The Hours Count (14 page)

Julie pushed his spectacles up his nose but didn’t respond to Ed’s fear. “I should check on Ethel and the boys,” he finally said, and he walked toward the back bedroom.

“You think too much,” David said to Ed, and Ed laughed again and drank some more wine.

“Don’t mind David,” Ruth said to me as I handed her a stack of plates to put out on the table, but I was still thinking about what Ed said, about his concern about America having too much power. I’d never thought of it that way before. “He was stationed at Los Alamos when he was in the army,” Ruth was saying.

“Los Alamos?”
I raised my eyebrows and turned my attention to her.

“Everything was top secret, of course. He couldn’t even tell me
what he was doing when he was there. But he was just a machinist; he didn’t know anything about anything anyway.” She lowered her voice. “They didn’t treat him very well—the army, I mean. Denying his leave and such. Not appreciating his skills.” I tried to digest what she’d just told me, that David had been stationed at Los Alamos. I glanced back at him, sitting there on my couch, laughing at something Ed had just said to him. With his pudgy face, curly hair, and easy demeanor, he did not strike me as a man who’d worked near the bomb even in a low-level way. “Of course Julie doesn’t appreciate his skills either,” Ruth added.

“I’m sure he does,” I said brightly. “Julie just said how much he needed David there to supervise.”

“Yeah, because he can’t find anyone else to work for pennies other than his family and . . .” Her voice caught and her cheeks turned a little red.

“And Ed?” I said.

“Yes.” She laughed a little. “I can’t figure him out, your husband. Why he stays and works at Pitt even when Julie can’t always afford to pay them their salaries.”

That was news to me. I just assumed Ed always got paid since he always gave me my weekly allowance for food and such. “Ed and Julie are friends,” I finally said. “My husband is a loyal man.” For a second, I felt something close to pride for Ed and it startled me.

“
HOW DID IT GO
?” Jake asked me on Tuesday after he finished therapy with David and David had lined up all his red blocks. Jake offered David lunch again. And me, too.

“But don’t you have another appointment?” I asked him, remembering the way he’d nearly thrown us out last week.

All he said was “Not today.”

He invited me to join him in the kitchen and I followed him there. I watched him pull out bread and cheese from the icebox and I offered to help. He handed me the cheese, and we assembled the sandwiches together, quickly but clumsily, our elbows bumping into each other as we were not used to this shared job, this shared space. “Sorry.” I laughed nervously as my elbow bumped him again.

But he pretended not to notice and he carried our lunches back into the other room, setting David’s down in front of him first and then bringing ours to the chairs.

It was only then that I answered him about the dinner. “It went well,” I said. “I mean, it mostly did. Ethel and Julie and the boys left early because Ethel’s back was giving her trouble. But David and Ruth Greenglass stayed for a while, and Ruth is very kind. So is David.”

“So you got to know Ed’s friends a little?” Jake asked as he finished off his sandwich. “You feel better about them now?”

“Julie and Ed seemed to be getting along quite well. Julie and David seemed to be in a little bit of a row.” But then I thought about it. “Maybe not Julie and David, but Ruth and Julie. She was mad about David’s hours at work. She wanted time for him to go back to school.”

“And that was all you talked about? Work?” Jake asked.

“Well, yes, mostly. At dinner we talked about the kids and the weather and the Dodgers, you know?” Jake pulled his watch from his pocket, and I felt I was boring him. I tried to think of something
to impress him, to let him see how hard I’d tried with Ed’s friends. “Oh, I did learn that David Greenglass was at Los Alamos.” Jake leaned in closer, and I thought that maybe I shouldn’t have repeated this to him even though he’d promised nothing I said ever left this room. But he was leaning in so close now and I could smell the warmth of his pipe smoke, see the shadow of stubble on his chin. I wanted to tell him more, wanted to keep him here like this, so near to me.

