Jacob shakes his head. “It was, she said, one of the greatest regrets of her life. But Ted was a wonderful father, and she felt she must keep the promise she made to him. She had traded one life for another, and she never forgot the bargain she had made. But Rose said she tried to keep me alive for Josephine in other ways.”
“In her fairy tales,” I murmur. “You were there all along in the stories she told my mom and me.” I pause and suddenly remember something Mamie told me. “But my grandfather went to Paris in 1949, didn’t he? To find out what happened to you and my grandmother’s family?”
Jacob takes a deep breath and nods. “That is the one part of the story your grandmother could not explain,” he says. “And I did not have the heart to tell her that Ted may have known all along. I was listed in the records then. I had not yet moved to the United States. Not until 1952. I was doing everything in my power to make sure I would be found, because I did not believe that Rose had perished. I believed she survived and that we would find each other again.
“I suppose we will never know what happened,” he continues. “But if your grandfather came home and told your grandmother I was dead, I assume he knew he was telling a lie.”
“To protect the life he’d begun with her,” I say, feeling a sudden chill. I lean closer to the fire.
Jacob nods. “Yes. I believe so. But can I blame him? He loved Rose and loved Josephine, who had become his daughter. He had built a good life with them. If Rose had known I had survived, perhaps he would have lost everything. He did what he could to protect his family. And I cannot fault him for that. In fact, I did the same, did I not? I made choices to protect the people I loved most. We all make choices, sacrifices, for what we believe to be the greater good.”
I swallow the lump in my throat. “But if that’s what happened, he prevented you and my grandmother from being together. He kept you apart for seventy years.”
“No, my dear,” Jacob says. “It was the war that kept us apart. The world went mad, and your grandfather was no more responsible for the outcome than I was, or than Rose was. We all made our choices. We all had to live with our regrets.”
“I’m so sorry,” I say. I feel I’m apologizing to Jacob for what my grandfather did, and for the terribly unfair hand he was dealt. But he merely shakes his head.
“Do not be,” he says. “Your grandmother asked me, just before she passed, to forgive her; she felt she had betrayed me by marrying Ted. But I told her there was no need for forgiveness, for she had done nothing wrong. Nothing. She acted as she did because she believed it to be the right thing for our daughter. The important thing is that Rose lived. As did Josephine. As did you and Annie. Regardless of what happened, Rose saved the child we had created together, the greatest declaration of our love, and gave her the life we had always dreamed of, a life of freedom.”
“But you spent your life waiting for her,” I say.
He smiles. “And now I have found her. I am at peace.” He reaches for my hands again and looks into my eyes for a long time. “You are our legacy. You and Annie. You must honor where you came from, now that you know.”
“But how?”
“By following your heart,” Jacob says. “Life gets complicated. Circumstance tears us apart. Decisions guide our fate. But your heart will always show you true north. Your grandmother, she knew this always.”
I hang my head. “But how do I know what I’m supposed to do?” I don’t know how to explain that my heart has never led me into anything more than trouble.
“You will know,” Jacob says. “Just listen. The answers lie inside you.”
The next morning, as I’m getting ready to leave for the bakery, I come into the living room to find Jacob staring out the window, just where I’d left him the night before. I wonder whether he’s looking at the stars, the way Mamie always did.
“Hey, Jacob,” I say as I grab my keys from the kitchen table. “I’m headed out. If you feel like it, come by the bakery later. I’ll bake you a Star Pie.”
When he doesn’t respond, I go over to the chair and kneel beside him. “Jacob?”
His eyes are closed, and there’s a small, peaceful smile on his face, as if he’s in the midst of a dream he doesn’t wish to leave. I wonder whether he’s thinking about my grandmother.
“Jacob?” I say again. I touch his arm lightly, and that’s when I know. “Jacob,” I murmur softly, tears beginning to run down my face. His arm is cold, and so too is his cheek, when I reach up to touch it gently. He’s gone. And somehow, I’m not surprised at all. He has spent a lifetime trying to find Mamie. And now he has eternity to make up for all those lost years.