The Hours Count

by Jillian Cantor

  “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.

  “But you’ve worked with children like David before?” I pushed him.

  “But no one is quite like you, Millie,” he said quietly.

  There was nothing untoward about his words. They could’ve, in fact, been something any therapist could’ve said to any patient, and yet the way he said it, the way his voice tilted a little on my name, it reminded me of the way wind shifts across water and ripples the waves, and I felt a different warmth building inside my stomach than I had ever felt.

  “There is no one quite like you either,” I echoed back.

  ETHEL ENROLLED IN psychoanalysis and began seeing someone named Dr. Miller four days a week, in addition to her and John’s weekly appointments with Mrs. Phillips. Ethel always seemed to have an appointment—she was always riding down the elevator to go somewhere—which left me and David going to the playground mostly without her and the boys on the days we didn’t go to see Jake.

  But I lived for Tuesdays and Thursdays, for the quiet, calm moments David and I spent in Jake’s apartment. As the weeks went on and the weather turned warmer, we spent longer and longer there with Jake. Mornings turned into lunch, turned into afternoons, turned into me realizing the late hour and having to race home to make it back before Ed.

  “Is he kind to you?” Jake asked me one afternoon while David was napping and we were talking. “Ed, I mean?”

  Jake often asked about Ed, and I usually changed the subject. Now Jake leaned in close and I could hear his steady breathing, watch the rhythm of his heart moving beneath his sweater-vest. It was almost too hot for the vest and I wondered how Jake would dress come summer. “Kind?” I repeated. I wanted Jake to put his hand on my arm, as he often did now when he was trying to elicit a response from me. I wanted to feel the warmth of his fingertips against the bare skin of my wrist. And I edged slightly forward in anticipation, but, for the moment, Jake didn’t move.

  “I mean, does he treat you well? The way a woman like you deserves to be treated.” Jake’s voice was softer than usual, and then he did move his fingers to my arm, down the sleeve of my dress, to my wrist. His thumb moved gently against my skin, and all at once I had the feeling that this was not a therapy question but a question a man might ask a woman should he feel something about her.

  “Ed is not really a kind man,” I finally said, “but he’s fine.”

  “Fine how?” His thumb continued to stroke my wrist gently and I didn’t want to think of Ed. I wished Jake and I were talking about something different.

  “You know, he provides for us, and . . . Well, I don’t know what else to say.” I could think of nothing else, neither good nor bad, to tell Jake about Ed that I hadn’t already told him. Ed could be gruff, but even if Julie wasn’t always paying him enough, as Ruth had complained, we always had money to put food on the table and pay our rent. “You know what’s strange,” I finally said. “I’m married to him and sometimes I feel like I barely even know him.” Jake let go of my wrist quickly. “Did I say the wrong thing?” I asked him.

  “There’s no right or wrong answer here, Millie.” Jake leaned back into his chair and lit his pipe. And then whatever had happened between us, real or imagined, disappeared just like that.

  ONE WARM AFTERNOON in May, Ethel accompanied me to the playground and she announced, quite suddenly and with a wide smile, that she and the boys would be getting out of the city for the summer.

  “Getting out?” I asked, frowning, thinking of all the long summer days without her. I would never tell her, but I felt a little jealous of all her therapy sessions now. Her need to be somewhere each day, her ability to talk to someone so many hours a week. My life had so much silence that I looked forward to every moment in Jake’s apartment. And though David and I had been staying longer and longer, and Jake and I had been talking more and more, we still only went two days a week.

  “The boys and I are going to spend the summer in Golden’s Bridge, upstate. And Julie will come up on the weekends.”

  “But what about all your therapy?” I asked.

  “I think that it will be the best kind of therapy for a little while. The country air!” She laughed. “You and David will come up for a visit with us, won’t you, Millie?” I agreed, though I wasn’t sure whether we would be able to or not. “Good.” Ethel squeezed my hand, and then she started humming lightly, under her breath. I didn’t recognize the song, but it seemed to me the easy sound of contentment.

  THE NEXT AFTERNOON at Jake’s apartment, after we’d eaten lunch, I told Jake about Ethel’s upcoming trip and how I felt immensely sad at the prospect of being without her all summer. He sucked on his pipe and didn’t say anything for a moment. Then he put his pipe down and said, “Millie, she may be right.”

