The Sweetness of Forgetting (23)

The light in the sky has almost entirely gone out now; I imagine Mamie at her window, searching the stars as twilight finally gives way to the blackness of night. Out here on the Cape, especially when the summer tourists have all snuffed out their porch lights until the next season, the nights are dark and deep. The larger streets are lit, but as I turn onto Lower Road and then Prince Edward Lane, the faint glow of Main Street vanishes behind us, and ahead of us, the last vestiges of Mamie’s heure bleue disappear into the dark void that I know is the west side of Cape Cod Bay.

I feel like we’re in a ghost town as I make the last turn onto Bradford Road. Seven of the ten homes on our street are summer homes, and now that the season’s over, they’re deserted. I pull into my driveway—the same driveway where I spent summer nights as a little girl catching fireflies and winter days helping my mom shovel snow so she could get her old station wagon out—and turn off the ignition. We’re still in the car, but now that we’re a block from the beach, I can smell salt in the air, which means that the tide is coming in. I have a sudden urge to hurry down to the beach with a flashlight and dip my toes in the frothy surf, but I quell it; I have to get Annie ready to go to her father’s for the night.

She doesn’t seem to be any more ready to get out of the car than I am.

“Why did Mamie want to leave France so bad anyway?” she finally asks.

“The war must have been pretty bad for her,” I say. “Like Mrs. Sullivan and Mrs. Koontz said, I think her parents had died. Mamie would have only been seventeen when she left Paris. Then I think she met your great-grandpa and fell in love.”

“So she, like, left everything behind?” Annie asks. “How could she do that without being sad?”

I shake my head. “I don’t know, honey.”

Annie’s eyes narrow. “You never asked her?” She looks at me, and I can tell that the anger, which had gone into hibernation temporarily, is back.

“Sure I did,” I say. “When I was your age, I used to ask her about her past all the time. I wanted her to take me to France and show me all the things she did when she was a kid. I used to imagine her riding the Eiffel Tower elevator up and down all day with a poodle, while eating a baguette and wearing a beret.”

“Those are stereotypes, Mom,” Annie says, rolling her eyes at me. But I’m fairly sure I can see the hint of a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth as she gets out of the car.

I get out too and follow her across the front lawn. I forgot to turn the porch light on before I left the house earlier, so it looks like the darkness is swallowing Annie whole. I hurry to the door and turn the key in the lock.

Annie lingers in the hallway for a long moment, just looking at me. I’m sure she’s about to say something, but when she opens her mouth, no sound comes out. Abruptly, she turns on her heel and strides toward her bedroom in the back of our small cottage. “I’ll be ready in five!” she yells over her shoulder.



Since “five” usually means at least twenty minutes in Annie-speak, I’m surprised to see her in the kitchen just a few minutes later. I’m standing at the refrigerator with the door open, willing dinner to materialize out of thin air. For someone who works around food all day, I do a lousy job of keeping my own fridge stocked.

“There’s a Healthy Choice meal in the freezer,” Annie says from behind me.

I turn and smile. “Guess it’s time I go to the grocery store.”

“Nah,” Annie says. “I wouldn’t recognize our fridge if it was full. I’d think I’d accidentally gone into the wrong house.”

“Ha-ha, very funny,” I say with a grin. I shut the refrigerator door and open the freezer, which contains two trays of ice cubes, a half bag of miniature Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, a bag of frozen peas, and, as Annie promised, a Healthy Choice frozen meal.

“We already ate, anyways,” Annie adds. “Remember? The lobster rolls?”

I close the door to the freezer and nod. “I know,” I say. I look over at Annie, who’s standing by the kitchen table, her duffel bag propped against the chair beside her.

She rolls her eyes at me. “You’re so weird. Do you just sit here and eat junk food every time I go to Dad’s?”

I clear my throat. “No,” I lie.

Mamie used to deal with stress by baking. My mother used to deal with stress by getting furious about little things, and usually sending me to my room after telling me what a lousy daughter I was. I, apparently, deal with stress by stuffing my face.

“All right, honey,” I say. “Got everything?” I cross the kitchen toward her, moving absurdly slowly, as if I can prolong her time with me. I pull her into a hug, which seems to surprise her as much as it surprises me. But she hugs back, which makes the pain in my heart temporarily disappear.

“I love you, kiddo,” I murmur into her hair.

“I love you too, Mom,” Annie says after a minute, her voice muffled against my chest. “Now could you let me go before you, like, smother me?”

Embarrassed, I release her. “I’m not sure what to do about Mamie,” I say as she reaches for her duffel bag and swings it over her shoulder. “Maybe she’s talking nonsense.”

Annie freezes. “What are you talking about?”

I shrug. “Her memory’s gone, Annie. It’s awful, but that’s what Alzheimer’s is.”