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be.” Something lurked at the edges of her memory again. She couldn’t remember the name of Hope’s husband, but she knew she had never liked him much. Had he been unkind to Hope? Or was it just because he always seemed a little too cold, a little too together? “He has been a good father to Annie, has he not?” she added, because she felt she needed to say something good.
    “Sure,” Hope said tightly. “He’s a great father. Buys her anything she wants.”
    “But that is not love,” Rose said tentatively. “Those are just things.”
    “Right, well,” Hope said. She looked suddenly exhausted. Her hair tumbled in front of her face like a sheet, obscuring her expression. In that moment, Rose was sure she saw tears in her granddaughter’s eyes, but when Hope looked up again, her achingly familiar eyes were clear.
    “Have you gone out with other men, then?” Rose asked after a moment. “After the divorce?” She thought of her own situation, and the way that sometimes you had to move on, even if you’d already given your heart away.
    “Of course not.” Hope hung her head and avoided Rose’s gaze. “I don’t want to be like my mother,” she mumbled. “Annie comes first. Not random guys.”
    And then, Rose understood. In a flash, she remembered bits and pieces of her granddaughter’s childhood. She remembered how Josephine had searched endlessly for love in all the wrong places,with all the wrong men, when love was right there, in Hope’s eyes, all along. She remembered countless nights when Josephine left her daughter with Rose so that she could go out. Hope, who was just a little girl then, would cry herself to sleep while Rose held her tight. Rose remembered the tearstains in her blouses, and the way they always made her feel empty and alone long after Hope had fallen asleep. “You are not your mother, my dear,” Rose said gently. Her heart ached, for this—all of this—was her own fault. Who could have known that her decisions would reverberate for generations?
    Hope cleared her throat, looked away, and changed the subject. “So you’re sure you don’t know a Leona?” she asked.
    Rose blinked a few times as the name pierced another hole in her heart. She pressed her lips together and shook her head. Maybe the lie wasn’t as wrong if it wasn’t uttered aloud.
    “Weird,” Hope murmured. “Annie was so sure you’d called her that.”
    “How unusual.” Rose wished she could give the girl the answers she sought, but she wasn’t ready, for to speak the truth would be to open a floodgate. She could feel the water surging up behind the dam, and she knew it would spill over soon. For now, the rivers, the tides, the floodwaters were still hers, and she sailed them alone.
    Hope looked for a moment like she wanted to say something else, but instead, she stood and hugged Rose tightly, promising to return soon. She left without looking back. Rose watched her go, noting that darkness hadn’t entirely fallen yet; Hope hadn’t even stayed for the entire heure bleue. This made Rose sad, although she did not blame the girl. Rose knew that this, like so many other things, was her own fault.
    Some time later, after all the stars were out, Rose’s favorite nurse, a woman whose skin shone like the pain au chocolat Rose used to bring home for her brother David and her sister Danielle so long ago, came to make sure she’d taken her evening doses of medicine.
    “Hi, Rose,” she said, smiling into her eyes as she poured a smallglass of water and opened Rose’s pillbox. “Did you have a visitor tonight?”
    Rose puzzled this over, trying hard to remember. There was a flash of something, glinting in the background of her memory, but then it was gone. She was certain that she’d watched the sunset alone, as she did every night. “No, dear,” Rose told her.
    “Are you sure, Rose?” the nurse prodded. She handed Rose her pills in a Dixie cup and watched as Rose swallowed and washed them down. “Amy at