So I kept talking. “He was stationed there when he was in the army. He was just a machinist. Ruth said he didn’t know anything about anything that went on there for real. And I guess he didn’t enjoy the army all that much.”

Jake nodded, and then he leaned back against his chair. He glanced at his pocket watch, and I felt the sharp sense of disappointment that our appointment was coming to an end. “I’m glad you had the dinner, Millie,” he said as he closed the lid to his watch and put it back in his pocket. “Was Ed pleased?”

“Yes,” I said, thinking of the easy way Ed had acted with both David and Julie, drinking wine on our couch. “I think he was pleased.”

“That’s good,” Jake said. “And you are making more connections, Millie.”

But I looked at Jake, at the distance between us now, and suddenly I felt more alone than ever.

THAT WINTER
, on the days we weren’t with Jake, we spent a lot of afternoons with Ethel and her boys. We alternated apartments and
toys, hoping to switch things up just as the boys began to feel the brunt of being cooped up through the long cold months.

In Ethel’s apartment there was the added gift of the piano, which one snowy afternoon in February I heard Ethel play for the first time.

“The first time I ever met Julie, I was singing this,” she said. “‘Ciribiribin.’ It’s an Italian love song.”

She began singing, her voice so beautiful and high and clear, the Italian words falling like confection from her lips.

“Join in,” she called to me, laughing, her cheeks flushed, her eyes wide with excitement. As she sang, her entire face seemed to glow with a happiness I’d never seen from her at any other time. “Come on.” She laughed. “Sing with me.” I shook my head and grinned. I didn’t know the song. And, even if I did, my off-key voice would’ve ruined it. But I loved seeing her happy.

When Ethel was singing, all three boys stopped what they were doing, stood still, and listened. The entire world seemed to stand still. It felt like a kind of magic. Her voice was the most beautiful thing I’d ever heard, and when she finished the song, I realized I was crying.

The morning of Barnet Greenglass’s funeral, in March, I was supposed to take David to Jake’s apartment for our biweekly appointment. But Ethel knocked on my door first thing. She was swathed in black from head to toe, a large, dramatic black hat shadowing her face, so it was hard to tell if she’d been crying already or not. I guessed that was the point.

“Ethel.” I reached across the doorway and gave her a hug. “I’m so sorry for your loss.” I’d ridden up in the elevator with Julie two days earlier as David and I were on our way home from the playground. When I’d asked him what found him home from work in the middle of the day, he’d told me about Ethel’s father and about how he was gathering money to pay for the funeral. Ethel had been in bed since learning the news, and I hadn’t been able to express my condolences until now.

“Thanks, Millie,” she said, pulling back from the hug and straightening her hat. “Would you do me a favor? Would you mind watching the children this morning while Julie and I go to the
funeral? Just for a little while.” Her voice sounded hoarse, and I supposed that she had been crying.

“Of course,” I said, though I felt disappointed at the thought of not walking over to Waterman’s Grocery this morning, climbing up the twisty stairs to Jake’s apartment. His barren living room, his kind eyes, his pipe smoke, had become familiar and quite welcome comforts in the bleakness of these winter days. I couldn’t tell Ethel that now, though. Instead, I heard myself saying, “Take all the time you need. I’m happy to help.” I couldn’t have imagined bringing David to my father’s funeral, but of course I wasn’t even yet married to Ed at the time. And there would be no way I would want or be able to bring David to the funeral if it had happened now.

It had been two months since that last afternoon I’d watched John at my apartment, and as soon as Ethel left to go back to her apartment to collect the boys I began to dread the thought of another long day with him. After seeing Ed and Julie interact for myself, I felt John was wrong, that they weren’t really angry with each other. But still, I hoped John wouldn’t bring it up again once we were alone.

Ethel returned to my apartment after a few minutes with John clinging to her dress and a tired-looking Richie yawning in her arms.

