The Hours Count by Jillian Cantor

moment,” I said. “I just want to make sure he’ll be okay in here.”
    Ethel nodded and walked back out toward the front room. The apartment was tiny enough that I could hear all the loud voices of the men still talking about Truman and Wallace and the sounds coming from John’s phonograph. One of the men asked him to turn it down, but then it seemed he turned it up in response.
    Frank Sinatra seemed to be shouting, his voice at odds with the voices of the gravelly sounding men in Ethel’s living room. David’seyes were closed, but he stirred a little on the bed, restless, and I stared at him hard, willing him to settle himself so that I might have some time alone in the company of adults. After a few moments, he was motionless, and he looked peaceful and perfect, lying there in the darkness, just like any other three-year-old boy, like a boy you would expect to open his eyes and call for you, and sometimes I thought maybe David would. That the words would just come to him one day magically, seemingly out of nowhere.
    I heard footsteps behind me. “I’m coming, Ethel,” I said softly so as not to wake David.
    “Oh, I’m sorry,” an unfamiliar man’s voice answered and I jumped and turned around. I could make out only his shadow in the darkness of the bedroom, but I could see he was tall, with a thin frame. “I was looking for the bathroom,” he said.
    “I’ll show you,” I told him.
    I touched David’s soft cheek one last time, listening for the sound of his even breathing, and then I walked into the light. Outside the bedroom, I adjusted my eyes to see if I recognized the man. But I supposed he had blended in with all the others I didn’t know when I’d walked in, and I looked at him now for the first time. He had pale skin, with dark brown, curly hair, and dark brown eyes to match. “I don’t think we’ve met,” I said.
    He smiled at me and his eyes softened. “I’m Jacob Gold.”
    “Nice to meet you, Mr. Gold,” I said.
    “Actually, it’s
Dr.
Gold,” he said, and I immediately thought he seemed much too young to be a doctor, and nothing at all like the stodgy Dr. Greenberg, who I had not been back to since he’d suggested that maybe David would be better off somewhere else, not with me. “But you can just call me Jake,” he added.
    “I’m Millie Stein,” I told him.
    “Ed’s wife?” he asked, and I nodded, realizing that that was how I’d be defined here among Ed’s friends. “Nice to meet you, Mrs. Stein.” He held out his hand to shake.
    “Please,” I told him, “call me Millie.” I took his hand and it was solid, his grip firm, wrapped around mine. He smiled and let go of my hand.
    “Oh, there you are.” Ethel grabbed my arm, and I turned around to find her pulling me back toward the front room. “I’ve finally gotten John to lie down, too. He was exhausted. He fell asleep on the couch in the middle of everything.” She laughed. “But you and I are free for a while. Let’s have fun, shall we?”
    I noticed the absence of the shouting phonograph, and the room felt calmer now—the men spoke in lower tones as if they were afraid to wake a sleeping John. Some nights I could hear the phonograph in my apartment. John was playing it so loud, so late, and more than once Ed threatened to go complain, though we both knew he wouldn’t. Julius had been Ed’s friend first, but now he was also his boss, and though Ed said he was not making as much money as he was before, he didn’t complain, not about the job anyway. Only about what he called my
frivolous spending
when I asked him for money for clothes and shoes for a quickly growing David. “Where does he go?” Ed asked, disgusted. “What should he need new things for?”
    I noticed Ethel was humming now as she held on to my arm. She appeared lighter without her children—happy, even. She grabbed a bright red hat from the hook on the wall and fashioned it atop her curls. “It’s like I can pretend I’m young