The Sweetness of Forgetting (19)

“She’s been, like, asking me about school and stuff,” Annie continues. “It’s weird, but she knows exactly who I am and how old I am and everything.”

“Okay,” I say, already checking my rearview mirror to make sure it’s safe to do a U-turn. “I’m on my way.”

“She says she wants you to bring one of the miniature Star Pies from the bakery,” Annie adds.

Those have always been Mamie’s favorites; filled with a blend of poppy seeds, almonds, grapes, figs, prunes, and cinnamon sugar and topped with a buttery star-shaped lattice crust, they’re our signature item. “Okay,” I tell her, “I’ll be there as fast as I can.” And for the first time in a while, I feel a sliver of hope. I didn’t realize, until that moment, how very much I missed my grandmother.



“I would like to go to the beach,” is the first thing Mamie says to me when she answers her door fifteen minutes later.

For a moment, my heart sinks. It’s late September, and there’s a chill in the air. The memory cloud must be back, for it makes no sense for my eighty-six-year-old grandmother to suddenly want to go out and sunbathe. But then she smiles at me and pulls me into a hug. “I am sorry,” she says. “Where are my manners? It is nice to see you, Hope, dear.”

“You know who I am?” I ask hesitantly.

“Well, of course I do,” she says, looking insulted. “Do not tell me you think I am old and senile?”

“Er . . .” I stall for time. “Of course not, Mamie.”

She smiles. “Do not worry. I am not a fool. I know I am forgetful at times.” She pauses. “You brought me the Star Pie?” she asks, glancing at the white bakery bag in my hand. I nod and hand it to her. “Thank you, dear,” she says.

“Sure,” I say slowly.

She tilts her head to the side. “Today, Hope, everything feels clear. Annie and I have just been having a lovely talk.”

I glance at Annie, who’s perched on the edge of Mamie’s sofa, looking nervous. She nods in agreement.

“But now you want to go to the beach?” I ask Mamie hesitantly. “It’s, um, a little chilly for a swim.”

“I am not planning on a swim, of course,” she says. “I want to see the sunset.”

I look at my watch. “The sun doesn’t go down for almost two hours.”

“Then we will have plenty of time to get there,” she says.

Thirty minutes later, after Annie and I help Mamie to bundle up in a jacket, the three of us are headed for the beach at Paines Creek, which was my favorite place to watch the sun sink into the horizon when I was in high school. It’s a quiet beach on the western edge of Brewster, and if you walk carefully out on the rocks jutting out where the creek empties into Cape Cod Bay, you have a great view of the western sky.

We stop on the way, at Annie’s suggestion, to get lobster rolls and french fries at Joe’s Dockside, a tiny restaurant that’s been on the Cape even longer than our family bakery. People drive from miles away and wait in forty-five-minute lines during the summer for takeout lobster rolls, but fortunately, at five o’clock on a Thursday during the off-season, we’re the only ones here. Annie and I listen in disbelief as Mamie, who orders a grilled cheese—she has never liked lobster—tells us a completely lucid story about the first time she and my grandfather took my mother here, when my mother was a little girl, and Josephine asked why lobsters would be silly enough to swim up to Joe’s if they knew they might be made into sandwiches.

We get to the beach just as the edges of the sky are beginning to burn. The sun hangs low on the western horizon above the bay, and the wispy clouds in the sky promise a beautiful sunset. Arms linked, the three of us make our way slowly down the beach, Annie on Mamie’s left side, and me on her right with a folding chair tucked under my arm.

“You okay, Mamie?” Annie asks gently, once we’re about halfway down the beach. “We can stop and rest for a bit, if you want.”

My heart lurches as I glance at my daughter. She’s staring at Mamie with a look of concern and love so deep that I realize, suddenly, that whatever’s going on with her now is truly just a phase. This is the Annie I know and love. It means I haven’t screwed up entirely. It means my daughter is still the same decent person she’s always been underneath, even if she hates me for the time being.

“I am fine, dear,” Mamie replies. “I want to be up on the rocks by the time the sun goes down.”

“Why?” Annie asks softly after a pause.

Mamie is silent for so long that I begin to think she didn’t hear Annie’s question. But then, finally, she replies, “I want to remember this day, this sunset, this time with you girls. I know I do not have many days like this left.”

Annie glances at me in concern. “Sure you do, Mamie,” she says.

My grandmother squeezes my arm, and I smile gently at her. I know what she’s saying, and it breaks my heart that she’s aware of it.

She turns to Annie. “Thank you for your faith,” she says. “But sometimes, God has another plan.”

Annie looks wounded by the words. She looks away, staring off into the distance. I know that the truth is finally beginning to sink in for her, and it makes my heart hurt.

We finally reach the rocks, and I set up the chair I’d grabbed from the trunk of the car. I help Annie lower Mamie into it. “Sit with me, girls,” she says, and Annie and I quickly settle down on the rocks on either side of her.