The Sweetness of Forgetting (77)

“Honey, have you decided on a name yet?” Ted asked. Rose looked up to see her daughter staring at her strangely. A slow smile spread across Josephine’s face.

“Yes,” Josephine said. “I’m going to call her Hope.”





Chapter Twenty



By Wednesday evening, Annie has called more than a hundred numbers from her list of Levys, and she still hasn’t come up with even a trace of Mamie’s Jacob Levy. I’m feeling more and more like we may be chasing a ghost. I take a dozen of the West Coast names from Annie’s list and call them after she’s gone to bed, but I don’t have any more luck than she’s had. Everyone I reach says they’ve never heard of a Jacob Levy who left France in the 1940s or 1950s. Even an online search of Ellis Island’s passenger records turns up nothing.

Annie comes into the bakery a few minutes before six the next morning, looking solemn, as I’m folding dried cranberries, chunks of white chocolate, and slivers of macadamia nuts into a batch of sugary cookie dough.

“We have to do more,” she announces, flinging her backpack onto the floor, where it lands with a thud that makes me wonder fleetingly about the damage she must be doing to her back by carrying around several heavy textbooks each day.

“About Jacob Levy?” I guess. Before she can respond, I add, “Can you start putting the defrosted pastries out, please? I’m running a little behind.”

She nods and goes to the sink to wash her hands. “Yeah, about Jacob,” she says. She shakes her hands off, dries them on the blue cupcake towel beside the sink, and turns around. “We gotta try to figure out how to find him better.”

I sigh. “Annie, you know there’s a good chance that’s going to be impossible.”

She rolls her eyes. “You’re always so negative.”

“I’m just being realistic.” I watch as she begins sliding crescent moons carefully out of their airtight container. She unwraps each of them from their wax paper and sets them on a display tray.

“I think we have to investigate more if we’re going to find him.”

I arch an eyebrow at her. “Investigate?” I ask carefully.

She nods, missing the note of skepticism in my voice. “Yeah. It’s not working to just call people. We have to, like, try to search some documents or something. Other than the Ellis Island site, because he could have arrived anywhere.”

“What documents?”

Annie glares at me. “I don’t know. You’re the adult here. I can’t do everything.” She marches into the front of the bakery with her tray full of crescent moons and comes back a moment later to begin putting defrosted slices of baklava onto slivers of wax paper.

I watch her for a moment. “I just don’t want you to wind up disappointed,” I say to Annie after she’s returned to the kitchen.

She glares at me. “That’s just your way of avoiding stuff,” she says. “You can’t just not do stuff because you might get hurt.” She glances at her watch. “It’s six. I’ll go unlock the front door.”

I nod, watching her again as she goes. I wonder whether she’s right. And if she is, how does she know so much more than I do about life?

I hear her talking to someone a moment later, and I head out to begin another long day of smiling at customers, pretending that there’s nothing in the world I’d rather be doing than wrapping up pastries for them.

I round the corner from the kitchen and am surprised to see Gavin at the counter, looking over the pastries that are already in the case. He’s dressed more formally than usual, in khakis and a pale blue button-down shirt. Annie is already busy putting slices of baklava into a box for him.

“Hey!” I say. “You’re dressed up today.” The moment the words have left my mouth, I feel silly.

But he just smiles at me and says, “I took the day off; I’m headed up to the nursing home on the North Shore. I’m just getting some pastries to bring to the folks there. They like me better when I arrive with food.”

I laugh. “I bet they like you with or without food.”

Annie sighs heavily, as if to remind us that she’s still there. We both glance at her, and she hands Gavin the bakery box, which she has tied neatly with white ribbon while we were talking.

“So Annie,” Gavin says, turning his attention to her. “How’s it going with your search for Jacob Levy?”

“Not good,” Annie mutters. “No one’s ever heard of him.”

“You’ve been calling the names on your list?”

“Like hundreds of names,” Annie says.

“Hmm,” says Gavin. “I wonder if there’s another way to look for him.”

Annie brightens. “Like what?”

Gavin shrugs. “I don’t know. Do you know his birth date? Maybe there’s a way to search for him online if you have a date of birth.”

Annie nods excitedly. “Yeah, maybe. Good idea.” I expect her to thank him, but instead, I hear her blurt out, “So you’re, like, Jewish?”

“Annie!” I exclaim. “Don’t be impolite.”

“I’m not,” she says. “I’m just asking.”

I glance at Gavin, and he winks at me, which makes me blush a little. “Yes, Annie, I’m Jewish. How come?”