  “Right?”

  “About it being the best kind of therapy.” Jake leaned across the small space between us and put his hand on my arm. Even after we left here, the sensation of his closeness lingered the way the smell of his pipe smoke did. “David could use a change of scenery.” I realized he was still talking and I came back to what he was saying. “Out of the city, away from all the noise.”

  “So you think we should go visit Ethel, then?” It occurred to me as I said it that to visit Ethel would mean to miss a therapy session or two with him, and then I wasn’t sure I wanted to go.

  “Well, yes, you could. But we should take him somewhere I can go, too, so I can work with him there.”

  “We?” I tried to imagine taking Jake with us to visit Ethel, what Ethel would even say. A trip upstate with a man who wasn’t my husband? What would I tell Ed?

  “I have a friend who has a cabin in the Catskills,” Jake said. “And I’ll be going up for a few weeks this summer anyway.”

  “The Catskills.” I sighed. So Jake would also be leaving us this summer.

  “You could take a vacation to see Ethel and stop by the cabin to see me for a few days,” Jake said. “It’s not too far from Golden’s Bridge, relatively speaking.”

  A vacation? Ed and I had never been on a vacation, and I only remembered one time as a little girl taking a vacation, staying in a house at the Jersey Shore with one of my father’s brother’s families. My mother had hated every moment of it and had taken out her misery by yelling at me and Susan the entire time.

  I allowed myself to picture this calm and quiet cabin of Jake’s friend in the Catskills, maybe on a lake, where the world would be peaceful and where David would at last feel an inner stillness, an ability to find words. It seemed too easy that the Catskills or a quietness of scenery would change everything.

  “David would enjoy the fresh air,” Jake said. “I could take him fishing.”

  “He would love that,” I murmured. Though what I was thinking was how I would love it. Spending a few summer days together at this cabin, away from the city. Me and Jake and David and the open beautiful country. I tingled with anticipation just thinking about it. Entire long days with Jake, not just a few stolen hours a week. And nights, too. Where would we all sleep? Then it hit me: How would I ever be able to pull this off? “I’m sure it’s lovely,” I said, not looking up to meet Jake’s eyes. “But I don’t know . . . Ed wouldn’t approve at all.”

  “You could bring him,” Jake said quickly, and I couldn’t help but frown at the thought that Jake would even want Ed to come with us. Or that Jake would believe, given all I’d told him about Ed, that this could ever happen. We both knew that would be impossible, that telling Ed about David’s therapy with Jake might mean the end of our sessions al
together. Ed could never know. About any of this.

  “You know Ed wouldn’t approve,” I said, pulling casually on a string at the end of my dress sleeve. I could pull it and unravel the whole thing. My clothes were getting so worn. I tried to tuck the string in my closed palm so Jake wouldn’t notice.

  “Well, just consider the trip,” Jake said. “Just you and David, then.” He stared at me with such intensity that I felt I could hear what he was thinking, that he wanted to be alone with me as much as I wanted to be alone with him. I realized I was blushing, and then I looked away, stood, and got David ready to go home.

  15

  Susan gave birth to her third child, another girl, in the middle of June, two days after Ethel and the boys left for Golden’s Bridge for the summer. David and I took the train to Elizabeth with my mother and Bubbe Kasha, as soon as Susan telephoned my mother to let her know her contractions were five minutes apart, and I was glad to be leaving the city for a few days, too, even if New Jersey and several days of babysitting were vastly less exciting than a vacation upstate.

  Once we arrived at their sprawling two-story house, Sam left for the hospital to be with Susan, and I was suddenly in charge of everyone: the twins, David, Bubbe Kasha, and my mother.

  I turned on Susan’s small television, and they were all immediately transfixed, including David. Such a magical machine! If only I could convince Ed to get one for us, I imagined my daily life with David would become infinitely easier. As the adults sat on the couch, the children on the rug, and we all stared at the screen, I tried to dream up ways to negotiate with Ed, and I knew finding myself expecting another child, giving him another child, would probably get me anything I wanted. But I felt a dull ache in my stomach just thinking about it. I wondered what would feel worse: to actually have another child who I might damage like David or to lose another child in a warm pool of blood at my feet?