Epilogue Milo
We watched them for a long time before either of us said a word.
The street was so quiet, I could hear the dog's nails click against the sidewalk and the distant sound of somebody's TV through a cracked window.
The afternoon was on its last legs. Sun burned out across the row of neat single-family houses, painting the whole neighborhood in that golden color people always wrote about in their poetry attempts.
The air smelled like dry grass and the Pacific, even though the ocean was a couple of hours away from this sleepy Northern California town.
Two boys played in the yard, their legs dirty with dust. One of them had a shock of hair so white it was almost blue in the sunlight. The other, smaller, was all elbows and knees. He had dark hair almost like mine. He was chasing the dog up and down the picket fence line.
We were parked two houses down, and I was unsure if I could do this today. I knew I had to, but my heart was an anxious mess.
Kimmy sat next to me in the passenger seat, arms folded, sunglasses perched on her nose. I wondered if she enjoyed our little stakeout game a lot more than I did.
Every few minutes, she'd reach out and touch my forearm and then pretend she hadn't.
She watched me more than the kids. She was subtle about it, but I caught her in the corner of my eye whenever I shifted my gaze.
"You'll break the steering wheel," she said.
I looked down. My knuckles were the color of milk.
I flexed my fingers, let them relax, then went back to the death grip.
"Don't be nervous," she whispered.
"I'm not nervous," I lied. "Just thinking."
She didn't buy it, but she let it go. "We don't have to do this today if you're not ready."
I watched the boys some more. They turned the garden hose on each other and were now soaking wet, shrieking with delight. The dog was losing its mind.
"If not today, then when?" I said.
She leaned back, let her head roll against the seat. "Next week. Next month. Whenever you feel like you're up for it. It's your sister, not an assignment." She looked at me over the top of her sunglasses.
She was right, of course.
I wanted to believe her. But the last few months had turned my head inside out. Every day since I left the Bureau, I expected to get the call. The call that said Just kidding, Seven. You're not free. We own you, and we always will.
But the phone never rang. Father kept his word, or maybe he wanted to see what I'd do when I thought nobody was watching.
So I monitored the Johnson house instead. The information had come to me after I'd left the Bureau. Viper had left it in my safety deposit box I'd rented for such things. Along with the folder, he'd also left a note that said
Have fun on vacation, boss. Don't miss me too much.
Before coming here, I'd run through a hundred possible approaches. None of them made sense.
At least to me.
But Kimmy had other ideas. I'd chosen to follow one of hers. Just be upfront with it.
Sure, I could do that.
I returned my attention to the front yard.
The older boy was trying to wrestle the garden hose away from the younger one, who'd wrapped it around his torso like a python. They collapsed into a heap, shrieking. The dog joined in, barking until both boys dissolved in laughter.
My chest went tight. I felt it in my hands and my throat. The sound of children's laughter did that to me, sometimes. It was like a foreign language I'd never been taught.
Kimmy reached over again, this time just resting her palm on my wrist. Her fingers were warm and nice and made me feel safer.
"If I don't do it today, I won't have the courage to do it later," I admitted.
"Do you want me to come with you?"
I pictured Kimmy standing next to me on the porch, introducing herself as my emotional support human. The thought made me want to laugh and puke at the same time.
"Yes," I said.
A silence fell between us. It was easy as sleep.
I sat back and watched the house some more.
The paint wasn't new, but the trim was clean.
The window boxes were overflowing with something yellow, maybe marigolds.
In the driveway, a red minivan with a cracked windshield sat under a sagging basketball hoop.
Two bikes leaned against the side of the garage.
This place wasn't anything like the place I'd grown up in.
This place was perfect.
My brain picked this exact moment to serve up the memory that has been slowly coming back to me in full over the course of the past few months.
I was six years old, sitting on the floor of my room, hands curled around an angel figurine. It was cheap ceramic, but I treasured it more than my own life. Priscilla had given it to me for my birthday. She said it would keep me safe at night, when the screaming started.
Only that night, the screaming was worse than usual. The house shook with it because my father threw my mother against the wall. I clamped my hands over my ears and squeezed the angel until its halo cut a crescent into my palm.
There was a crash. A door slammed open. Angry footsteps. The sound of glass breaking. I remember the smell of smoke. Remember my father yelling terrifying things about sending us all to hell because he didn't want to go all by himself.
The fire spread through the house too fast.
But she came for me first.
She looked impossibly tall in my memory.
The windows in the entire house were nailed shut because our father didn't want us to wander.
She broke the glass, cutting herself in the process.
Then she scooped me up and shoved me through the gap.
Her hands bled on the glass. I remembered it so clearly now—the curtains going up in flames and my sister diving after me through the frame of blaze. Her hair was on fire, so was her dress.
We ran, barefoot, into the street.
The house burned behind us, red and orange and black against the midnight sky. You could see the fire from the end of the block, from a mile away. You could see it in the eyes of every neighbor who watched us run.