I took Richie from her and I was surprised by the sweet and gentle way he clung to my neck. He was the opposite of John in every way: easy, calm, trusting. Ethel leaned down and whispered something to John, who stared uneasily at me. “David has a new set of cars,” I said, motioning my head behind me to where David sat by the window, lining them up in rows along the floorboards. John glanced around me, then slowly walked past me into the apartment.
I wouldn’t mention, of course, that Jake gave David the cars last week: red, yellow, and blue.
Communication cars,
Jake called them. If John or Ethel asked, I would say they were a gift from Susan, as I had told Ed. But neither one of them did. Why would they?

“Thank you,” Ethel said, peering past me to make sure John seemed to be okay.

“They’ll be fine,” I told her.

Julie walked down the hallway and stood behind her. “Come on, Eth,” he said, putting his hands gently on her shoulders. “We’ve got to leave or we’ll be late.” Julie kissed her shoulder, and her body seemed to relax a little, to fall into him, as if his closeness eased her pain.

“Go,” I said. “We’ll see you later.”

Ethel blew a kiss past me at John. But John was already absorbed in the cars and didn’t seem to notice.

I SHOULD
’
VE TELEPHONED
Jake to let him know we weren’t coming. Our appointments had been so regular for months now. I felt they were like my days at the factory: I went when scheduled, there was never a question of
not
going. The past few weeks since my dinner party, Jake said he didn’t have an appointment right after us, and David and I continued staying for lunch.

On Tuesday, I’d moved around Jake’s tiny kitchen and fixed us all sandwiches, pulling ingredients out of what appeared a freshly stocked icebox, as if Jake had run down to Waterman’s just before we came in the hope that we might stay and eat with him again.
Had he?
I’d wondered. But I didn’t ask. Because if I’d asked, if he’d said he had, it might’ve seemed we were doing something wrong, that we had somehow planned a meal together, the three of us. And
I didn’t want to ruin it. I had come to enjoy our lunches, the way Jake and I would talk as we ate.

On Tuesday, after the sandwiches were finished, an exhausted David fell asleep on the floor, clutching his cars, and Jake and I sat in his chairs and enjoyed a smoke before David and I left.

“Are you liking life in New York?” I asked him casually, realizing I had never asked him about himself before. But, then, therapy was finished, we had just eaten lunch together, and suddenly it seemed I had the right.

“I am. But everything moves quite quickly here, doesn’t it?” He laughed a little.

“I guess so. It’s all I know,” I said. “I’ve lived here my whole life.”

“I grew up on a farm, in Maryland, and sometimes I do miss the country air. And the quiet.”

“A farm,” I’d mused, not picturing Jake at all as the farmer type.

He’d smiled. “I don’t know why I’m telling you this. I haven’t talked about the farm in years.”

But I wanted to hear more. “Do you ever get back there?”

“Not there, no. My parents died a while back, and then my brother and I sold it.”

“Oh,” I’d said, processing all the new tidbits about him. His parents were dead. He had a brother. “I’m sorry.” I’d wanted to know more, but then David had stirred and I’d realized it was getting late, that I had to get home before Ed did.

I’d been so looking forward to going back today and maybe learning more about him. But once all three children were in the apartment and Richie was mobile, running through the cars, while the two older boys played, I had no time to think about anything but keeping the three of them out of trouble.

It wasn’t until I got David and Richie settled for naps, and John settled with his ear to the radio, that I heard a knock at the door and I remembered Jake
. Jake.
And still when I opened the door and saw Jake standing there in the hallway, his hands resting uneasily in his jacket pockets, I was surprised to see him. Here.

“You didn’t show up,” he said, his voice sounding more taut than usual. He was angry.

“I’m so sorry.” I quickly stepped out into the hallway and shut the door behind me. “Ethel’s father died and they needed me to watch the children and . . .”

Jake nodded and put his hands on my shoulders. It reminded me of the way Julie had reached for Ethel right here in the hallway a few hours earlier. I felt my own body wanting to lean in closer to him, and I did just a bit. “I was worried that something had happened to you,” he said.

