The Sweetness of Forgetting (4)

“Wipe it off, Annie,” I say. “Now. And leave the makeup here.”

“You can’t take it from me,” she retorts. “I bought it with my own money.”

I glance around and realize that the shop has fallen silent, except for Jay and Merri chattering in the corner. Gavin’s looking at me with concern, and the old ladies near the door are just staring. I feel suddenly embarrassed. I know I already seem like the town failure for letting my marriage to Rob end; everyone thinks he’s perfect and I was lucky to marry him in the first place. Now I appear to be a failure at parenting too.

“Annie,” I say through gritted teeth. “Do it now. And this time, you are grounded, for disobeying me.”

“I’m staying with Dad for the next few days,” she shoots back, smirking at me. “You can’t ground me. Remember? You don’t live there anymore.”

I swallow hard. I won’t let her know that her words have hurt me. “Fantastic,” I say brightly. “You’re grounded from the moment you step into my house.”

She curses under her breath, glances around, and seems to realize that everyone’s looking at her. “Whatever,” she mutters as she heads for the bathroom.

I exhale and turn back to Emma. “I’m sorry,” I say. I realize my hands are shaking as I reach for her pastry again.

“Honey, I raised three girls,” she says. “Don’t worry. It gets better.”

She pays and leaves, then I watch as Mrs. Koontz and Mrs. Sullivan, who have been coming here since the bakery opened sixty years ago, get up and hobble out the door, each of them using a cane. Derek and the twins are getting ready to go too, so I come out from behind the counter to pick up their plates. I help button Merri’s jacket, while Derek zips Jay’s. Merri thanks me for the cupcake, and I wave as they leave.

Annie emerges from the bathroom a minute later, her face blissfully makeup free. She slams a mascara tube, a lipstick, and a pot of blush down on one of the tables and glowers at me. “There. Happy?” she asks.

“Overjoyed,” I say dryly.

She stands there for a moment, looking like she wants to say something. I’m steeling myself for some sort of sarcastic insult, so I’m surprised when all she says is, “Who’s Leona, anyway?”

“Leona?” I search my memory but come up empty. “I don’t know. Why? Where’d you hear that name?”

“Mamie,” she says. “She keeps, like, calling me that. And it seems to, like, make her real sad.”

I’m startled. “You’ve been going to see Mamie?” After my mother died two years ago, we’d had to move my grandmother into a memory care home; her dementia had rapidly taken a turn for the worse.

“Yeah,” Annie says. “So?”

“I . . . I just didn’t know you were doing that.”

“Someone has to,” she spits back.

I’m sure the guilt plays across my face, because Annie looks triumphant.

“I’m busy with the bakery, Annie,” I say.

“Yeah, well, I find the time,” she says. “Maybe if you were spending less time with Matt Hines, you could spend more time with Mamie.”

“Nothing is going on with Matt.” I’m suddenly acutely conscious of Gavin sitting a few feet away, and I can feel my cheeks turning warm. The last thing I need is the whole town knowing my business. Or lack of business, as the case may be.

“Whatever,” Annie says, rolling her eyes. “Anyway, at least Mamie loves me. She tells me all the time.”

She smirks at me, and I know that I’m supposed to say Honey, I love you too, or Your dad and I love you very much, or something along those lines. Isn’t that what a good mother would do? Instead, because I’m a horrible mother, what comes out of my mouth is “Yeah? Well, it sounds to me like she’s saying ‘I love you’ to someone named Leona.”

Annie’s jaw drops, and she stares at me for a minute. I want to reach out, pull her into a hug and say I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it. But before I have a chance, she whirls on her heel and strides out of the store, but not before I see the tears glistening at the corners of her eyes. She doesn’t look back.

My heart aches as I stare in the direction she disappeared. I sink into one of the chairs the twins vacated a few minutes earlier and put my head in my hands. I’m failing at everything, but most of all at connecting with the people I love.

I don’t realize Gavin Keyes is standing above me until I feel his hand on my shoulder. I jerk my head up, startled, and find myself staring directly at a small hole in the thigh of his faded jeans. For an instant, I have the strangest urge to offer to mend it, but that’s ridiculous; I’m no better at using a needle and thread than I am at being a mother or staying married. I shake my head and pull my eyes upward, over his blue plaid flannel shirt to his face, which is marked by a thick shadow of dark stubble across his strong jaw. His thick shock of dark hair looks like it hasn’t been combed in days, but instead of making him look unkempt, it makes him look really good in a way that makes me uneasy. His dimples, as he smiles gently at me, remind me just how young he is. Twenty-eight, I think, or maybe twenty-nine. I feel suddenly ancient, although I’m only seven or eight years older. What would it be like to be that young, with no real responsibilities, no preteen daughter who hates you, no failing business to save?