The Sweetness of Forgetting (13 page)

My heart sinks. “Oh. I’m sorry. I thought that—”

“There is no Albert Picard here because he is a useless bastard,” the woman continues calmly. “He cannot keep his hands from touching all the other women. And I am done with it.”

“Oh, I’m sorry . . .” I say, my voice trailing off because I’m not sure what else to say.

“You are not one of these women, are you?” she asks, suddenly sounding suspicious.

“No, no,” I say quickly. “I am looking for someone my grandmother
once knew, or maybe was related to. She left Paris in the early 1940s.”

The woman laughs. “This Albert, he is only thirty-two. And his father is Jean-Marc. So he is not the Albert Picard you search for.”

“I’m sorry,” I say. I glance down at the list. “Do you know a Cecile Picard? Or a Helene Picard? Or a Claude Picard? Or . . .” I pause. “Or a Rose Durand? Or Rose McKenna?”

“No,” the woman says.

“Okay,” I say, disappointed. “Thank you for your time. And I hope, um, that you work things out with Albert.”

The woman snorts. “And I hope he gets run over by a taxi.”

The line clicks, and I’m left holding the phone in surprise. I shake my head, wait for the dial tone, and try the next number.

Chapter
Eight

B
y the time Annie comes in just before four, the Star Pies have cooled, I have tomorrow’s blueberry muffins in the oven, and I’ve called all thirty-five numbers on my list. Twenty-two of them answered. None of them knew the people from Mamie’s list. Two of them had suggested that I try calling the synagogues, which might have records of their members from that time period.

“Thank you,” I told both of them, puzzled, “but my grandmother is Catholic.”

Annie barely meets my gaze as she tosses her backpack behind the counter and stalks into the kitchen. I sigh. Great. We’re going to have one of
those
afternoons.

“I already cleaned all the bowls and trays!” I call to my daughter as I start pulling cookies from the display case in preparation for closing in a few minutes. “We had a slow day today, so I had some extra time,” I add.

“So did you book your trip to Paris?” Annie asks, appearing in the doorway to the kitchen with her hands on her hips. “With all this extra time you had?”

“No, but I—” I begin, but Annie holds up her hand to stop me.

“No? Okay. That’s all I need to hear,” she says, clearly borrowing phrasing from her father in an attempt to sound like a miniature adult. Just what I need.

“Annie, you’re not listening,” I say. “I called all the—”

“Look, Mom, if you’re not going to help Mamie, I don’t know what we have to talk about,” she says sharply.

I take a deep breath. I’ve been walking on eggshells around her for the last several months, because I’ve been worried about how she’s handling the divorce. But I’m tired of being the bad guy. Especially when I’m not. “Annie,” I say firmly. “I’m doing everything I can to keep us afloat here. I understand that you want to help Mamie. I do too. But she has Alzheimer’s, Annie. The request she’s making isn’t logical. Now if you’ll just listen to me, I—”

“Whatever, Mom,” she cuts me off again. “You don’t care about anyone.”

She strides back into the kitchen, and I start to follow her, my hands clenched into fists as I struggle to control my temper. “Young lady, don’t you walk away from me in the middle of an argument!”

Just then, the door chime dings, and I spin around to see Gavin, dressed in faded jeans and a red flannel shirt. He meets my gaze and rakes a hand through his unruly brown curls, which I distractedly realize need to be cut.

“Um, am I interrupting something?” he asks. He glances at his watch. “Are you still open?”

I force a smile. “Of course, Gavin,” I say. “Come in. What can I do for you?”

He looks uncertain as he approaches the counter. “You sure?” he asks. “I can come back tomorrow if—”

“No,” I cut him off. “I’m sorry. Annie and I were just having a . . . talk.”

Gavin pauses and smiles at me. “My mom and I used to have lots of talks when I was Annie’s age,” he says in a low voice. “I’m sure my mom always enjoyed them.”

I laugh, despite myself. Just then, Annie emerges from the kitchen again. “I brought you coffee,” she announces to Gavin before I can say anything. “On the house,” she adds. She shoots a glance at me, as if daring me to challenge her. Little does she know that I haven’t charged him for anything since he completed his work on our cottage.

“Well, thank you, Annie. That’s generous,” Gavin says, taking the coffee from her. I watch as he closes his eyes and breathes in the aroma. “Boy, this smells great.”

I arch an eyebrow at him, because I suspect he knows as well as I do that the coffee’s been on the burner for approximately the last two hours and is anything but fresh.

“So, Mr. Keyes,” Annie begins. “You, like, help people and stuff, right?”

Gavin looks surprised. He clears his throat and nods. “Sure, Annie, I guess so.” He pauses and glances at me. “And you can call me Gavin, if you want. Um, do you mean I help people by being a handyman? By fixing things?”

“Whatever,” she says dismissively. “You help people because it’s the right thing to do, right?” Gavin shoots me another look, and I shrug. “So anyways,” Annie continues, “if something was lost, and it was really bothering someone, you’d probably want to help them find it, right?”

Gavin nods. “Sure, Annie,” he says slowly. “No one likes to lose things.” He shoots me another look.

“So, like, if someone asked you to help them find some of their relatives who they’d lost, you’d help them, wouldn’t you?” she asks.

“Annie,” I say in warning, but she isn’t paying any attention.

“Or would you, like, totally ignore them when they ask for your help?” she goes on. She looks at me pointedly.

Gavin clears his throat again and looks at me. I know he realizes he’s been dragged unwittingly into our fight, despite the fact that he has no idea what we’re arguing about. “Well, Annie,” he
says slowly, turning his gaze back to her, “I suppose I’d try to help find them. But it really depends on what the situation is.”

