Free The Sweetness of Forgetting by Kristin Harmel

even longer than our family bakery. People drive from miles away and wait in forty-five-minute lines during the summer for takeout lobster rolls, but fortunately, at five o’clock on a Thursday during the off-season, we’re the only ones here. Annie and I listen in disbelief as Mamie, who orders a grilled cheese—she has never liked lobster—tells us a completely lucid story about the first time she and my grandfather took my mother here, when my mother was a little girl, and Josephine asked why lobsters would be silly enough to swim up to Joe’s if they knew they might be made into sandwiches.
    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