4. Fill muffin cups about halfway. Bake for 15–20 minutes, or just until a knife inserted through the top of a cupcake comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes in pan, then move to wire rack to cool completely.
5. Wait until they’ve cooled completely, then frost with pink icing （recipe below）。
PINK ICING
INGREDIENTS
1 cup unsalted butter, slightly softened
4 cups confectioners’ sugar
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 tsp. milk
1–3 drops red food coloring
DIRECTIONS
1. Beat the butter in a medium bowl with an electric mixer until light and fluffy.
2. Gradually add the sugar and beat until well blended.
3. Add the vanilla and milk and continue to beat until well blended.
4. Add one drop of red food coloring and beat well to incorporate. If you’d like the icing to be a deeper pink, add one or two drops more, and beat after each drop to incorporate. Spread on cupcakes, as directed above.
Rose
Rose gazed out the window, searching, as she always did, for the first star on the horizon. She knew it would appear, as twinkling and brilliant as an eternal flame, just after the setting sun painted the sky in ribbons of fire and light. When she was a girl, they’d called this twilight l’heure bleue, the blue hour, the time when the earth was neither completely light nor completely dark. Rose had always found comfort in this middle ground.
The evening star, which appeared each night during the deep velvet twilight, had always been her favorite, although it wasn’t a star at all; it was the planet Venus, the planet named after the goddess of love. She had learned that long ago, but it hadn’t changed anything, not really; here on earth, it was hard to tell what was a star and what wasn’t. For years, she had counted all the stars she could see in the night sky. She was always searching for something, but she hadn’t found it yet. She didn’t deserve to, she knew, and that made her sad. A lot of things made her sad these days. But sometimes, from one day to the next, she couldn’t remember what she was crying for.
Alzheimer’s. She knew she had it. She heard the whispers in the halls. She had watched her neighbors in the home come and go, their memories slipping further with each passing day. She knew that the same thing was happening to her, and it scared her for reasons no one would understand. She dared not speak them aloud. It was too late.
Rose knew that the girl with the glistening brown hair, the familiar features, and the beautifully sad eyes had just told her who she was, but she had already forgotten. A familiar panic rose in her throat. She wished she could grab the memories like lifelines and hold on before she went under. But she found them slippery, impossible to grasp. So she cleared her throat, forced a smile, and hazarded her best guess.
“Josephine, dear, look for the star on the horizon,” she said. She pointed to the empty space where she knew the evening star would make its appearance, any second now. She hoped she had guessed right. She hadn’t seen Josephine in a long time. Or maybe she had. It was impossible to know.
The girl with the sad eyes cleared her throat. “No, Mamie, I’m Hope,” she said. “Josephine isn’t here.”
“Yes, of course, I know that,” Rose said quickly. “I must have misspoken.” She couldn’t let them know, any of them, that she was losing her memory. It was shameful, wasn’t it? It was as if she didn’t care enough to hold on, and that embarrassed her, because nothing could be further from the truth. Perhaps if she pretended a little longer, the clouds would go away, and her memories would return from wherever they’d been hiding.
“It’s okay, Mamie,” said the girl, who looked far too old to be Hope, her only granddaughter, who couldn’t be more than thirteen or fourteen. Yet Rose could see the lines of worry etched around this girl’s eyes, far too many lines for a girl that age. She wondered what was weighing on her. Maybe Hope’s mother would know what was wrong. Maybe then, Rose would be able to help her. She wanted to help Hope. She just didn’t know how.
“Where is your mother?” Rose asked Hope politely. “Is she coming, dear?”
Rose had so many things she wanted to say to Josephine, so many apologies to make. And she feared time was running out. Where would she begin? Would she apologize first for her many failures? For her coldness? For teaching her all the wrong lessons without meaning to? Rose knew she’d had many opportunities to say she was sorry in the past, but the words always caught in her throat. Perhaps it was time to force herself to say them, to make Josephine hear her before it was too late.