Excerpt from The Hours Count by Jillian Cantor, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

But at the mention of the word playground, John suddenly clung to Ethel's bright dress, twisting it between his fingers. "I want to go to the playground," he whined. Ethel shook her head, and he began to cry. Not the way David cried, silently, but loud, disturbing cries, reminding me of the feral cats that used to run around outside our apartment on Delancey, howling at all hours of the night in hunger or pain.

Ethel offered me a fleeting smile, and then she quickly pulled John and her round body back toward our building. "I've got to get him inside, but maybe I'll see you around," she called over her shoulder.

I could hear John crying even after she walked inside, the sound coming through the brick walls like a siren.

David, however, had stopped. His eyes followed after them with what I imagined to be curiosity.

DAVID AND I were on our way to visit Mr. Bergman that morning we first met Ethel and John, and after parting ways, David and I continued walking slowly down Monroe Street toward Market Street and Kauffman's Meats, the kosher butcher shop once run by my father and, since his death five years ago, run by Mr. Bergman, his business partner.

I watched our footsteps making shadows on the sidewalk, overrun quickly by people humming by all around us. Now that the war was so firmly over, the city moved again. People smiled, the crowds on the sidewalks bright flashes of warmth and laughter. People everywhere were happy. Or at least it seemed that way to me. Every woman I saw seemed to have the bright pink stain of love and happiness across her cheeks, a look I tried to replicate myself with Helena Rubinstein blush, but somehow when I saw my own face staring back at me in the mirror, it never seemed quite the same.

Mr. Bergman set aside a brisket for me every Friday, free of charge. His best cut, he said, and we both pretended that that was why David and I came to see him each week. The truth was, the inside of the shop, the smells of meat, Mr. Bergman's thinning gray hair and thick gray beard, still seemed to be a familiar little piece of my father.

"Mildred! And boychik!" His voice rang out across the counter as we walked in through the glass front door, and the bell clanged cheerfully behind us. The sound startled David and he jumped a little. He is not deaf, I reassured myself yet again despite Ed's insistence that he must be.

Mr. Bergman waved and I waved back. David clung to the side of my dress until Mr. Bergman leaned across the counter. "I have a present for you, boychik." He opened his hand to reveal a yellow gumdrop and David took it and chewed it greedily.

"You spoil him," I said, but I smiled, enjoying how this moment felt normal for David. I remembered the gumdrops Mr. Bergman would sneak to my sister, Susan, and me when we came into the shop as girls.

"And for you," he told me, "a bigger cut this week. Because I hear you are having company tonight to enjoy the Shabbos."

I nodded and thanked him. It was the first Friday night in our new apartment, and everyone from my family was coming to us tonight: my mother, Bubbe Kasha, Susan, Sam, and the twins. Whenever there was a family get-together, we normally all flocked to my sister Susan's house, so this would be a first—everyone coming to me.

"How is the new place?" Mr. Bergman asked as he handed my brown-paper-wrapped brisket across the counter and David chewed happily on the candy.

"Wonderful," I said, though I had not yet decided for myself whether it was truly wonderful or not, but it certainly did have a lot of nice, modern features. "There's an elevator that takes us all the way up to the eleventh floor."

"Your mother told me."

I smiled, unsurprised. I was sure all of Delancey Street had heard about the elevator multiple times, even the feral alley cats. Which was a change for my mother, whose usual favorite topic of conversation was my older sister Susan, her adorable baby girl twins, and her recent move to the suburbs in Elizabeth, New Jersey.

Excerpted from The Hours Count by Jillian Cantor. Copyright © 2015 by Jillian Cantor. Excerpted by permission of Riverhead Books. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.