“I am sorry,” he says. “This is difficult.”
“I know,” I say. I reach for his hand, and together, Annie, Alain, and I walk out of the room, leaving Mamie behind in the darkness.
Gavin and I part at the doorway to the hospital. He has to work at seven the next morning, and I have to open the bakery. Life has to go on. Annie takes my keys from me, and she and Alain go wait in the car.
“I don’t know how to thank you,” I tell Gavin, looking down at my feet.
“I didn’t do anything,” he says. I look up in time to see him shrug. He smiles at me. “I’m really glad you found Alain.”
“I found him because of you,” I say softly. “And Annie was okay while I was gone because of you.”
He shrugs again. “Nah. I just did what anyone would do.” He pauses and adds, “Maybe this is out of line, but that ex-husband of yours is a real piece of work.”
I swallow hard. “Why do you say that?”
He shakes his head. “He barely seemed concerned about Annie, you know? She was so upset about your grandmother. She really needed someone.”
“And you were there for her,” I say. “I don’t even know what to say.”
“Yeah, well, say you’ll spot me a cup of coffee on my way to the porch repair job I’m doing at Joe Sullivan’s place tomorrow,” he says. “And we’ll be even.”
I laugh at this. “Yeah, sure, a cup of coffee is definitely equal to taking care of my daughter and helping reunite my family.”
Gavin looks at me for a long time, so intently that my heart starts thudding. “I did those things because I wanted to help,” he says.
“Why?” I ask, realizing before I can stop myself that I sound rude and ungrateful.
He stares at me again and shrugs. “Stop selling yourself short, Hope,” he says. And with that, he’s gone. I watch him get into his old Wrangler and wave to Annie as he pulls out of the parking lot.
“Mom, we have to find Jacob Levy,” Annie announces the next morning when she and Alain show up at the bakery together, arms linked. Concerned that he was overexerting himself, I’d suggested that Alain sleep in, but he and Annie have been inseparable since meeting at the hospital the night before, so I should have suspected that she’d bring him to the bakery with her. “Alain told me all about him,” she adds proudly.
“Annie, honey,” I say, glancing at Alain, who is rolling up his sleeves and glancing around the kitchen, “we don’t even know if Jacob is still alive.”
“But what if he is, Mom?” Annie asks, her voice taking on a desperate edge. “What if he’s out there somewhere and he’s been looking for Mamie all these years? What if he could come here, and that would make her wake up?”
“Sweetheart, that’s unlikely.”
Annie glowers at me. “C’mon, Mom! Don’t you believe in love?”
I sigh. “I believe in chocolate,” I say, nodding to the pains au chocolat waiting to go into the oven, “and I believe that if I don’t pick up the pace here, we’re not going to be ready to open at six.”
“Whatever,” Annie grumbles. She puts on a pair of pot holders and slides the chocolate croissants into the oven. She sets the timer and then turns around to roll her eyes at Alain. “See? I told you she’s mean in the morning.”
Alain chuckles. “I do not think your mother is being unkind, my dear,” he says. “I think she’s trying to be realistic. And also perhaps to change the subject.”
“Why are you changing the subject, Mom?” Annie demands, putting her hands on her hips.
“Because I don’t want you to get your hopes up,” I tell her. “There’s a huge chance Jacob Levy isn’t even alive. And even if he is, there’s no guarantee we’ll find him.”
There’s also no guarantee that he has waited around for my grandmother all these years. I don’t want to tell Annie that even if we do somehow miraculously locate him, he’ll probably be married to wife number four or something. He most likely moved on from Mamie seventy years ago. That’s what men do. Besides, it appears my grandmother wasted no time in moving on from him.
Alain is looking closely at me, and I avert my gaze, because I have the uneasy feeling he can read exactly what I’m thinking. “Can I help you with anything, Hope?” he asks after a pause. “I used to work in my grandparents’ bakery when I was a boy.”