Page 37 - Where the Dream Ends ebook

WHERE THE DREAM ENDS

Standing, for the first time in 58 years, on the steps of his
boyhood home, Harry sensed a presence that could best be
characterized as his past. He saw it in the pinkish-gray hue of
afternoon light reflecting off the aged brick buildings enclos-
ing the narrow street. He heard it in the distant, garbled voices
of children playing hopscotch on the sidewalk. (“I don’t want
to go to sleep yet, Mommy. It’s still light out. Please, Mommy.
Please!” “Threesies, threesies, I got threesies.” “Mrs. McCar-
thy, can Sally come out and play?”)
Standing in front of the door of the street-level apartment
where he spent the first thirteen years of his life — from the
day of his breech birth, when he was expelled feet first from his
mother’s womb, to the day he declined to show up for his own
Bar Mitzvah — Harry felt the weight of childhood bearing
down upon him, the “ghosts” of his past calling to him. He
heard his mother’s voice in the kitchen arguing with his aunt
about which hair coloring to use (“Ceilia! Stop! You’re using

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