The Sweetness of Forgetting

Hope takes Gavin to Battery Park and finds Jacob at the railing, looking at the Statue of Liberty. She recognizes him because he looks like Annie. She introduces herself as Rose’s granddaughter, and Jacob hugs her, overcome. Jacob asks to see Rose.

Jacob realizes that Hope must be his granddaughter. He is pained to learn that his daughter, Josephine, died. Hope thinks again of Ted and his devoted care of his family and his sacrifices for them. Jacob is startled that Hope knew nothing of Rose’s past and tells his story of meeting Rose, being involved in the French resistance effort against the Nazi occupation, and how he and Rose talked of going to America for religious freedom. He confirms that he sent Rose to the Grand Mosque. He and his father hid during the roundups, but they were later apprehended by the French police. The family was sent to Auschwitz, where his father, mother, and sister died. However, Jacob survived because he had made a promise to come back for Rose. He looked for her in Paris, then he came to New York and had been looking for her there, but he didn’t know that she had changed her last name. He surprises Hope by telling her that he and Rose were married. They stop for gas at twilight, and Hope watches the stars come out. She hugs Gavin and cries.

Rose’s chapter begins with the recipe for Star Pie—her favorite recipe. Rose feels that the water she is swimming in is beginning to turn colors, reminding her of the fabric of her wedding gown. She hears Jacob’s voice and begins to surface.

Annie notices that Mamie is waking up. Mamie is stunned to see Jacob and Alain. Jacob says that he has waited 70 years to see her again. Annie asks who Leona is and learns that she was Jacob’s little sister. Jacob kisses Mamie, and Hope thinks of the Sleeping Beauty fairy tale; she realizes that, for 70 years, her grandmother has “lived a sort of half life” (324).

Mamie passes away in her sleep, with Jacob at her side. Hope feels like a hole has opened in her life. She and Jacob discuss Ted, who met Rose in Spain in 1942, after his plane was shot down. Rose believed that Jacob was dead, so she married Ted and returned to the United States with him, in part so that Josephine could be a US citizen. She changed the date on Josephine’s birth certificate so that no one would question that Ted was the father, because he could not have children due to his injuries. Rose promised Ted that she would not tell Josephine the truth. Jacob suspects that Ted might have known he was alive when he came to Paris in 1949, but lied to Rose because he, Ted, wanted to preserve the family they had built. Jacob says that Hope and Annie are his legacy, and Hope can honor where she came from by following her heart. The next morning, Hope finds that Jacob has passed away. They bury him next to Mamie so that he can be beside his love.

Hope turns down Gavin’s invitation to a date, insisting that a relationship between them could never work out. She worries about losing the bakery. She, Annie, and Alain celebrate Hanukkah before Alain returns to Paris. He tries to tell Hope to believe in love, but Hope feels that her heart is frozen solid. On December 30, Hope gets a call from the lawyer handling Mamie’s will. She learns that Jacob left Hope his estate of over $3 million, and Mamie has left Hope enough money to buy the bakery outright. The lawyer tells Hope that she was the center of her mother’s life, whether she felt it or not. It was only at the end of her life that Josephine realized how much she loved Hope. Hope goes home to read Mamie’s letter.

Rose’s letter shares the truth of her history, describing her love for Jacob. Rose admits that she married Ted to make sure that Josephine would be safe, and she never told him she’d been married to Jacob. She fears that the legacy she leaves will be that of a cold heart, and she advises Hope to find love.

Hope, weeping from the letter, looks up at the stars. She sees two of them crossing the sky together and believes that it is Jacob and Mamie. She calls Gavin and invites him over, wishing him a happy new year, and they kiss.