I let her.
Down the table, Lashes has Hope on her shoulder, patting her back. She catches my eye once and looks away.
At the second table, Finn hasn't touched his plate.
He knows exactly where I am.
He's known since I came through the door.
He hasn't turned around one time, and his shoulders are up around his ears.
There's a man on either side of him, and neither one of them has said a word to him in half an hour.
They're not cruel about it. That's what I can't stand.
They just eat.
I get up.
The room drops a level again, and I walk past his table and I don't stop.
"Finn."
His head comes up.
"Let’s chat outside," I say, motioning toward the back door.
We both head out the back, and I sit on the cold stone. He stands.
Behind us, the noise of the club comes through the wall.
In front of us, there's a black desert and a fence somewhere out in it, and past that, the mountains I can't see anymore because the sun's gone.
I've got my backpack.
I brought it out, and I don't remember picking it up, and it's on my knees now with both my hands on it, and Finn's looking at it the way you'd look at a snake in a boot.
"Mila—"
"Sit down."
He sits.
The zipper catches at the third tooth. I work it sideways.
"I've got something to tell you," I say. "I need you not to talk while I do it. Can you do that?"
"Yes."
"You're going to want to."
"I won't."
I get the zipper.
There's a manila envelope in there. It's gone soft at the corners from months of being carried, and I take it out and hold it in my lap and look at the beer can.
"My mother died in her kitchen," I say.
