Tick Tock

A Holocaust survivor, a baby with spina bifida, and a tough decision. Tick Tock will be part of a short story collection, So Very Bayla and Other Stories. Reading time 12 minutes.

By Leah Eichler

My five-year old granddaughter came up with the name. Once she heard me whispering about the “titkos,” meaning secret in Hungarian.  To her young, Canadian ears it sounded like Tick Tock. And from then on, the name stuck. Still, we tried, we believed that our titkos, our Tick Tock, could remain just that. A secret. But from whom?

Up until …