The next day the two of them went up to the observation platform. Teddy stopped well back from the protective metal grating at the edge because heights made him dizzy. Dallie stopped right at his side because he wasn't all that crazy about heights himself. 'It's not clear enough today to see the Statue of Liberty,' Teddy said, pointing toward the harbor. 'Sometimes you can see it over there.'
'Did you want me to get you one of those rubber King Kongs they're selling at the concession stand?' Dallie asked.
Teddy liked King Kong a lot, but he shook his head. A guy wearing an Iowa State windbreaker recognized Dallie and asked for his autograph. Teddy was an old hand at waiting patiently while grown-ups gave autographs, but the interruption irritated Dallie. When the fan finally walked away,
Teddy looked at Dallie and said wisely, 'It goes with the territory.'
'How's that again?'
'When you're a famous person, people feel like they know you, even though they don't. You have a certain obligation.'
'That sounds like your mama talking.'
'We get interrupted a lot.'
Dallie looked at him for a moment. 'You know these interruptions are only going to get worse, don't you, Teddy? Your mama'll be upset if I don't win a few more golf tournaments for her, and whenever the three of us go out, there'll be that many more people looking at us.'
'Are you and my mom getting married?'
Dallie nodded his head. 'I love your mama a lot. She's about the best lady in the world.' He took a deep breath, charging in just as Francesca would have. 'I love you, too, Teddy. I know that might be hard for you to believe after the way I've been acting, but it's true.'
Teddy pulled off his glasses and submitted the lenses to an elaborate cleaning on the hem of his T-shirt. 'What about Holly Grace?' he said, holding the lenses up to the light. 'Does this mean we won't see Holly Grace anymore, because of how you and her used to be married?'
Dallie smiled. Teddy might not want to acknowledge what he'd just heard, but at least he hadn't walked away. 'We couldn't get rid of Holly Grace even if we tried to. Your mama and I both love her; she'll always be part of our family. Skeet, too, and Miss Sybil. Along with whatever runaways your mom manages to pick up.'
'Gerry, too?' Teddy asked.
Dallie hesitated. 'I guess that's up to Gerry.'
Teddy wasn't Feeling so dizzy now, and he took a few steps closer to the protective grating at the edge. Dallie wasn't quite as eager to move forward, but he did, too. 'You and I still have some things to talk about, you know,' Dallie said.
'I want one of those King Kongs,' Teddy declared abruptly.
Dallie saw that Teddy still wasn't ready for any father-son revelations, and he swallowed his disappointment. 'I have something to ask you.'
'I don't want to talk about it.' Teddy mutinously laced his fingers through the metal grating.
Dallie laced his fingers through, too, hoping he could get this next part right. 'Did you ever go to play
with a friend, and when you got there you found out that he had built something special when you
weren't around? A fort, maybe, or a castle?'
Teddy nodded warily.
'Maybe he made a swing when you weren't around, or built a racetrack for his cars?'
'Or maybe he built this neat planetarium out of garbage bags and a flashlight,' Teddy interjected.
'Or a planetarium out of garbage bags,' Dallie quickly amended. 'Anyway, maybe you looked at this planetarium, and you thought it was so terrific that you felt a little jealous you hadn't made it yourself.' Dallie let go of the fence, keeping his eyes on Teddy to make sure the boy was following him. 'So, because you were jealous, instead of telling your friend what a great planetarium he'd made, you sort of stuck your nose up in the air and told him you didn't think what he'd made was all that terrific, even though it was about the best planetarium you'd ever seen.'
Teddy nodded slowly, interested that a grown-up would know about something like that. Dallie rested his arm on top of a telescope that was pointing toward New Jersey. 'That's pretty much what happened when I saw you.'
'It is?' Teddy declared in astonishment.
'Here's this kid, and he's a real great kid-smart and brave-but I didn't have anything to do with making him that way, and I was jealous. So instead of saying to his mom, 'Hey, you raised yourself a pretty neat kid,' I acted like I didn't think the kid was all that great, and that he would have been a lot better if I'd been around to help raise him.' He searched Teddy's face, trying to read by his expression whether he was following, but the boy wasn't giving anything away. 'Could you understand something like that?' he asked finally.
Another child might have nodded, but a child with an I.Q. of one hundred sixty-eight needed some time
to sort things out. 'Could we go look at those rubber King Kongs now?' he asked politely.
The Statue of Liberty ceremony took place on a poet's day in May, complete with a soft, balmy breeze, a cornflower blue sky, and the lazy swoop of sea gulls. Three launches decorated with red, white, and blue bunting had crossed New York Harbor toward Liberty Island that morning and had landed at the dock where the Circle Line ferry normally disgorged tourists. But for the next few hours, there would be no tourists, and only a few hundred people populated the island.
Lady Liberty towered over a platform that had been specially built on the lawn at the south side of the island next to the statue's base. Normally, public ceremonies were held in a fenced-in area behind the statue, but the White House advance team thought this location, beneath the face of the statue and with an unblocked view of the harbor, was more photogenic for the press. Francesca, in a pale pistachio dress with an ivory silk-shantung jacket, sat in a row with the other honorees, various government dignitaries, and a Supreme Court Justice. At the lectern, the President of the United States talked about the promise of America, his words echoing from the loudspeakers set up in the trees.
'We celebrate here today-old and young, black and white, some from humble roots, others born into prosperity. We have different religions and different political beliefs. But as we rest in the shadow of the great Lady Liberty, we are all equals, all inheritors of the flame…'
Francesca's heart was so full of joy she thought she would burst. Each participant had been permitted to invite twenty guests, and as she gazed out over her diverse group, she realized that these people she had come to love represented a microcosm of the country itself.
Dallie, wearing an American flag pin on the lapel of his navy suit coat, sat with Miss Sybil on one side of him, Teddy and Holly Grace on the other. Behind them, Naomi leaned to one side to whisper something in her husband's ear. She looked healthy after having given birth, but she seemed nervous, undoubtedly worried about leaving her four-week-old baby girl even for half a day. Both Naomi and her husband wore black armbands to protest apartheid. Nathan Hurd sat with Skeet Cooper, an interesting combination of personalities in Francesca's opinion. From Skeet to the end of the row stretched a group of young female faces-black and white, some with too much makeup, but all of them possessing a spark of hope in their own futures. They were Francesca's runaways, and she had been touched when so many of them wanted to be with her today. Even Stefan had called her from Europe this morning to congratulate her, and she had pried out the welcome news that he was currently enjoying the affection of the beautiful young widow of an Italian industrialist. Only Gerry hadn't acknowledged her invitation, and Francesca missed him. She wondered if he was still angry with her because she had turned down his latest demand to appear on her program.
Dallie caught her looking at him and gave her a private smile that told her as clearly as if he'd spoken the words how much he loved her. Despite their superficial differences, they had discovered that their souls were a matched set.
