We get to the beach just as the edges of the sky are beginning to burn. The sun hangs low on the western horizon above the bay, and the wispy clouds in the sky promise a beautiful sunset. Arms linked, the three of us make our way slowly down the beach, Annie on Mamie’s left side, and me on her right with a folding chair tucked under my arm.
“You okay, Mamie?” Annie asks gently, once we’re about halfway down the beach. “We can stop and rest for a bit, if you want.”
My heart lurches as I glance at my daughter. She’s staring at Mamie with a look of concern and love so deep that I realize, suddenly, that whatever’s going on with her now is truly just a phase. This is the Annie I know and love. It means I haven’t screwed up entirely. It means my daughter is still the same decent person she’s always been underneath, even if she hates me for the time being.
“I am fine, dear,” Mamie replies. “I want to be up on the rocks by the time the sun goes down.”
“Why?” Annie asks softly after a pause.
Mamie is silent for so long that I begin to think she didn’t hear Annie’s question. But then, finally, she replies, “I want to remember this day, this sunset, this time with you girls. I know I do not have many days like this left.”
Annie glances at me in concern. “Sure you do, Mamie,” she says.
My grandmother squeezes my arm, and I smile gently at her. I know what she’s saying, and it breaks my heart that she’s aware of it.
She turns to Annie. “Thank you for your faith,” she says. “But sometimes, God has another plan.”
Annie looks wounded by the words. She looks away, staring off into the distance. I know that the truth is finally beginning to sink in for her, and it makes my heart hurt.
We finally reach the rocks, and I set up the chair I’d grabbed from the trunk of the car. I help Annie lower Mamie into it. “Sit with me, girls,” she says, and Annie and I quickly settle down on the rocks on either side of her.
We stare in silence toward the horizon as the sun melts into the bay, painting the sky orange, then pink, purple, and indigo as it disappears.
“There it is,” Mamie says softly, and she points just above the horizon, where a star twinkles faintly through the fading twilight. “The evening star.”
I’m reminded suddenly of the fairy tales she used to tell me about a prince and a princess in a faraway land, the ones where the prince had to go fight the bad knights, and he promised the princess he’d come find her one day, because their love would never die. So I’m surprised when it’s Annie who murmurs, “ ‘As long as there are stars in the sky, I will love you.’ That’s what the prince in your stories always said.”
When Mamie looks at her, there are tears in her eyes. “That’s right,” she says.
She reaches into the pocket of her coat and withdraws the Star Pie she asked me to bring from the bakery. It’s smooshed now, and the star-shaped lattice crust on top is crumbling. Annie and I exchange looks.
“You brought the pie with you?” I ask. My heart sinks; I’d thought she was entirely lucid.
“Yes, dear,” she replies quite clearly. She stares down at the pie for a moment as the light continues to fade from the sky. I’m just about to suggest we start heading back before it gets too dark out when she says, “You know, my mother taught me to make these pies.”
“I didn’t know that,” I say.
She nods. “My mother and father had a bakery. Very near the Seine, the river that runs through Paris. I worked there as a girl, just like you do now, Annie. Just like you did when you were a girl, Hope.”
“You’ve never told us about your parents before,” I say.
“There are a lot of things I have never told you,” she says. “I thought I was protecting you, protecting myself. But I am losing my memories now, and I fear that if I do not tell you these things, they will be gone forever, and the damage I have done will not be reversed. It is time you know the truth.”
“What are you talking about, Mamie?” Annie asks, and I can hear worry in her voice. She looks at me, and I know she’s thinking the same thing I am. Mamie’s mind must be clouding over again.
Before I can say anything, Mamie begins breaking off pieces of the Star Pie and throwing them into the ocean. She’s whispering something under her breath, speaking so softly that I can barely hear her over the roll of the tide into the rocks below.
“Um, what are you doing, Mamie?” I ask as gently as possible, trying to keep the worry from creeping into my voice.