The Sweetness of Forgetting

Rose’s chapter begins with a recipe for overnight meringues. Rose recalls a hot day in July 1980. She could hear Josephine fighting with her latest boyfriend, and she felt that she had failed to teach her daughter how to love. Ted held her, and Rose thought about how she loved him, not with an open heart, but as best she could. She never let Ted in, and her daughter thus learned to push people away. Hope returned from the beach, and Rose went outside to play with her. Rose told Hope a fairy tale about a princess in a new country, still waiting for her prince.

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.