*

Then she stands there and howls, with an echo that will never fall silent in her heart.

*

At lunchtime Kevin’s mom takes the garbage out. All the houses are silent, all the doors closed. No one invites her in for coffee. The lawyer has sent her an email today, two sentences and six words that say her boy is innocent.

But the street is silent. Because it knows the truth. Just like she does. And she has never felt more alone.

*

The voice comes gently, the hand is placed on her shoulder with emphatic empathy.

“Come and have some coffee,” Maggan Lyt says.

When Kevin’s mom is sitting in the kitchen of her neighbor’s house, cozy and homey with family photographs hanging slightly askew on the walls without anyone seeming to care, Maggan says to her: “Kevin’s innocent. This sanctimonious town may think it can pass its own laws and mete out its own justice, but Kevin is innocent. The police have said so now, haven’t they? You and I know he’d never do what they accused him of. Never! Not our Kevin! This damn town . . . hypocrites and morality police. We’re going to take over the club in Hed, your husband and my husband and the other sponsors, the boys on the team, and we’ll crush Beartown Ice Hockey. Because when this town tries to oppress us, we stick together. Don’t we?”

Kevin’s mom nods in agreement. Drinks coffee. Thinks the same thought over and over again: “You’re nothing in this world if you’re alone.”

*

That afternoon, Benji is on his way to Hed again. He’s almost reached the bass player’s rehearsal room in Hed when he receives a text. He holds his phone in his hand until the screen is damp with sweat. He asks Katia to turn the car around. She wants to ask why but can see from the way he looks that there’s no point. He gets out in the middle of the forest, takes his crutches, and walks straight into it. No one ever sees the text; no one would have understood it anyway. It says simply: “Island?”

The bass player is sitting on a stool in a rehearsal room. He’s not playing anything. Just holding a pair of skates in his hands, waiting for hours for someone who never shows up.

*

It won’t be summer for another couple of months, but the water in the lake has started to stir in its winter sleep, and the ice above it is slowly yielding to a few more cracks each day. If you stand on the shore, it’s all still a peaceful scene in a hundred shades of white, but here and there are tiny promises of green. A new season will come, followed by a new year, life will go on and people will forget. Sometimes because they can’t remember, and sometimes because they don’t want to.

Kevin is sitting on a rock looking out at his and Benji’s island, the place that used to be a secret, and which as a result was the only place where they never had any secrets from each other. Kevin has lost his club, but he hasn’t lost his team. He can see his future. He will spend a year playing for Hed Ice Hockey, then he’ll accept an offer from one of the big teams, and then go over to North America. He’ll be drafted by the NHL, the professional teams will dismiss the police investigation as “off-ice problems.” They’ll ask a question or two about it, but they know how it is, of course. There are always girls who want attention; you have to let the courts and the police deal with things like this, they’ve nothing to do with sports. Kevin will get everything he’s ever wanted. There’s just one thing left.

*

Maya is waiting on the steps in front of the house when her mom comes home. Her mom is still clutching the note her colleague gave her, crumpled into a ball, like a loaded grenade. She and the girl rest their foreheads together. Say nothing, because they couldn’t have heard anything anyway, the echo of the screams in their hearts is deafening.

*

Benji walks all the way through the forest, in the snow, on his broken foot. He knows that’s exactly what Kevin wants. He wants proof that Benji is still his, that he’s still loyal, that everything can go back to the way it was. When Benji emerges and stares at his best friend, they both know that it can. Kevin laughs and hugs him.

*

The mother holds her hands to the girl’s cheeks. They wipe each other’s eyes.

“There are still things we can do, we can ask for fresh interviews, I’ve been in touch with a lawyer who specializes in sexual offenses, we can fly him in, we can . . . ,” Kira babbles, but Maya gently hushes her.

“Mom, we have to stop. You have to stop. We can’t win this.”

Kira’s voice is trembling:

“I’m not going to let the bastards win, I’m not . . .”

“We have to live, Mom. Please. Don’t let him take my family as well, don’t let him take all our lives. I’m never going to be okay, Mom, this is never going to be properly okay again, I’m never going to stop being afraid of the dark, ever again . . . but we have to start trying. I don’t want to live in a permanent state of war.”

“I don’t want you to think that I . . . that we can’t . . . that I’m letting them get away . . . I’m a LAWYER, Maya, this is what I DO! It’s my job to protect you! It’s my job to avenge you, it’s my job . . . it’s my damn job . . .”

Maya’s breathing is ragged, but her hands are still as they touch her mom’s temples: “No one could have a better mom than you. No one.”

“We can move, darling. We can . . .”

“No.”

“Why not?” her mom cries.

“Because this is my fucking town too,” the girl replies.

*

Maya goes into the bathroom and looks at herself in the mirror. Astonished at how strong she has learned to pretend to be. At the number of secrets she can hold these days. From Ana, from her mom, from everyone. Anguish and terror are roaring through her head, but she becomes calm and cool when she thinks about her secret: “One bullet. I only need one.”

*

Peter comes home and sits down at the kitchen table next to Kira. They don’t know if they will ever stop feeling ashamed that they were forced to give up. How can anyone lose like this without dying? How does anyone go to bed at night, how do they get up in the morning?

Maya comes in, stands behind her dad, wraps her arms around his neck. He is fighting back tears. “I let you down. As your dad . . . the manager of the club . . . I let you down, just like every . . .”

His daughter’s arms hold him tighter. When she was little they used to tell each other secrets instead of bedtime stories. Her dad might confess in a whisper, “I ate the last cookie,” and his daughter might reply, “It was me who hid the remote.” It went on for years. Now she leans over and says into his ear: “Want to know a secret, Dad?”

“Yes, Pumpkin.”

“I love hockey too.”

Tears roll down his cheeks as he admits:

“Me too, Pumpkin. Me too.”

“Will you do something for me, Dad?”

“Anything.”