Priscilla didn't cry. Not even when the ambulance came, or the police, or the next day when we sat in a waiting room with nothing but paper cups and a single pack of crackers.
She only cried when they told her we wouldn't be placed in the same group home.
She was too old.
I snapped back to the present when the front door opened.
A woman came out onto the porch and called to the boys.
"Dinnertime, rascals! Go wash up!"
I knew it was her. She wasn't as tall as I remembered.
I'd grown up too. Her hair was dark, and she wore it in a braid down her back.
She moved like a woman who'd never been afraid of anything in her life.
I recognized the set of her shoulders, the line of her jaw.
My jaw, too, though I'd never noticed it until just then.
She clapped her hands. "Come on, you two!"
The boys groaned, then dragged themselves and the dog inside.
She lingered on the step, scanning the street. Her eyes landed on our car, then slid away, then came back again.
I wondered if she saw me.
My hands started to shake. Kimmy noticed it. She squeezed both my hands with hers. "It's okay," she whispered. "Don't worry. It's okay, Milo."
She'd never said my name like that before with this much reverence. My real name, the one I'd barely gotten used to.
I looked over at her. She smiled, and this time I wasn't scared at all.
I drew a deep breath and opened the door.
Kimmy got out of the car too and took my hand.
Together we crossed the street and approached the house.
The woman with dark hair—Priscilla—was already at the fence gate.
As we got closer, I noticed the burn.
It crept up the left side of her neck and disappeared under the collar of her dress, the skin there a patchwork of slick, pink ridges. My own scars itched in sympathy and I stumbled.
Kimmy must've sensed it. She squeezed my hand harder, pulled me forward until we reached the gate.
"Hi there," Priscilla said, assessing us with her sharp gaze. She had a strong voice, a voice of someone who didn't mince words and said everything that was on her mind.
"Hi," I replied, forcing myself to sound normal.
"Can I help you?" she asked. "You've been parked on my block for over an hour."
For a moment, the script failed me. I swallowed, then started over. "Are you Priscilla Johnson?"
She glanced at Kimmy, then back at me. "Yeah. Who wants to know?"
I opened my mouth. Nothing came out.
Kimmy stepped in, her voice gentle but sharp enough to ward off the panic. "We're not selling anything, I promise. We just need a minute."
Priscilla stared. She had the kind of presence that dared you to lie just to catch you.
I felt my lungs grind against the inside of my ribs. I looked down at my shoes, at the blue nail polish on Kimmy's toes.
It's now or never.
Then I said it, "Milo."
The world stood still for a few seconds.
Priscilla's face cracked open. Not a smile—more like a structural failure, a flood of confusion and disbelief, and something raw underneath. Her mouth made a silent O.
"What?" she asked.
"I'm Milo," I repeated. "Milo Mercer. And you were Priscilla Mercer before you married."
"Oh my God," she whispered. Her hand went to her neck, covering the burn as if it could be hidden. She studied my face, studied my body, my posture, even Kimmy.
Nobody moved. We just let the silence spin out, let the pieces fall in slow motion.
"You're not…" she started. Then, "They told me you died."
"They lied," I said. "I was adopted." This was true. I'd been officially adopted by Father.
She stared, eyes huge and suddenly wet. For a long minute, she didn't do anything. Then she yanked the gate open and closed the gap between us, slamming into me so hard my teeth clicked together.
She hugged me like she wanted to put the bones back in my body.
I stood there, arms limp, every nerve in my skin ready to snap. The smell of her hair—clean and flowery buried itself in my brain. I remembered flashes of it, flashes of her voice in the dark, singing to me when the lights went out or when our parents argued.
I'd forgotten I could still cry. I'd cried once before—when I'd found out who I was.
My vision blurred and then doubled, and I squeezed my eyes shut until the world steadied. I didn't know how to hug a family member back yet, so I just let her hold me. My hands hovered, then landed awkwardly at her shoulders, and I felt the heat of her through the fabric.
Kimmy stood off to the side, watching. I looked at her. She smiled, but there was a shine in her eyes that said more than any words could. She let her arms hang loose, giving us space.
Priscilla finally stepped back, and when she did, her hands stayed on my face, mapping the years and the damage.
"You're alive," she said again, this time like a prayer.
I nodded. "I'm sorry I took so long to find you."
She laughed. It was wet and broken, but it was a laugh. "You're a dumbass, you know that?"
"Yeah," I said, and it almost felt normal.
Priscilla looked at Kimmy. "She your girlfriend?"
Kimmy stepped up, extending her hand. "Kimmy," she said. "I'm just here for moral support and to keep him from driving away."
Priscilla ignored her hand and pulled her into a hug too. Then she looked at my face like she was memorizing it, making sure it didn't go away again.
At that moment, my heart was full and happy.
And even though I'd been operating in the shadows of morality for so long, I had hope that somewhere down the line, I'd find a way to deserve all of this.
But for now, it was enough to know I wasn't alone.
THE END