The Sweetness of Forgetting (24 page)

“What is it, honey?” I ask.

“It’s Mamie,” she says. Her voice is trembling. “She . . . she had a stroke.”

My heart stops, and I look up at Alain, stunned. I know he can read everything on my face.

“Is she . . . ?” I ask. I don’t complete the sentence.

“She’s in the hospital,” Annie says. “But she’s not doing good.”

“Oh my God.” I look up at Alain, who looks panicked.

“What has happened?” he asks.

I cover the receiver with my hand and say, “My grandmother had a stroke. She’s in the hospital.”

Alain puts a hand over his mouth as I turn my attention back to my daughter. “Honey, are you okay?” I ask. “Who’s with you?”

“Mr. Keyes,” she mumbles.

“Gavin?” I ask, confused. “But where’s your dad?”

“Still at work,” she says. “I—I tried to call him. But his assistant said he was in the middle of an important case. She said he’d call me when court was in recess.”

I close my eyes and try to breathe. “I’m so sorry I’m not there with you, honey. I’m coming home as soon as I can. I promise.”

“I tried calling you at your hotel,” Annie says in a small voice. “Where were you?”

I look up at Alain, who has tears in his eyes.

“I have a lot to tell you, Annie,” I say. “I’ll tell you as soon as I get home, okay?”

“Okay,” she says in a small voice.

“Can I talk to Gavin for a minute?”

She doesn’t answer, but I hear a rustling as she passes the phone to him. “Hello?” he says a moment later, and it’s not until I hear his voice that I release a breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding.

“Gavin, what happened?” I ask right away. I know I should begin by thanking him for once again coming to my rescue, but all I can think about is Mamie, and how Annie is coping.

“Hope, your grandmother had a stroke, but they’ve stabilized
her,” he says, and his voice is all business, but there’s a gentleness there that soothes me. “She hasn’t regained consciousness, but they’re monitoring her. It’s too soon to tell how much damage there’s been.”

“How . . . what . . . ?” My voice trails off, because I don’t know what I’m trying to ask. I look up at Alain helplessly again. He’s sunk into a chair opposite me and is watching with watery eyes. His gnarled hand is still over his mouth. “How did you know?” I finally ask.

“Annie called,” Gavin explains quickly. “She was at her father’s house. I guess your grandmother’s assisted living place still had your old home number as one of the emergency contacts, so a nurse called there, and Annie answered. She couldn’t reach anyone to take her to the hospital, so she called me.”

“I’m sorry,” I mumble. “I mean, thank you.”

“Hope, don’t be silly,” Gavin says. “I was happy to help Annie out. I’m glad she called. I was just down the street, actually, finishing up a repair job at Joan Namvar’s cottage, so I was able to come get her right away.”

I close my eyes. “Thank you, Gavin. I don’t even know how to thank you enough.”

“It’s fine,” he says dismissively.

“Is she okay?” I ask. “Annie?”

“She’s okay,” he says. “Shaken up, but okay. Don’t worry; I’ll stay with her until your ex gets out of work.”

“Thank you,” I whisper. “I’ll make it up to you, Gavin.”

“Don’t worry,” he repeats.

I take a deep breath. “I’ll be on the next available flight.” I’m not good at accepting favors from people, and I know that the guilt from this one will weigh on me for a long time.

“Hope, are
you
okay?” Gavin asks.

I blink a few times. No one ever asks me that. “Yeah,” I say, but it’s a lie. “Can I talk to Annie again?”

“Sure,” Gavin says. “Hang in there. See you soon.”

I hear a rustling again, and then Annie’s on the line. “Mom?” she asks.

“Listen, I’m sorry about your dad,” I say. “I’m going to call him right now and make sure that—”

“I’m fine, Mom,” Annie interrupts. “Mr. Keyes is with me.”

I sigh and pinch the bridge of my nose. “I’ll be there as soon as I can, sweetheart,” I say.

“I know,” Annie says.

“I love you, honey.”

There’s a pause. “I know,” Annie says again. But then she adds, “I love you too.”

It’s only then that I begin to cry.

Alain calls all the airlines while I struggle to get myself under control. I pace his apartment, feeling like a caged animal. For the thousandth time, I visualize Annie crying in the waiting room with no one there to comfort her except Gavin Keyes. He’s been wonderful to us these last few months, but still, she doesn’t know him that well and she must be scared about Mamie. Her father should be there with her, not Gavin. As soon as Alain gets off the phone, I plan to call Rob and give him a piece of my mind.

“I switched your ticket,” Alain tells me when he finally hangs up, “and I bought one for myself. The earliest nonstop I could get for us was 1:25 p.m., arriving in Boston just after three. There were early flights from Paris, but with the stops, they would have gotten us into Boston later.”

I blink and nod; 1:25 p.m. tomorrow feels like an eternity from now. “Thank you,” I say. “How much do I owe you?” I know I shouldn’t be thinking about money now, but I’m aware that the cost will be much more than the thousand-dollar check Mamie gave me. I have no idea how I’ll pay for this.

Alain looks confused. “Do not be crazy,” he says. “This is not a time to talk about such things. We must get to Boston quickly to see Rose.”

I nod. I’ll insist later. I don’t have the energy right now. “Thank you,” I say softly.

I ask Alain whether I can use his phone once more, and he watches me carefully as I speak first to Rob’s assistant and then, after I persuade her to put me through, to Rob, my voice taut with tension.

“Jesus, Hope, I’ll get there as soon as I can,” Rob says. “I’m in the middle of an important hearing. It’s not like Annie’s life is in danger or something.”

“Your
daughter
is at the hospital,
alone and scared,
” I say through gritted teeth. “That doesn’t matter to you?”

