Fifty years, she thought, looking at her reflection. It was her birthday that day, but no one knew that. The visa she’d come to America with, the identity that didn’t belong to her, said that she’d been born two months later, in July. July 16, in fact, an irony she would never forget, for that was the day her family had been taken away. She knew that on July 16, Ted and Josephine would have a cake for her, and a nice dinner, and they would sing “Happy Birthday,” and she would smile and play her part well. But today, today was just for her. It was the day Rose Picard had been born. But Rose Picard had died in 1942.
Rose did not like birthdays. How could she? Each one took her farther from the past, farther from the life she led before the world ended. And for the last few years, she had been consumed with sadness at the realization that she was growing older than any of her family ever had. Papa had been forty-five when he was taken away. Even if he’d lived another two years at Auschwitz, which she knew was unlikely, he hadn’t made it past forty-seven. Maman had been just forty-one in 1942, the last time Rose had seen her. Rose’s mother had seemed so old to her then, but now, forty-one seemed youthful. She’d never thought of her mother being ripped away in the prime of her youth, but she had been. Rose knew that now.
And now Rose herself was fifty. She’d lived longer than her parents and spent almost twice as long in the United States as she had in France. Seventeen years in her native land. Thirty-three in her adopted home. But she had stopped living long ago. The rest had been like a dream, and she had walked through it in a trance, simply going through the motions.
She dressed that morning and walked to the bakery, noting that spring had arrived early. The trees were green, and the flowers around the Cape were just beginning to bloom. The sky was a clear, pale blue, the kind of sky that led to beautiful days, and Rose knew that soon, the tourists would be descending, and the bakery would be doing a strong business. These were things that were supposed to make her happy.
She stopped outside the bakery for a moment and looked through the pane at her daughter, who was busy sliding a tray of miniature Star Pies into the display case. Her daughter’s hair was thick and dark, like her father’s, and her belly was round and full, as Rose’s had once been so long ago. In a month, Josephine would be a mother too. She would come to understand that one’s child was the most important thing in the world, that one must protect that child at all costs.
Rose had never been able to bring herself to tell her daughter what had happened. Josephine knew only that her mother had left Paris after her parents died, married Ted, and eventually settled here in Cape Cod. A thousand times, Rose had wanted to tell her the truth, but then she’d pause and look around at the life she had here—her bakery, her beautiful home, and most of all, her devoted husband, who’d been a wonderful father to Josephine. And every time, she’d stop before she ruined everything. She felt as if she were living in a beautiful painting, and that she was the only one who knew it was merely a paper-thin world of brushstrokes and dreams.
And so she’d told Josephine fairy tales throughout her childhood, tales of kingdoms and princes and queens that were meant to keep the past alive, even if Rose was the only one who knew it. She imagined she’d tell Josephine’s child the stories too, and this would bring Rose comfort, for it was her way of living in her past without destroying the present. Let them believe that the fairy tales were the fiction, and that everything else was real. It was better that way.
Rose was just about to enter the bakery when suddenly, she saw her daughter double over, clutching her midsection, her beautiful face, so like her father’s, suddenly twisted in pain. Rose immediately burst through the front door.
“Darling, what is it?” she asked, flying across the room, crossing behind the counter and putting her hands on her daughter’s shoulders.
Josephine moaned. “Mom, it’s the baby. The baby’s coming.”
Rose’s eyes widened in panic. “But it is too soon.” Josephine’s due date wasn’t for another month and three days.
Josephine doubled over in pain again. “I don’t think the baby knows that. It’s coming now, Mom.”
Rose felt a familiar sick panic rising inside her. What if something happened to the baby? “I will call your father,” Rose said. “He will come.” Rose knew she needed to get her daughter to the hospital, but she had never learned to drive; there was no need. She lived just a few blocks from the bakery, and she rarely needed to go anywhere else.