The Sweetness of Forgetting (8 page)

“Oh my.” Mrs. Sullivan fans herself with her newspaper. “I used to scribble his name and mine in a notebook every day during our senior year of high school.”

“He was older than us,” Mrs. Koontz says.

“By four years,” Mrs. Sullivan agrees. “He was off at college—Harvard, you know—but he’d come home every few weeks to visit. He had a car, a nice one, which was a big deal out here in those days. And the girls would just swoon.”

“He was so kind,” Mrs. Koontz agrees. “And like so many others, he joined the army the day after Pearl Harbor.”

The women pause in tandem and look down at their hands. I know they’re thinking about other young men they’d lost, so long ago. Annie shifts in her seat and asks, “So then what happened? He met my great-grandma in the war, right?”

“In Spain, I believe,” Mrs. Koontz says, looking to Mrs. Sullivan for confirmation. “He was shot down somewhere in northern France or Belgium, I think. I never heard the whole story; everyone here spent months believing he was missing in action. I was sure he was dead. But he somehow escaped to Spain, and your great-grandmother was there too.”

Annie nods solemnly, like she knows this story by heart, although my grandfather died twelve years before she was born.

“She’s French of course, your great-grandmother Rose. But the way I understand it, her parents died when she was young, and she wanted to leave France because the country was at war, right?” Mrs. Sullivan picks up the thread of the story, glancing at Mrs. Koontz.

Mrs. Koontz nods. “We never found out exactly how they met, but yes, I think Rose was living in Spain. But it was, what, 1944 when we heard he was back in America, and he’d married a girl from France?”

“Late 1943,” Mrs. Sullivan corrects. “I remember it exactly. It was my twentieth birthday.”

“Oh yes, of course. You cried into your birthday cake.” Mrs.
Koontz winks at Annie. “She had a silly schoolgirl crush on your great-grandfather. But your great-grandmother stole him away.”

Mrs. Sullivan makes a face. “She was two years younger than us, and she had that exotic French accent. Boys are very easily swayed by accents, you know.”

Annie nods again, solemnly, as if this is something she knows instinctively. I hide a smile as I pretend to concentrate on a particularly tough spot to wipe up. I’ve never heard my grandmother talk about how she and my grandfather met. She rarely talks about the past at all, so I’m interested to hear what the women know.

“Ted got some sort of job in New York, at a secondary school, after he received his doctoral degree,” Mrs. Koontz says. “And then he and your grandmother moved back to the Cape. That’s when he took the job at the Sea Oats.”

My grandfather, whose PhD was in education, had been the first headmaster of the Sea Oats School, a prestigious private school one town over. It used to serve grades K through twelve, but now it’s only a high school. It’s where Annie will go from ninth grade on, on a legacy scholarship.

“And, um, my grandma was there too?” Annie asks. “When Mamie and my great-grandpa moved here?”

“Yes, your grandmother Josephine must have been what, five years old? Six years old when they moved?” Mrs. Sullivan says. “They moved back to the Cape in 1950. I remember clearly, because it’s the year I got married.”

Mrs. Koontz nods. “Yes, Josephine started first grade when they moved here, if I remember right.”

“And Mamie founded the bakery then?” Annie asks.

“I think it was a few years later,” Mrs. Koontz says. “But your mother would probably know.” She calls to me. “Hope, dear?”

I pretend I haven’t been listening to their whole conversation. “What’s that?” I ask, looking up.

“Annie here was wondering when your grandmother founded the bakery.”

“In 1952,” I say. I glance at Annie, who’s staring at me. “Her parents had owned a bakery in France, I think.” I’ve never heard any more about Mamie’s past than this. She never talked about her life before she met my grandfather.

Annie ignores me and turns back to the two women. “But you don’t know anyone named Leona?” she asks.

“No,” Mrs. Sullivan says. “Maybe she was a friend of your great-grandmother’s from France.”

