She carefully wrote out the address of Thom Evans, the attorney who’d drawn up her will, and she asked one of the nurses to please stamp and post the letter. Then she sat down and wrote out a list, forming each name carefully and clearly in big block writing, despite her shaking hands.
Later that day, as she drove to the beach with Hope and Annie, she checked the pocket of her skirt three times, just to make sure the list was still there. It was everything to her, and soon, Hope would know the truth too. It was impossible to hold back the tide any longer. In fact, Rose was no longer sure she wanted to. Being a one-woman dam against a surging flood was exhausting.
Now, as she stood on the piled rocks, her granddaughter on one side and her great-granddaughter on the other, in the fading heure bleue, she looked up at the sky and breathed in and out, in tune with the ocean, as she held the Star Pie in her hands. She threw the first piece into the water and recited the words so softly that she couldn’t hear them herself over the rhythmic rushing of the waves.
“I am sorry for leaving,” she whispered into the wind.
“I am sorry for the decisions I have made.” A piece of the crust landed on an incoming wave.
“I am sorry for the people I have hurt.” The wind carried her words away.
As she threw piece after piece of the pie into the ocean, she glanced at Hope and Annie, both of whom were staring at her in confusion. She felt a pang of guilt for scaring them, but they would understand soon enough. It was time.
She looked back to the sky and spoke to God softly, using words she hadn’t said aloud in sixty years. She did not expect forgiveness. She knew she didn’t deserve it. But she wanted God to know that she was sorry.
No one knew the truth. No one but God, and of course Ted, who had died twenty-five years earlier. He’d been a good man, a kind man, Papa to her Josephine and Grandpa to her Hope. He’d shown them love, and she would be forever grateful for that, because she had not known how. Still, she wondered whether he would have loved her the way he did if he’d known the whole truth. He’d guessed at it, she knew, but to tell him, to say it aloud, would have been to crush his soul.
Rose took a deep breath and looked into the eyes of Hope, the granddaughter she knew she’d failed. Hope’s mother, Josephine, had suffered from Rose’s mistakes, and so too had Hope. Even now, Rose could see it in her granddaughter’s eyes and in the way she lived her life. Then, she looked to Annie, the one who brought all the memories rushing back in. She hoped for a better future for her. “I need you to do something for me,” Rose said at long last, turning to her granddaughter.
“What do you need?” Hope asked softly. “I’ll do whatever you want.”
Hope didn’t know what she was agreeing to, but Rose had no choice.
“I need you to go to Paris,” Rose said calmly.
Hope’s eyes widened. “Paris?”
“Paris,” Rose repeated firmly. Before Hope could ask any questions, she went on. “I must know what happened to my family.” Rose reached into her pocket and withdrew the list, the one that felt like it was on fire, along with a check she’d carefully made out for a thousand dollars. Enough for a plane ticket to France. Her palm burned as Hope took them from her. “I must know,” Rose repeated softly. The waves crashed against the dam of her memories, and she braced herself for the flood.
“Your . . . family?” Hope asked tentatively.
Rose nodded, and Hope unfolded the slip of paper. Her eyes quickly scanned the seven names.
Seven names, Rose thought. She looked upward, to where the stars of the Big Dipper were beginning to appear. Seven stars in the sky. “I must know what happened,” she told her granddaughter. “And so, now, must you.”
“What’s going on?” Annie interrupted. She looked scared, and Rose longed to comfort her, but she knew she was no better at comfort than she was at truth. She never had been. Besides, Annie was twelve. Old enough to know. Just two years younger than Rose had been when the war began.
“Who are these people?” Hope asked, looking down at the list again.
“They are my family,” Rose said. “Your family.” She closed her eyes for a moment and traced their names on her own heart, which, astoundingly, had gone on beating for all these years.
Albert Picard. b. 1897
Cecile Picard. b. 1901
Helene Picard. b. 1924
Claude Picard. b. 1929
Alain Picard. b. 1931
David Picard. b. 1934
Danielle Picard. b. 1937
When Rose opened her eyes, Hope and Annie were staring at her. She took a deep breath. “Your grandfather went to Paris in 1949,” she began. Her voice was strained, for the words were hard to say aloud, even now, even so many years later. Rose closed her eyes again and remembered Ted’s face the day he came home. He’d been unable to meet her eye. He’d spoken slowly as he delivered the news of the people she’d loved more than anything in the world.