Page 57 - Where the Dream Ends ebook

Where the Dream Ends

Her eyes followed him as he reached the hall door. He
grasped the handle.

“Well,” he said again.

“Goodbye,” she said.

“Goodbye.”

He turned the handle from behind and the door unlatched.
He went down the three familiar steps that led through the
hallway to the door to the street and in a matter of seconds
was back on Naples Terrace. He ran to the corner and as he
did his mind flashed back to a time when he was no more
than four years old and it was his bedtime, but it was still light
out because it was summer and then too he had run from the
apartment, just the way he was running now. Running from
what, he wondered? From himself? Is that what this business
was all about? Running? He ran around the corner and onto
the avenue. The catholic school loomed in front of him, but
he kept on running. He ran until his breath gave out, and he
went over to the side of a building and leaned against it, ex-
hausted. He reached into his pocket and took out the waiting
envelope. The postmark was December, 1945. He was three
years old. It was the year of his parents’ twenty-fifth anniversa-
ry. He remembered because they celebrated with a huge party
in the apartment. It was one of his earliest memories. All the
furniture was moved out, and there were chairs all around the
perimeter of the room. The center of the room was made into
a dance floor and there was a table with a huge cake in a corner
of the room. Harry was sent to his aunt’s house for the night.
He remembered he didn’t want to stay at her house because he
was scared of the crazy lady who lived downstairs and always

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