“She never really had any friends here,” Mrs. Koontz says. Then she shoots me a guilty look and amends hurriedly, “Of course, she’s very nice. She just kept to herself, that’s all.”

I nod, but I wonder whether that was all Mamie’s fault after all. She’s quiet and reserved, certainly, but it doesn’t seem as if Mrs. Koontz, Mrs. Sullivan, and the other women of the town exactly welcomed her with open arms. I feel a pang of sadness for her.

I look at my watch again. “Annie, you’d better get going. You’re going to be late for school.”

Her eyes narrow, and the brief glimpse of the old Annie is gone; she’s back to hating me.

“You’re not the boss of me,” she mutters.

“Actually, young lady,” Mrs. Koontz says, shooting me a look, “she is. She’s your mother, which makes her the boss of you until you turn eighteen, at the very least.”

“Whatever,” Annie says under her breath.

She gets up from the table and stomps into the kitchen. She emerges a moment later with her backpack.

“Thank you,” she says to Mrs. Koontz and Mrs. Sullivan on the way out the door. “I mean, thanks for telling me about my great-grandma.” She doesn’t even look at me as she strides through the front door, onto Main Street.

Gavin comes by as I’m closing to drop off the spare keys I’d given him two days earlier. He has on the same pair of jeans with the hole in the thigh, which seems to have gotten marginally bigger since I last saw him.

“Your pipe’s fixed,” he tells me as I pour him the last of the afternoon’s coffee. “Dishwasher’s running good as new.”

“I don’t even know how to thank you.”

Gavin smiles. “Sure you do. You know my weaknesses. Star Pie. Cinnamon strudel. Hours-old coffee.” He looks into his coffee cup and arches an eyebrow, but he takes a sip anyhow.

I laugh, despite my embarrassment. “I know I should be paying you in something other than baked goods, Gavin. I’m sorry.”

He looks up. “You have nothing to be sorry for,” he says. “You’re obviously underestimating my addiction to your baking.”

I give him a look, and he laughs. “Seriously, Hope, it’s fine. You’re doing your best.”

I sigh as I place the last of the day’s remaining almond rose tarts into a flat Tupperware container that I’ll store overnight in the freezer. “Turns out my best isn’t good enough,” I mutter. Matt had brought me a bunch of paperwork that morning, and I haven’t begun to read it yet, although I know I need to. I’m dreading it.

“You’re not giving yourself enough credit,” Gavin says. Before I can reply, he adds, “So Matt Hines has been around a lot.” He takes another sip of his coffee.

I look up from packing away the pastries. “It’s just business,” I tell him, although I’m not sure why I feel like I have to explain myself.

“Hmm,” is all Gavin replies.

“We dated in high school,” I add. Gavin grew up on the North Shore of Boston—he’d told me all about his high school in Peabody one afternoon on the porch—so I assume he doesn’t know about my past with Matt.

I’m surprised when he says, “I know. But that was a long time ago.”

I nod. “That was a long time ago,” I repeat.

“How’s Annie holding up?” Gavin changes the subject again. “With the stuff between you and your ex and everything?”

I look up at him. No one has asked me this recently, and I’m surprised by how much I appreciate it. “She’s okay,” I tell him. I pause and correct myself. “Actually, I don’t know why I said that. She’s not okay. She seems so angry lately, and I don’t know what to do about it. It’s like I know the real Annie’s in there somewhere, but right now, she just wants to hurt me.”

I don’t know why I’m confiding in him, but as Gavin nods slowly, there’s not a bit of judgment on his face, and for that I’m grateful. I begin to wipe down the counter with a wet rag.

“It’s rough when you’re that age,” he says. “I was just a few years older than her when my parents got a divorce. She’s just confused, Hope. She’ll come out of it.”

“You think so?” I ask in a small voice.

“I
know
so,” Gavin says. He stands and crosses to the counter, where he puts his hand on mine. I stop wiping and look up at him. “She’s a good kid, Hope. I saw that this summer with all that time I spent at your house.”