Annie turns to me with a triumphant look on her face. “See, Mom? Mr. Keyes cares, even if you don’t!” She whirls around and disappears back into the kitchen. I close my eyes and listen to the sound of a metal bowl slamming into the counter. I open them again to see Gavin looking at me with concern. Our eyes meet for a moment, and then we both turn to look as Annie reemerges from the back.

“Mom, all the dishes are clean,” she says, without looking at me. “I’m walking to Dad’s now. Okay?”

“Have a nice time,” I say flatly. She rolls her eyes, grabs her backpack, and strides out without looking back.

When I look up and meet Gavin’s gaze again, the concern in his eyes makes me uncomfortable. I don’t need him—or anyone—worrying about me. “Sorry,” I mutter. I shake my head and try to look busy. “So, what can I get you, Gavin? I have some muffins in back that just came out of the oven.”

“Hope?” he says after a pause. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.”

“You don’t look fine,” he says.

I blink and continue to avoid his eyes. “I don’t?”

He shakes his head. “You’re allowed to be upset, you know,” he says.

I must give him a harsh look without meaning to, because his cheeks suddenly flush and he says, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

I hold up a hand. “I know,” I say. “I know. Look, I appreciate it.”

We’re silent for a moment, and then Gavin says, “So what was she talking about? Is there something I can help you with?”

I smile at him. “I appreciate the offer,” I say. “But it’s nothing.”

He looks like he doesn’t believe me.

“It’s a long story,” I clarify.

He shrugs. “I’ve got time,” he says.

I glance at my watch. “But you were going somewhere, weren’t you?” I ask. “You came in for pastries.”

“I’m not in a rush,” he says. “But I
will
take a dozen cookies. The ones with cranberries and white chocolate in them. If you don’t mind.”

I nod and carefully arrange the remaining Cape Codder cookies in the display case in a robin’s egg–blue box with
North Star Bakery, Cape Cod
written on it in swirly white letters. I tie it with a white ribbon and hand it across the counter.

“So?” Gavin prompts as he takes the box from me.

“You really want to hear this?” I ask.

“If you want to tell me,” he says.

I nod, realizing suddenly that I
do
want to tell another adult what’s going on. “Well, my grandmother has Alzheimer’s,” I begin. And for the next five minutes, as I pull miniature pies, croissants, baklava, tarts, and crescent moons out of the display case and pack them into airtight containers for the freezer or boxes for the church’s women’s shelter, I tell Gavin about what Mamie said last night. Gavin listens intently, but his jaw drops when I tell him about Mamie throwing pieces of miniature Star Pies into the ocean.

I shake my head and say, “I know, it sounds crazy, right?”

He shakes his head, a strange expression on his face. “No, actually, it doesn’t. Yesterday was the first day of Rosh Hashanah.”

“Okay,” I say slowly. “But what does that have to do with anything?”

“Rosh Hashanah is the Jewish New Year,” Gavin explains. “It’s customary for us to go to a flowing body of water—like the ocean—for a little ceremony called a
tashlich
.”

“You’re Jewish?” I ask.

He smiles. “On my mom’s side,” he says. “I was kind of raised half Jewish, half Catholic.”

“Oh.” I just look at him. “I didn’t know that.”

He shrugs. “Anyhow, the word
tashlich
basically means ‘casting out.’ ”

I realize suddenly that the phrase rings a bell. “I think my grandmother said something like that last night.”

He nods. “The ceremony involves throwing crumbs into the water to symbolize the casting out of our sins. Usually bread crumbs, but I guess pie crumbs would work too.” He pauses and adds, “Do you think that might have been what your grandmother was doing?”

I shake my head. “It can’t be,” I say. “My grandmother’s Catholic.” As the words leave my mouth, I’m suddenly struck by the fact that two of the people I’d reached in Paris today suggested I call synagogues.

Gavin arches an eyebrow. “Are you sure? Maybe she wasn’t always Catholic.”

“But that’s crazy. If she was Jewish, I would know.”

“Not necessarily,” he says. “My grandmother on my mom’s side, my nana, lived through the Holocaust,” he says. “Bergen-Belsen. She lost both her parents and one of her brothers. Because of her, I got started volunteering with survivors when I was about fifteen. Some of them say that for a while, they abandoned their roots. It was hard for them to hang on to who they’d been when everything was taken away. Especially those who were kids taken in by Christian families. But all of them eventually came back to Judaism. Kind of like coming home.”

I just stare at him. “Your grandmother was a Holocaust survivor?” I repeat, trying to piece together a whole new side to Gavin. “You used to work with survivors?”

“I still do. I volunteer once a week at the Jewish nursing home in Chelsea.”

“But that’s a two-hour drive,” I say.

He shrugs. “It’s where my grandmother lived until she died. The place means something to me.”

“Wow.” I don’t know what else to say. “What do you do there? When you volunteer?”

“Art classes,” he says simply. “Painting. Sculpture. Drawing. Things like that. I bring them cookies too.”

“That’s where you’re always going with the boxes of cookies you pick up here?”

He nods. I just stare at him. I’m realizing there are more layers to Gavin Keyes than I’d ever appreciated. It makes me wonder what else I’m missing. “You do . . . art?” I ask finally.

He looks away and doesn’t answer. “Look, I know this thing with your grandmother, it’s probably a lot to take in. And I may be totally off base here. But you know, some people who escaped before they were sent to concentration camps were snuck out of Europe with false papers that identified them as Christians,” he says. “Is it possible your grandmother could have come here under an assumed identity?”

I shake my head immediately. “No. No way. She would have told us.” But, I realize suddenly, this could explain why everyone on the list she gave us had the last name Picard, while I’d always believed her maiden name to be Durand.

Gavin scratches his head. “Annie’s right, Hope. You have to find out what happened to your grandmother.”