The Nobodies Album by Carolyn Parkhurst

writing.”
    “Yes,” I say. Pleasant conversation feels creaky to me after all the time I’ve spent alone lately. “Well, sort of. I didn’t really start writing seriously until my kids … until Milo was a little older.”
    Noises from the stairs as the little girl and her nanny come down. The nanny has an accent—Caribbean, maybe?—and I hear her say, “Hold hands now. Go slow.”
    Lia and Jilly reach the bottom of the stairs, and Lia runs into the kitchen. “Mommy,” she yells, throwing her arms around Chloe’s knees. She has dark hair, like Chloe’s, but with some curl to it. She’s wearing a purple dress and a headband with cat ears. Chloe picks her up and sits with her in a yellow armchair. Jilly, a tall black woman, younger than I would have guessed from her voice, says hello, then walks to the other end of the room and opens a cupboard.
    “Hi, sweetie,” Chloe says, kissing the child’s forehead. “I want you to meet someone. This is Octavia. She’s Uncle Milo’s mommy.”
    Lia hides her face in her mother’s neck.
    I give it a try. “Are you a kitty?” I ask. My voice sounds skeptical, though I don’t mean it to.
    Lia nods. “I’m a baby kitty,” she says, her voice muffled. She pulls back and puts a hand on her mother’s face. “This is my mommy kitty.”
    “I like kitties,” I say.
    Lia turns her face to me shyly, pushing the side of her head into her mother’s chest. Big, searching eyes; an expression like she’s waiting for something. She juts out her top lip, then her lower one. She hasn’t yet decided if she’s going to smile.
    Something happens to me. Somehow I’m still here, holding a glass of water, sitting on a sofa, but I feel like I’m falling, and suddenly I understand why I’ve been asked to come. That pursed mouth; those fathomless eyes. She looks like my own children when they were little. She looks like Milo.
    I stare at her for what must be a very long time. I’m unable to speak. My eyes ache, as if my dry old body is unable to find enough liquid to make tears. Lia watches me back, and finally the corners of her mouth turn upward.
    “Meow,” she says.
    •  •  •
    Later, after I’ve regained the power of speech and Chloe has put enough plates on the table for all of us, I sit and watch my grandchild eat. She uses her fingers, picking up cubes of cooked chicken, spirals of plain pasta, slices of pear. Chloe has found something more adult for us to have, leftover pumpkin risotto, but I love the simplicity of Lia’s meal. I love the care she takes in lifting each piece of food to her mouth, the way her steady ribbon of chatter gives way to silence while she focuses on the task at hand.
    It’s not until the plates have been cleared and Jilly has carried Lia upstairs that I’m able to talk to Chloe and confirm that I’m not deluding myself. I sit again on the green couch, and Chloe sits across from me in the yellow armchair. She stares at me, and I stare at her.
    “Her father?” I say finally.
    She nods. “It’s Milo.” I look for something in her expression: Anger? Rejection? But her face is blank.
    “Does he know?” I ask. A stupid question, I suppose. She wouldn’t tell me if she hadn’t told him. But to think of everything that’s been here all this time—this room, this child, this potential for joy—and to know he chose not to tell me … it’s very painful.
    “He knows. And Joe knows.”
    Yes. I suppose that would have been my next question.
    “I’m sorry I didn’t get in touch with you sooner,” she says. “Milo was really against it, and I figured I should respect his wishes, at least about his own family. So I promised him I wouldn’t track you down all the way across the country. But I said that if I ever found myself face-to-face with you, I wouldn’t lie.” She smiles. “So. Here we are.”
    I smile weakly. I don’t mention that she called me and invited me to come. It’s not like we ran into each other at the