‘Not today, okay?’

They had an early supper, which his father did his best to put together – pork chops, and some lettuce, and a scoop of Boston baked beans, which Bobby liked for their molasses. Then his grandparents appeared, and he played fish with his grandfather, a dapper man who combed his sleek greying hair straight back, and wore a tie pinned to his crisp ironed shirt with a gold clip. They sat at the dining-room table, until Gramps said it was time for bed and began to play gin rummy with Lily and Mike, which Bobby wasn’t old enough to play, or so his grandfather said.

He had a shower and since his mother wasn’t there his father came and rubbed his hair dry with one end of the towel until Bobby thought his skull would bleed. Then he got into bed and his grandmother came in to read to him. It was a long story he found very boring, despite Gram’s efforts to use different voices for the different characters, and he stopped trying to follow it, since he had other things on his mind. He was about to ask when his mother would come in to say goodnight when suddenly it was light outside again and Gram had gone and he realised it was the morning and that he had fallen asleep unawares.

He sat up and yawned twice then waited, since normally his mother would be there by now – she would wake him up in the mornings, saying ‘Hello, sleepyhead’ – and as soon as he had shaken the sleep out of his eyes she would choose his clothes and help him get dressed for nursery school. She was always cheerful and energetic; Bobby would struggle happily just to keep up with her.

But now she wasn’t there, so he simply waited – a long, long time it seemed, and his mother didn’t appear. Then Lily came in, saying impatiently, ‘Come on, let’s get your clothes on.’

‘Where’s Mommy?’ he asked.

‘In the hospital, silly. You know that already.’

‘Oh,’ he said, and even to himself his voice seemed flat.

In the kitchen he found his father, standing at the stove where his mother usually cooked breakfast. His brother was sitting reading the sports section at the rickety pine table, which had a leaf that had once collapsed during lunch. Bobby sat down, feeling uncertain, and his father passed him a glass of orange juice. It was warm and frothy, made out of frozen concentrate in the blender – the water from the tap was never cold. Then his father gave him a plate with a fried egg on it that was sliding in grease and speckled by black bits from the pan. He looked at it dubiously – he was never hungry at breakfast. His mother could always cajole him into appetite with a piece of fruit (apple in winter; berries when the weather was warm), or a thin slice of toast with cherry jam – bits and pieces to tempt him until with the aid of a glass of milk they somehow added up to breakfast.

He must have made a face because his father said sternly, ‘Eat what’s on the plate, Bobby.’ So he did, slowly slurping up the egg white, and then when a piece of half-toasted bread appeared from his father’s hand dabbing up the yoke with the soft centre of the slice hoping his father would ignore the crusts he left on the outer edge of the plate. He did.

His father walked him to school, which at least was unbewildering, and he was happy to play with a large plastic tractor on his own, since every now and then Miss Partridge would come by and see how he was. She had soft eyes, and blonde hair the colour of bleached straw, and she wore a scent that gave off a faint whiff of peach which he liked to smell when she hugged him – which was often, if not as often as he liked.

Today she spent more time than usual with him, then when nursery was over he found his father standing at one end of the room. He had come from work, wearing a jacket and tie, and in his hand he held a brown fedora, which Bobby was told not to play with each time he tried to bring it out from the front hall closet.

They walked home along 57th Street, past one block of low shop fronts, then a series of four-storey apartment buildings. Ahead of them he could see Sarnat’s on the corner across from their own apartment, the drugstore where his brother and sister would take him to buy candy or in summer months Popsicles, lifted out of a freezer compartment like Ice Age statuettes. ‘Where’s Mom?’ he asked his father, trying to sound hopeful.

‘She’s in Billings,’ his father said. ‘The hospital.’ Bobby could tell he was trying to be patient. ‘She’s going to be there for a while.’

‘So are you going to look after me?’ he asked doubtfully, for if this were the case, why was his father wearing a tie?

‘Gladys is home today,’ his father said, and Bobby’s heart sank. Gladys usually came once a week to clean the apartment. She was immensely fat – when Bobby hugged her his arms went nowhere near around her waist – and not much fun at all. If his father was taking him home, why did Gladys have to be there, too?

When they got to the apartment Gladys was in the kitchen, frying something at the stove. ‘Here we are,’ his father said, with a cheery note Bobby could tell was forced.

‘I’m making the supper, Mr Danziger,’ she said. She wore an enormous apron that accentuated her girth, and held an oversized fork in her hand, poised over the sizzling skillet. ‘You just leave the boy here with me. He’ll be fine. Go on, you get on back to work.’

Bobby’s face froze – what was she thinking of, telling his father to go away? He grabbed his father’s hand and looked up at his face, where his father’s dark eyes were watching him anxiously.