The Sweetness of Forgetting (106)

Jacob draws a shuddering breath. “No, my love. We are in Cape Cod.”

Mamie looks confused for a moment, and then her cloudy eyes scan the room, alighting first on me, then on Annie and Gavin, and finally on her brother. “Alain?” she whispers.

“Yes,” he says simply. “Yes, Rose. It is me.”

She looks back to Jacob in stunned disbelief. “Alain . . . alive? You, Jacob . . . you are alive?” she whispers to him.

“Yes, my love,” Jacob says. “You saved me.”

Mamie’s eyes fill and tears begin to run down her face in rivers. “I did not . . . I did not save you,” she whispers. “How can you say . . . ?” She pauses, drawing a shuddering breath. “I asked you . . . to go back. It is . . . my fault.”

“No,” Jacob says. “None of it was your fault, dear Rose. I lived because I always believed I would see you again. It is you, for seventy years now, who has kept me alive. I have never stopped looking for you.”

She continues to stare at him.

“Someone should go get the doctor,” Gavin whispers beside me.

“Uh-huh,” I reply vaguely. But none of us make a move to go.

After a moment, Mamie turns her head slightly until she focuses on me. “Hope?”

“Yes, Mamie,” I say, taking a step forward.

“Why . . . you crying?” she asks haltingly.

“Because . . .” I find I cannot explain myself. “Because I’ve missed you so much,” I conclude, realizing in that moment how true the words are.

She looks back at Jacob. “How . . . ?” she asks.

He nods, understanding her. “Hope found me,” he says. “Hope and Annie and their friend Gavin.”

“Gavin?” she asks. She looks over at us again with some effort, and she scans Gavin’s face in confusion. “Who Gavin? You?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Gavin replies. “We’ve met a few times. I’m a handyman in the area. I’m . . . I’m friends with your granddaughter.”

“Yes,” Mamie murmurs. “Yes, I know now.” She closes her eyes for a moment, and when she opens them again, she stares at Jacob for a long time before looking back at me.

“How . . . how you find my Jacob?” she whispers.

“It was the list you gave me,” I say. “The one that sent me to Paris.”

She looks confused, and I realize she doesn’t know what I’m talking about. In the drama of the moment, I’d almost forgotten about her Alzheimer’s.

“But it was the fairy tales,” I add as she stares at me. “It was your fairy tales that finally led us to him. I didn’t know they were real.”

“They are real,” Mamie murmurs. But she’s looking at Gavin as she says it. “Of course. Always real.”

Her eyes shift to Alain and fill with tears again. “Alain?” she says softly.

“How do you recognize me after all these years?” he asks.

“You . . . my brother,” she says clearly. The tempo of her speech is picking up a little; it’s as if the words are coming back as she wakes up. “I would know you . . . anywhere.”

“I’m sorry I did not find you sooner,” he says. “I did not know . . . I did not know you were alive. All those years wasted.”

Mamie closes her eyes briefly. She’s crying again. “I believed . . . you dead,” she says. “In Auschwitz. That place. I imagined . . . many million times.”

“I believed you were dead too,” Alain murmurs.

Mamie turns her gaze to Annie next. “Leona?” she asks.

Annie’s shoulders slump, and my heart breaks a little for her; I know it hurts her when her grandmother doesn’t recognize her.

“No, Mamie,” Annie says. “Who’s Leona?”

But this time, it’s Jacob who answers. “Leona was my little sister.” He’s looking intently at Annie now. “My God, Annie, you look so much like her.”

Annie looks back at Mamie, her eyes wide. “You’ve been calling me Leona for months,” she says. “That’s who you meant?”

Mamie looks confused.

Annie turns to Jacob. “What happened to Leona?”

Jacob glances at me, and I nod slightly. Annie’s old enough to know. “She died, my dear,” he says. “At Auschwitz. I believe she did not suffer very much, Annie. I believe that she went peacefully.”

Annie’s eyes fill. “I’m sorry,” she murmurs to Jacob. “I’m really sorry about your sister.”

He smiles at her gently. “I can see her in you,” he says. “And that makes me glad.” He turns back to Mamie and bends toward her again. “Rose, Leona died many years ago. But this young lady here is Annie. Your great-granddaughter.” He pauses and says, “Our great-granddaughter.”

Annie looks at me sharply, and I realize that I haven’t told her yet. I haven’t told her that Jacob married Mamie long ago and was the real father to my mother. I reach over and squeeze my daughter’s hand. “I’ll explain everything later,” I whisper. She looks confused, and a little alarmed, but she nods.

Mamie is studying Annie now. “Annie,” she says finally. I can see recognition dawning in her eyes. “The youngest.”