The Nobodies Album by Carolyn Parkhurst Page A

supermarket. “So you and Milo … dated?” I know I’ve never seen a picture of them together, and I’ve been quite vigilant about following any gossip about Milo. How is it possible that none of this has ever been public?
    “No, not really,” she says. “I was living in Italy, and one of my American friends there was a friend of Milo’s, so when Pareidolia came to Rome, a bunch of us went to the concert, and that’s how we met. It was just a brief thing. He was already with Bettina.”
    I nod as if I’m absorbing all this, but I’m not really getting it. It’s too much information, and yet not enough. I mean, yes, I understand: they slept together, they conceived a child. That’s not the part I mean to dwell on. It’s the story I want, the narrative of how this child and this configuration of lives came to be: the scenes played out, the words spoken, the rooms walked through on the way to other rooms. There are so many gaps in my knowledge of Milo’s life, and they’re too big to be filled in with the skeletal details of who introduced whom.
    And the fact about Bettina. I suppose I’d rather not have known it. It makes me unexpectedly angry at Milo, and my feelings about Milo are complicated enough right now.
    “And when you found out you were pregnant …?” I ask.
    “Yeah, I got in touch with Milo and told him. I let him know I was perfectly happy to just raise the kid on my own, but that he could be involved to whatever degree he wanted.”
    “And what was his reaction?” Were “Don’t tell my mom” the first words out of his mouth, or did that come later?
    “Um, kind of distant. He said he’d help support the baby and all that, but he didn’t really want to play a parental role in her life.”
    I shake my head. My stomach is filled with stones. I keep waiting to hear something good about Milo, some bright strand to add to the tangled nest. But it’s not here.
    Chloe’s watching me. “Yeah, I know. Way to step up to the plate, right?” She sounds slightly aggrieved, but then she shrugs. “But, you know, it hasn’t been terrible.”
    I nod. I feel tired, and old. “And when did you and Joe start dating?” I ask finally.
    “Well, I moved back here while I was still pregnant—I grew up around here, my parents are on the peninsula.” I don’t really know what that refers to, but I nod. “Milo came to see the baby a few times when she was little, and one time he brought Joe with him. We started seeing each other when Lia was four or five months old, and we moved in together when she was maybe one and a half. As far as she’s concerned, he’s Daddy.”
    “And so ‘Uncle Milo’ was born,” I say.
    “Yup. It’s just kind of the way it’s worked out.”
    So casual. I like Chloe, but her attitude about all this is a bit cavalier for me. And the moment this half-negative thought enters my mind, I’m aware, in a cold rush, of the power this woman holds. She’s the mother of my granddaughter. And I’m nothing more than Uncle Milo’s mommy.
    “I’m glad you came,” Chloe says, smiling at me. “I’d like Lia to know someday that she has a famous grandma.”
    “Oh,” I say, embarrassed. “Well, I don’t know about that. Less famous than her father, certainly. Either of her fathers.”
    Chloe stands up, rolls her head to stretch the muscles in her neck. “Tricky situation,” she says. “Wrong kind of famous, after this week.” She picks up my water glass from the table and carries it to the sink, then turns back to me. “You want to go visit your son?”
    Warmth and fear, hope and panic. “Okay,” I say.
    I get up from the couch and gather my jacket and purse. Something occurs to me. “I understand you’re the one I have to thank for the sugar bowl,” I say.
    “Oh, yeah,” she says, brightening. “Joe told me the story once, and it became kind of a thing for me, you know? Like, how is it possible in this day and age that I can’t locate a simple piece of china? I