“I
said
I’ll get there as soon as I can,” he repeats.

“Yeah, I heard you the first time,” I retort. “And it sounded just as selfish then.”

As I place the receiver down, I realize I’m shaking. Alain crosses the room and hugs me. I hesitate for a moment, then hug back.

“You are not married to the father of Annie?” Alain asks after a moment, and I realize that for all the talking we’ve done about Mamie, I’ve barely told him anything about myself.

“No,” I say. “Not anymore.”

“I am sorry,” Alain says.

I shrug. “Don’t be,” I say. “It’s for the best.” I’m trying to sound more lighthearted and casual about it than I feel. But I can tell, from the look on Alain’s face, that he sees right through my nonchalance. I’m grateful that he doesn’t ask anything else.

“You are welcome to stay here tonight if you wish,” Alain says. “But I think you have things at your hotel that you need to retrieve.”

“Yeah, I have to pack,” I say numbly. “And check out.”

“I will not sleep tonight,” Alain says. “There are too many things in my mind. So please return when you would like in the morning. There is no time too early. We will have breakfast together before we leave for the airport.”

I nod. “Thank you,” I murmur.

“Thank
you,
” Alain says. He squeezes my hands and kisses me on both cheeks. “You have given me my family back.”

I can’t sleep that night either, although I try. I feel ashamed to be crawling under the covers while my daughter is alone and scared thousands of miles away. I try Annie twice more, but she doesn’t answer; her phone goes straight to voice mail, and I wonder whether the battery has run out. Around four in the morning Paris time, I reach Gavin on his cell, and he tells me that he left when Rob got to the hospital around seven in the evening. As far as he knows, there’s been no change in Mamie’s condition since then.

“Try to get some rest, Hope,” Gavin says softly. “You’re coming home as soon as you can. And you’re not helping anyone by lying there awake right now.”

I mumble a thank-you and hang up. The next thing I know, I’m staring at a clock that tells me it’s five forty-five in the morning. I don’t remember falling asleep.

I’m at Alain’s by seven, after showering, shoving the remainder of my things into my duffel bag, checking out, and hailing a cab outside the hotel.

Alain is already dressed for our trip, in slacks and a button-down shirt with a navy tie, when he greets me at his door. He kisses me on both cheeks and embraces me. “You did not sleep much either, I see,” he says.

“Barely.”

“Come in,” he says, stepping aside. “My friend Simon is here. He knew our family before the war. And my friend Henri. He is a survivor too. They want to meet you.”

My heart is in my throat as I follow Alain into his apartment. In the sitting room, two men are sipping tiny cups of espresso by the window, while sunlight streams in, lighting their matching snow-white heads of hair. Both stand and smile at me as I enter,
and I note that they look even older than Alain and are both significantly stooped.

The one closest to me speaks first. His green eyes are watery. “Alain is right. You look just like Rose,” he whispers.

“Simon,” Alain says, stepping into the room behind me. “This is my niece. Hope McKenna-Smith. Hope, this is my friend Simon Ramo. He knew your grandmother.”

“You look just like her,” he says. He takes a few steps forward to meet me in the middle of the room. As he leans forward to kiss me on both cheeks, I notice two things: that he is trembling, and that he has a number tattooed on the inside of his left forearm.

He sees me staring at it. “Auschwitz,” he says simply. I nod and look quickly away, embarrassed.

“For me, the same,” says the other man. He holds up his left arm, and I see a similar tattoo, the letter
B
followed by five digits. He steps forward to kiss me on both cheeks too and backs away smiling. “I never knew your grandmother,” he says. “But she must have been very beautiful, for you are very beautiful, young lady.”

I smile weakly. “Thank you.”

“I am Henri Levy.”

My heart skips, and I look at Alain. “Levy?”

“A common last name,” Alain explains quickly. “He is no relation to Jacob.”

“Oh,” I say, feeling oddly deflated.

“Shall we sit down?” Henri motions to the chairs. “Your uncle forgets I am ninety-two. He is, how do you say in English? A spring chicken?”

I laugh, and Alain smiles. “Yes, a spring chicken,” Alain says. “I am sure that is just what young Hope sees when she looks at me.”

“Hope, do not listen to these old men,” Simon says. He totters back to his chair. “We are only as old as we feel. And today, I feel like I am thirty-five.”

I smile, and after a moment, Alain offers me a cup of espresso, which I gladly accept. The four of us settle into seats in the living room, and Simon leans forward.

“I know I have said this,” he begins. “But you bring me back in time. Your grandmother was—
is
—a wonderful woman.”

“He always had a crush on her,” Alain interjects with a grin. “But he was eleven, like me. She was his babysitter.”

Simon shakes his head and shoots Alain a look. “Oh, she had a crush on me too,” he says. “She just did not know it yet.”

Alain laughs. “You are forgetting Jacob Levy.”

Simon rolls his eyes. “My great foe for Rose’s affection.”

Alain looks at me. “Jacob was only Simon’s foe in Simon’s own mind,” he says. “To everyone else, Jacob was Prince Charming, and Simon was a miniature toad with sticks for legs.”

“Hey!” Simon exclaims. “My legs developed very nicely, thank you.” He points to his legs and winks at me.

I laugh again.

“Now,” Henri says after a moment, “perhaps Hope can tell us a little about herself. Not that we are not very interested in the legs of Simon.”

The three men look at me expectantly, and I clear my throat, suddenly nervous to be put on the spot.

“Um, what would you like to know?”

“Alain says you have a daughter?” Henri asks.

I nod. “Yes. Annie. She’s twelve years old.”

Simon smiles at me. “So what else, Hope?” he asks. “What do you do for work?”