The Sweetness of Forgetting
Kristin Harmel
To Grandma and Grandpa from Weymouth
“God hath made of one blood all nations of men.”
—ACTS 17:26
“One man’s candle is light for many.”
—TRACTATE SHABBAT, ORDER MOED OF THE TALMUD
“All God’s creatures are His family and he is the most beloved of God who doeth most good to God’s creatures.”
—THE PROPHET MUHAMMAD
The Sweetness
of
Forgetting
Chapter One
The street outside the bakery window is silent and still, and in the half hour just before sunrise, as dawn’s narrow fingers are just reaching over the horizon, I can almost believe I’m the only person on earth. It’s September, a week and a half after Labor Day, which in the little towns up and down Cape Cod means that the tourists have gone home, the Bostonians have boarded up their summer houses for the season, and the streets have taken on the deserted air of a restless dream.
The leaves outside have begun to change, and in a few weeks, I know they’ll mirror the muted hues of sunset, although most people don’t think to look here for fall foliage. The leaf peepers will head to Vermont, to New Hampshire, or to the Berkshires in the western part of our state, where the oaks and maples will paint the world in fiery red and burnt orange. But in the stillness of the off-season on the Cape, the swaying beach grass will turn golden as the days grow shorter; the birds migrating south from Canada will come to rest in great flocks; the marshes will fade into watercolor brushstrokes. And I will watch, as I always watch, from the window of the North Star Bakery.
I can’t remember a time when this place, my family’s business, didn’t feel more like home to me than the little yellow cottage by the bay that I was raised in, the home I’ve now had to move back into after the finalization of my divorce.
Divorce. The word rings in my ears, over and over, making me feel like a failure once again as I try to conduct the balancing act of simultaneously opening the oven door with one foot, juggling two industrial-sized trays of miniature cinnamon pies, and keeping an eye on the front of the bakery. It occurs to me yet again as I slide the pies in, pull out a tray of croissants, and push the door shut with my hip that trying to have it all means only that your hands are always full. In this case, literally.
I’d wanted so much to stay married, for Annie’s sake. I didn’t want my daughter growing up in a home where she had to feel confused about her parents, like I had when I was a kid. I wanted more for her. But life never works out the way you plan, does it?
The front door chimes just as I’m lifting the flaky, buttery croissants from the baking sheet. I glance at the timer on the secondary oven; the vanilla cupcakes need to come out in just under sixty seconds, which will delay me in getting out to the front of the store.
“Hope?” a deep voice calls out from up front. “You back there?”
I sigh in relief. A customer I know, at least. Not that I don’t know almost everyone who remains in town after the tourists have gone home.
“Be out in a minute, Matt!” I shout.
I pull on my oven mitts, the bright blue ones with cupcakes embroidered on the edges that Annie bought me for my thirty-fifth birthday last year, and pull the vanilla cakes out of the oven. I breathe in deeply, the sugary scent taking me back to my own childhood for a moment. My mamie—French for “grandma”—founded the North Star Bakery sixty years ago, a few years after she moved to Cape Cod with my grandfather. I grew up here, learning to bake at her knee as she patiently explained how to make dough, why breads rise, and how to turn both traditional and unexpected ingredient combinations into confections that the Boston Globe and the Cape Cod Times rave about every year.
I put the cupcakes on the cooling rack and slide two trays of anise and fennel cookies into the oven in their place. Beneath them, on the bottom rack, I slide in a batch of crescent moons: almond paste flavored with orange flower water, sprinkled with cinnamon, enclosed in a pastry shell, and shaped into gently curved slivers.
I close the oven door and brush the flour off my hands. Taking a deep breath, I set the digital timer and walk out of the kitchen into the brightly lit front room of the bakery. No matter how overwhelmed I am, it still makes me smile to come through the doors; Annie and I painted the bakery last fall, when business was slow, and she chose princess pink with white piping. Sometimes it feels like we’re living inside a giant cupcake.
Matt Hines is sitting in a chair facing the counter, and when he sees me, he jumps up and smiles.
“Hey, Hope,” he says.
I smile back. Matt was my high school boyfriend, half a lifetime ago. We broke up before heading off to separate colleges; I came back several years later with a bachelor’s degree, the useless half of a law school education, a new husband, and a baby daughter, and Matt and I have been friendly ever since. He’s asked me out several times since my divorce, but I’ve realized, almost with surprise, that we’ve outgrown each other. He’s like a favorite old sweater that no longer fits or flatters. Life changes you, even if you don’t realize it while it’s happening, and it turns out you can’t take back the years that have passed by. Matt doesn’t seem to realize that, though.