Page 55 - Where the Dream Ends ebook

Where the Dream Ends

“I’d say about twenty-three,” he said.

She shook her head. “Yes, twenty-three.”

He stepped closer to her. She brushed her hair from in front
of her face. Her eyes reminded him of his cat. When he stared
into them, they drew him in until he was afraid to look any
deeper for fear he would be devoured.

I grew up here,” she said, staring at him. “This was my

parents’ apartment for fifteen years before my father died. My
mother moved away, but I kept the apartment for myself.”
“Fifteen years!” he exclaimed, realizing enough time had
passed for entirely new lives and dreams to have occurred since
he lived here. Before Harry was born his parents had lived here

for more than twenty years. That meant it was more than fifty
years since his family first occupied this space. It was the height
of the depression when his mother and father moved here with
two young children, a boy and a girl. They lived here when
the Depression came to an end, and during Prohibition, and
after that when the war came and his brother joined the Navy.
They were here during the McCarthy era. (Harry remembered
listening to the hearings on television in this apartment.) And
Queen Elizabeth’s Coronation; he was eight years old.

“Would you mind telling me how much you pay for rent?”
Harry asked.

“Six hundred dollars a month,” she answered.

More than ten times what his parents paid when he lived
there.

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