I can feel tears in my eyes, which embarrasses me. I blink them away. “Thanks.” I pause and pull my hand away.

“If there’s ever anything I can do . . .” Gavin says. Instead of completing the sentence, he looks at me so intensely that I look away, my face burning.

“You’re really nice to offer, Gavin,” I say. “But I’m sure you’ve got better things to do than worry about the old lady who runs the bakery.”

Gavin arches an eyebrow. “I don’t see any old ladies around here.”

“That’s nice of you to say,” I murmur. “But you’re young, you’re single . . .” I pause. “Wait, you’re single, right?”

“Last time I checked.”

I ignore the unexpected feeling of relief that sweeps through me. “Yeah, well, I’m thirty-six going on seventy-five; I’m divorced; I’m sinking financially; I’ve got a kid who hates me.” I pause and look down. “You’ve got better things to do than worry about me. Shouldn’t you be out doing something . . . I don’t know, something young, single people do?”

“Something young, single people do?” he repeats. “Like what, exactly?”

“I don’t know,” I say. I feel foolish. I haven’t felt young in ages. “Clubbing?” I venture in a small voice.

He bursts out laughing. “Yeah, I moved to the Cape because of the wild club scene. In fact, I’m just on my way back from a rave now.”

I smile, but my heart’s not in it. “I know I’m being dumb,” I say. “But you don’t have to worry about me. I have a lot on my plate. But I’ve always handled everything before. I’ll figure things out.”

“Letting someone in once in a while wouldn’t kill you, you know,” Gavin says softly.

I look at him sharply and open my mouth to respond, but he speaks first.

“Like I said the other day, you’re a good mom,” Gavin goes on. “You’ve got to stop doubting yourself.”

I look down. “It’s just that I seem to screw everything up,” I say. I feel the color rise to my cheeks and I mumble, “I don’t know why I’m telling you this.”

I hear Gavin take a deep breath, and a moment later, he has come around the counter and wrapped his arms around me. My heart thuds as I hug him back. I try not to notice how solid his chest is as he pulls me close, and instead focus on how nice it feels to be held. There’s no one left to comfort me this way anymore, and I hadn’t realized until this moment how much I’ve missed it.

“You don’t screw everything up, Hope,” Gavin murmurs into
my hair. “You’ve got to cut yourself a break. You’re the toughest person I know.” He pauses and adds, “I know things have been hard on you lately. But you never know what will happen tomorrow, or the next day. One day, one week, one month can change everything.”

I look up sharply and take a step away. “My mother used to say that. Those exact words.”

“Yeah?” Gavin asks.

“Yeah.”

“You never mention her,” he says.

“I know,” I murmur. The truth is, it hurts too much to think about her. I’d spent my childhood hoping that if I behaved a little better or thanked her a little more profusely, or did more chores around the house, she’d love me a little more. Instead, she seemed to drift farther and farther away with every passing year.

When she was diagnosed with breast cancer, and I came home to help her, the same cycle took over; I expected that she’d see how much I loved her as she lay dying, but instead, she continued to keep me at a distance. When she told me, on her deathbed, that she loved me, the words didn’t feel real; I want to believe that she felt that way, but I knew it was more likely that she was hazy and delusional in her final moments and thought she was talking to one of her countless boyfriends. “I was always a lot closer to my grandmother than to my mom,” I tell Gavin.

Gavin puts a hand on my shoulder. “I’m sorry you lost her, Hope,” he says. I’m not sure whether he means my mother or Mamie, because in a lot of ways, they’re both gone.

“Thanks,” I murmur.

As he leaves a few minutes later with a box of strudel, I stare after him, my heart thudding hard in my chest. I don’t know why he seems to believe in me when I don’t believe in myself anymore. But I can’t think about that now; I have to tackle the more pressing issue: the bank’s plans to foreclose. I rub my temples, plug in the electric tea kettle, and sit down at one of my café tables to read the paperwork Matt gave me.

Chapter
Five