The Sweetness of Forgetting

Hope reflects on her marriage to her ex-husband Rob and the way he asked for divorce less than a year ago. Hope felt that her mother, Josephine, was cold; she was always searching for love from men, and she never told Hope who her father was. Hope prepares for her date with Matt, and over dinner, Matt reveals that the bank is calling in her loan on the bakery. He discusses options for selling, but Hope feels that it should remain her family’s bakery. Matt offers to help, and Hope insists that she doesn’t need help. Annie calls to say that a pipe has burst in their kitchen and there is water everywhere. Matt drives Hope home to find that Gavin has arrived and shut off the water. Gavin offers to fix the problem, but Hope turns down his help, too. She visits Mamie the next day. Mamie recognizes her and says that they are just in time to see the evening star.

This chapter, told from Rose’s point of view, opens with a recipe for the bakery’s vanilla cupcakes. Rose loves watching for the blue hour, the first hint of dusk. She is searching the stars for something she hasn’t found yet. She knows that she has AD and wishes “she could grab the memories like lifelines and hold on before she went under” (27). She calls her guest by her daughter’s name, Josephine, and the woman replies that she is Hope, her granddaughter. Rose doesn’t want to confess that she is losing her memory and wishes that she could apologize to Josephine for many things, including her coldness; “[b]ut some memories, Rose knew, couldn’t be erased, even when one has spent a lifetime trying to pretend they are not there” (28). The evening star appears, and then the Big Dipper. Rose has named the stars after people she lost long ago. Hope asks who Leona is, and Rose lies and says that she doesn’t know. She doesn’t want to resurrect ghosts. Rose regrets that her daughter seemed always looking for love and that Hope admits that she never really loved her husband. When the nurse comes in later, Rose doesn’t remember that she had a visitor.

When Hope was younger, she wanted to travel, and she was in law school when she met Rob. When she became pregnant, they married and she stayed home to take care of Annie. Hope feels that she never got the life she wanted. Because of running the bakery, she thinks, “I had become the keeper of a dream that wasn’t mine, and in the meantime, I’d lost my hold on everything I’d ever dreamed of” (35). Hope remembers working in the bakery with her grandmother and how Mamie told her that the stars are always there, hiding behind the sun.

Annie continues to be resentful, telling Hope that she ruins everything and claiming that Hope never loved Rob. Annie asks their customers if they know who Leona is, and Hope eavesdrops on the story of how all the girls in town were in love with Ted, Hope’s grandfather. He was shot down in WWII and he and Mamie met in Spain. When they moved back to Cape Cod, Josephine started first grade, Ted was headmaster of a prep school, and Mamie started the bakery, modeled after the one her parents had run in France. Hope didn’t know anything about Mamie’s history, so this is news. Gavin stops in and hugs Hope, reminding her that everything can change in an instant.

Hope visits her old house to speak with Rob. She asks him to try to set boundaries with Annie. Rob suggests that he had an affair while they were married because he didn’t feel emotionally fulfilled at home. During the conversation, Annie calls and asks Hope to come visit Mamie, who is having a lucid day. Hope brings a Star Pie, Mamie’s favorite pastry. Mamie wants to see the sunset on the beach, so Hope drives the three of them there. After the sunset, Mamie points out the North Star. She says that her mother taught her how to make the Star Pies. She breaks off pieces and throws them into the water, saying something in another language. Then Mamie says that it is time she told the truth, and there is something she wants Hope to do for her.

The recipe fronting this chapter is for Rose’s strudel, and the chapter is told from Rose’s point of view. Before the trip to the beach, she woke in the morning and remembered everything, including what day it was. She also wrote a letter to the attorney who is handling her will, then wrote out a list. As she throws the Star Pies into the water at the beach with Hope and Annie, she apologizes for leaving. No one but God and Ted know the truth, and Rose feels that her daughter and granddaughter have suffered for her mistakes.

Rose asks Hope to go to Paris. She needs to know what happened to her family, and she gives Hope the list of names: Albert, Cecile, Helene, Claude, Alain, David, and Danielle Picard. She has given the stars in the Big Dipper their names, but there is one star missing from the list. Rose reveals that she agreed to move to Cape Cod the first time Ted told her that her family had died. She had thought that she would be found in New York, but after that news, she gave up hope.