The Sweetness of Forgetting (66)

Gavin looks at me for a long time, so intently that my heart starts thudding. “I did those things because I wanted to help,” he says.

“Why?” I ask, realizing before I can stop myself that I sound rude and ungrateful.

He stares at me again and shrugs. “Stop selling yourself short, Hope,” he says. And with that, he’s gone. I watch him get into his old Wrangler and wave to Annie as he pulls out of the parking lot.



“Mom, we have to find Jacob Levy,” Annie announces the next morning when she and Alain show up at the bakery together, arms linked. Concerned that he was overexerting himself, I’d suggested that Alain sleep in, but he and Annie have been inseparable since meeting at the hospital the night before, so I should have suspected that she’d bring him to the bakery with her. “Alain told me all about him,” she adds proudly.

“Annie, honey,” I say, glancing at Alain, who is rolling up his sleeves and glancing around the kitchen, “we don’t even know if Jacob is still alive.”

“But what if he is, Mom?” Annie asks, her voice taking on a desperate edge. “What if he’s out there somewhere and he’s been looking for Mamie all these years? What if he could come here, and that would make her wake up?”

“Sweetheart, that’s unlikely.”

Annie glowers at me. “C’mon, Mom! Don’t you believe in love?”

I sigh. “I believe in chocolate,” I say, nodding to the pains au chocolat waiting to go into the oven, “and I believe that if I don’t pick up the pace here, we’re not going to be ready to open at six.”

“Whatever,” Annie grumbles. She puts on a pair of pot holders and slides the chocolate croissants into the oven. She sets the timer and then turns around to roll her eyes at Alain. “See? I told you she’s mean in the morning.”

Alain chuckles. “I do not think your mother is being unkind, my dear,” he says. “I think she’s trying to be realistic. And also perhaps to change the subject.”

“Why are you changing the subject, Mom?” Annie demands, putting her hands on her hips.

“Because I don’t want you to get your hopes up,” I tell her. “There’s a huge chance Jacob Levy isn’t even alive. And even if he is, there’s no guarantee we’ll find him.”

There’s also no guarantee that he has waited around for my grandmother all these years. I don’t want to tell Annie that even if we do somehow miraculously locate him, he’ll probably be married to wife number four or something. He most likely moved on from Mamie seventy years ago. That’s what men do. Besides, it appears my grandmother wasted no time in moving on from him.

Alain is looking closely at me, and I avert my gaze, because I have the uneasy feeling he can read exactly what I’m thinking. “Can I help you with anything, Hope?” he asks after a pause. “I used to work in my grandparents’ bakery when I was a boy.”

I smile. “Annie can show you how to prep the batter for the blueberry muffins,” I say. “But don’t feel like you have to help. I’m perfectly fine on my own.”

“I didn’t say that you were not,” Alain says. I raise an eyebrow at him, but he has already turned around to let Annie help him tie on an apron.

“So, like, if Mamie was so in love with Jacob, how come she married my great-grandpa?” Annie asks Alain once he turns back around. He grabs a bag of sugar and the flat of plump blueberries that Annie has pulled out of the refrigerator. “She couldn’t have loved him too, right?” Annie adds. “Not if Jacob was her one true love.”

I roll my eyes, but truth be told, I wish I still believed in the concept of one true love too. Alain seems to be considering the question as he pulls out a big bowl and a wooden spoon and begins mixing sugar and flour. I watch as he measures in salt and baking powder. Annie hands him four eggs, and he sets to work cracking them in.

“There are all different kinds of love in this world, Annie,” he says finally. He glances at me and then back at my daughter. “I have no doubt that your great-grandmother loved your great-grandfather too.”

Annie stares at him. “What do you mean? If Mamie was in love with Jacob, how could she also, like, be in love with my great-grandpa?”

Alain shrugs and adds some milk and sour cream to the bowl. He mixes vigorously with the wooden spoon, and then Annie helps him fold in the blueberries. “Some kinds of love are more powerful than others,” Alain finally replies. “It doesn’t mean they aren’t all real. Some loves are the kind we try to make fit but are never quite right.” He glances at me, and I look away.

“Others are the loves between good people who admire each other’s souls and grow to love each other over time,” he continues.

“Is that what you think Mamie and my great-grandpa had?” Annie asks.

Alain begins carefully lining muffin tins. “Perhaps,” he says. “I do not know. There is also, Annie, the love that all of us have the chance to have, but that few of us are wise enough to see or brave enough to seize. That’s the kind of love that can change a life.”

“Is that how Jacob and Mamie loved each other?” Annie asks.

“I believe it is,” Alain says.

“But what do you mean you have to be wise enough to see it?” Annie asks.