there’s always the belief that this endcap or this clearance rack will hold the answer to something, that the next aisle over will have the solution to a problem I didn’t even know I had.
But Milo offered to come and I don’t want to discourage him from helping me. You know what they say: don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, even if that horse is your twin brother who basically abandoned you.
“Wave that thing somewhere else,” Milo says with a grimace. “If I wanted what you have, I’d go straight to the source and suck face with Mikey Danger myself.”
“Real mature,” I say, tossing some snack-size packages of Oreos into our cart.
“So . . . snacks, coloring books, colored pencils,” Milo says, looking through our cart. “Are we shopping for our dad or your secret toddler?”
The parallels between taking care of a relative with a degenerative disease and caring for a child have occurred to me before. There’s a lot of yelling, confusion, poor communication, defiance, and yes, snacks. But the thought sends me into a bad place where I start thinking about Dad’s mortality and my mortality and then it’s really hard to get my Target on, so I change the subject.
“Where’s Fred today?”
Milo always fights back a smile when he talks about Fred, like he’s afraid to share his unbridled joy with me. Frankly, it’s annoying.
“He’s doing a shoot for some discount chain store. I think he’s going to be wearing a lot of out-of-season track suits and, like, pulling the hoods off his head while staring at the camera like this.”
Milo stares toward the graham crackers with his lips pursed.
“I can see why Fred is the model in your relationship,” I say. “You’re terrible at smizing.”
“Great reference to a television show from like ten years ago,” Milo says, throwing a box of Chips Ahoy into the cart.
“Dad hates Chips Ahoy.”
“They’re for me. Duh,” Milo says. “Oh, can we stop by the frozen food aisle? I am in desperate need of pizza rolls.”
I turn to look at him. “Are you a teenage stoner?”
“Have you had pizza rolls lately? Teenage stoners are onto something. Anyway, Mikey ate an entire family-size bag the other night and I was like, ‘Um, answer me this: are you a family or are you one dude on a couch watching infomercials?’ and while he did not give me an answer, the point is I now have no pizza rolls.”
“He’s still into that infomercial, huh?”
“It’s entrancing. That knife can chop through anything. I’m thinking of getting one.”
I raise my eyebrows at him as I push the cart toward the frozen food aisle. “For all the cooking you do?”
Milo shakes his head. “Someday I’m gonna want to slice a tomato into paper-thin slices and I’m not going to have the knife to do it.”
He reaches into the case and pulls out the largest bag of pizza rolls I’ve ever seen. “Okay, what else?”
“Dad needs sweat pants.”
“And sweat pants he will get!” Milo says, thrusting a fist in the air as if he’s leading the charge. A wide-eyed baby in a shopping cart laughs at him, and Milo stops to examine him. “Well, aren’t you cute. How old?”
As he talks to the baby’s mother, cooing at the appropriate times (as if he knows anything about babies!), I’m reminded that this is Milo’s thing. He’s charming and friendly and strangers love him. Everyone is his friend and I’m sure in a month he’ll have scammed his way into a guest room in a nicer place, and then a few months later he’ll end up sharing one of the fanciest apartments in town. I’m not even sure if he knows he’s doing it, but Milo can give you one look and make you do whatever he asks. All these years later, it’s still incredibly annoying.
I inspect the individual frozen meals while he talks to the mom, and when he finally starts walking away he calls over his shoulder, “I’m serious about that sleep training book. It’s the best one out there!”
“What the hell do you know about sleep training?” I whisper as we walk toward the clothing department. “You don’t have a child. Do you even know anyone with a child?”
Mock-offended, Milo puts a hand on his chest. “Chloe. I know things.”
“Right,” I mutter. “Hey, when’s the last time you went to visit Dad?”
“Yesterday,” Milo says smugly. “Did you know his TV doesn’t work?”