Page 50 of What We Burn

“Milo.” Sage leans between the front seats, her hand on his shoulder. “Baby. The garden plots.”

“What about them?”

“They’re six feet long.”

“Mom likes symmetry.”

“They’re shaped like coffins, Milo.”

Silence. Milo’s jaw works.

“They’re commemorative gardens,” he says. “I told you. She plants their favorite flowers. It’s sweet.”

“It’s sweet if the men moved away,” I say. “It’s a crime scene if they’re buried under the soil.”

Milo rolls his eyes. “Of course they moved away. Craig’s in Nevada. Pete moved to Florida. Hank runs the meat works—Micah and Sage met him! He was never a full dad, though. So he doesn’t have a garden.” He pauses. Knits his brow. “Rodrigo probably went back to his family in Tucson. Mom just likes to mark the chapter, you know? Closure.”

“With a six-foot rectangular plot? And a fucking cross?” Knox asks.

“It’s a plant stake. Not a cross! God!”

Micah rubs a hand over his face. “Milo, think about this for a second. Your mother—who, by your own admission, stalked a man into a psychiatric facility for cheating on her—has a backyard full of grave-sized flower beds dedicated to every man who’s ever left her. And you don’t find that . . . notable?”

“She’s an avid gardener.”

“And what about your father?” I ask. “The way she reacted when Sage asked?”

His face clouds over. “We don’t talk about my father.”

“Why?”

I let the silence play out, see how long Milo can disassociate before he cracks.

It lasts all of three traffic lights before Milo, who has never met a conversational cliff he didn’t swan-dive off, mutters, “We just don’t.”

That’s not good enough. Not for me, not for the million questions humming between the dash and the windshield, not for the way Sage’s hand creeps tighter on my shoulder.

“You don’t talk about your father,” I repeat, and lean in, because if he thinks I’m letting this ride he knows nothing about me. “Why not? Because he’s under the lavender in your mom’s backyard?”

He doesn’t laugh. He doesn’t look at me. He’s white in the knuckles and gray in the face, and his mouth goes flat.

I want to claw my question back but I don’t. Milo’s not made for pity, and he’d rather I roast him than offer a soft landing.

“We don’t talk about my dad,” he says again, quieter, through his teeth. He sounds like a computer error message stuck on a loop. “Ever.”

I believe him. There’s no backstory coming. No TED Talk, no joke, just a solid wall with no door in. But I do see him check his rearview before he adds, “But if you ever want to know where to get human-grade shock collars, I can help.”

The car goes quiet.

“Okay,” Sage says, letting out a heavy breath. She sits back. Crosses her arms. “So now everything about you makes sense.”

Milo grins. “I don’t know what you mean.”

She scrubs a hand over her face. “Why don’t we change the subject? Tell us about your sister.”

“She’s super weird,” he says, pulling his head back slightly. “My brother is even weirder.”

“You have a brother?” Micah asks.