorry?” he said.

“Sorry for who I was,” he said. “But it’s a funny thing: I’m who I am now because of who I was.”

There was a ball on the floor right in front of him. Gramps leaned down, groaning just a little as he did, picked it up, and rolled it around in his hands. Lucas thought there might even have been just a hint of a smile on his lips as he did.

“I’m sure you’ve got more questions than the ones you’ve asked,” he said. “But this is probably the last time we’re going to be together for a while. And just because there’re no guarantees in this world, it might be the last time we might ever be together.”

Is he going to quit? Lucas thought.

He told me he didn’t quit.

“My grandson Lucas here,” he said, “he told me I’d been dishonest with him when he found out who I was, and what I’d done back there in college. And I suppose there’s something to that.”

He stopped talking then, and spun the ball on the index finger of his right hand.

“But since I made the terrible mistakes I made, I believe I’ve led an honest life,” he said. “And I know I’ve been honest with you boys about what I believe makes you the best players you can be, and maybe even the best people.”

He looked at them all now, one face at a time.

“So while I will apologize to all of you for what I did,” he said, “I won’t ever apologize for who I am.”

He looked at their faces, one after another, all over again.

“I just want you all to know how proud I’ve been to be your coach,” Gramps said.

He nodded. Lucas didn’t say anything. Neither did any of the other Claremont Wolves.

“Now let’s play some basketball,” he said.

They did. When they were finished, after what Lucas thought might have been the best practice game of the whole season, Gramps did drive him home. When they were in front of the house, he told him he was going away for a little bit, and didn’t know when he’d be back.

“Where are you going?” Lucas said.

“It’s like everything else, son,” he said. “If I wanted you to know, I’d tell you.”

Then he turned in the front seat and put his hand on Lucas’s shoulder and said, “Merry Christmas,” and smiled one more time.

Just not his Santa Claus smile.

THIRTY-ONE

Gramps was not back for Christmas.