Jake’s hands felt so warm against my shoulders, and I knew I should step back, shake myself out of his grasp. But I didn’t. Instead, I moved even closer.
He was worried about us?
I felt something I wasn’t used to, a warmth spreading up my shoulders, across my neck, up to my cheeks, until I realized I was blushing. I leaned in a little closer and stood on my toes so that our faces were nearly touching. “I’m sorry,” I said again, this time in a whisper into his ear. “But we’re perfectly fine. Really.”

The door opened behind me. Jake dropped his hands to his sides and I jumped back. “Millie,” John’s small but insistent voice said. “What are you doing? You’re supposed to be watching us.”

“Mrs. Stein,”
I corrected him, hoping he wouldn’t notice and comment on my bright red cheeks and now trembling hands. “Go back into the apartment. I’ll be inside in a moment, darling.”

John ignored my instructions and stepped into the hallway. “Why are you out here with a strange man? Who are you?” He stared at Jake with disdain the way Ed might if he were to step off the elevator at just this very moment, which he wouldn’t, of course, in the middle of the day. Still, I glanced down the hallway uneasily, waiting for the elevator doors to open. When, after a few seconds, they didn’t, I exhaled and turned my attention back to John. “This is not a strange man,” I heard myself saying. “It’s quite all right, John. I know him . . . Your parents know him, too.”

John frowned as if he didn’t believe me. “Go on ahead, darling. I’ll be inside in a moment. I promise.”

John turned and reluctantly went back in, but he didn’t shut the door all the way, and I could hear his little lungs breathing in and out, seething with suspicion. Or maybe just curiosity.

Jake stared at me, his bright brown eyes catching in the dim light of the hallway. It seemed he had more to say, but he wouldn’t say any of it with John listening. “Well, I’ll see you next week,” I finally said, and I had the thought that maybe he would tell us to come tomorrow instead, that we could make up for our missed appointment then. But he simply adjusted his hat and walked back toward the elevator, and I felt disappointed that I would have to wait five more days until we saw him again.

I turned and went back in my apartment. John stood there by the door, just staring at me, not saying anything at all.

ON TUESDAY
, I felt nervous walking up the steps to Jake’s apartment in a way I hadn’t felt coming here before. Usually the walk with David was easy. I’d feel an anticipatory excitement, walking up
the stairs and knocking on Jake’s door. But this morning, something felt different, and I kept thinking of the way Jake had looked at me, the way he’d reached for me, in my hallway last week.

But he opened up the door and smiled and welcomed us in as if everything were exactly the way we’d left it a week earlier when we were last here. He made no mention of our missed appointment and neither did I. I sat in one of the armchairs and watched Jake work on the floor with David, speaking in the hushed and even tones that he always seemed to respond to. Until at last David presented all of his red blocks, announcing that it was time for lunch.

Jake looked up at me as if remembering now that I was still here. His eyes locked on mine.

“I could take him home and feed him?” I left a question in my voice, hoping desperately that he would tell me not to as he had last week and the week before that and the week before that. I wasn’t ready to leave now.

“I have food,” Jake said, not taking his gaze away from mine. “I mean, if you have the time today to stay again.”

“We do,” I said quickly, and I stood and walked toward the kitchen the way I’d done last week. It felt familiar now, felt almost like something that belonged, in part, to me. I knew where Jake kept his plates and his glasses and where things belonged in his icebox.

Jake followed me into the kitchen and stood close behind me as I fixed three sandwiches. I could feel the imprint of him at my back, a shadow, and when I turned to hand him the plates, I stepped on his foot. “Sorry,” I said quickly, but he smiled.

He gave a sandwich to David, and then Jake and I sat down in the chairs and ate in silence. “You do this with all your patients?” I heard myself asking after a few moments. “Lunch, I mean?”

Jake opened his mouth a little as if to speak, but then he finished off his sandwich and put the plate down on the end table. “Every case is different,” he finally said.