Free By the Rivers of Brooklyn by Trudy Morgan-Cole Page A

spring coat and gives her his arm as they walk out onto the street.
    As the crowd begins to thin and they wind their way in the general direction of Rose’s boarding house, looking for a streetcar, Tony does something he’s never done before. He starts to sing. Oh, she’s heard him sing along with a band before or hum a snatch of tune while he’s busy with something else, but Rose has never heard anything like this, from Tony or anyone else.
    The words roll out of him, big strange Italian words she can’t understand, huge waves of music much bigger than any tune she’s ever heard in a dance hall or a club, great oceans of sound flooding from him. She looks to see if he’s gone crazy and he’s walking along, still with one arm out for her to hold onto, but the other arm is doing these grand wild gestures that match the song, and his eyes are half-closed – he’ll smack into a wall if he doesn’t watch out – and she has no idea what he’s singing or why.
    At first she’s afraid people will hear and think he’s a nutcase. Then she hopes people will hear, sure they couldn’t help but clap or cheer. And for a moment in the middle of the music she sees that there is, after all, something bigger than her own dreams, something more important than finding a rich man to marry, something that might make her a better, truer Rose who could really fall in love with Tony and love him for all her life. She feels this thing coming over her, hovering like a cloud, and she has to bite her tongue to stop from saying, I love you, of course I’ll marry you. She fights that feeling off for all she’s worth, and finally, sadly, mercifully, the song ends.

ETHEL   BROOKLYN, DECEMBER 1928
    O N CHRISTMAS E VE , E THEL , Jim, and Harold put up their Christmas tree. It was the first Christmas tree Ethel had had since coming to New York, and she thought she’d cry to see it there in their living room, all done with popcorn strings and sugar cookies. Harold and Jim had come home early from work, dragging the tree and carrying a box with a red and silver tin star in it. Jim stuck his head in the door and told Ethel, who was in a frenzy of scrubbing and cleaning while trying to keep Ralphie out from underfoot, to come outside for a minute.
    â€œI don’t want Ralphie to see,” he said. “We got it from the guy selling them on the corner. Me and Harold figured we’d put it up tonight after Ralphie goes to bed.”
    Ethel stood on the front step of the apartment building staring at the small evergreen and at Harold, who was holding it up. The tree was not quite as tall as Harold. She didn’t know what to say. Having their own tree had never occurred to her. She pictured Ralphie’s eyes glowing when he woke in the morning to see it.
    â€œWhere are you going to put it till tonight?” she said. “Somebody’ll take it for sure if you leave it out there.”
    â€œWe’ll find some place to stick it,” Harold said. “We got this star to put on top, but we’ll need some other stuff to decorate it with.”
    â€œI’ll…we’ve got popcorn. I can make that, and string it, and maybe some cookies,” Ethel said, thinking of all the work she had to do already. They were having Jean and Robert and their youngsters for Christmas dinner, as well as Rose and her young man if they actually showed up. Why hadn’t she or Jim thought of a tree? This was Harold, she knew without being told. Only Harold could make such a leap.
    Harold brought laughter into the house. He told jokes, ones a lady didn’t need to be ashamed to laugh at, and he played with Ralphie by the hour. Jim was good with Ralphie too of course. Both men liked to come home in the evenings and wrestle on the floor with Ralphie, tickle and chase him and play-fight. It sounded so lively and fun with the three of them out there in the living room while