the curb.
Brady opened the rear door—and there was my dear friend in the back seat, holding a crutch and wearing a huge smile.
“The mayor has had some seats cordoned off for us,” he said. “Let’s go, let’s go.”
We all piled in and took off on a fifteen-minute drive through our city, still lit up for the holidays. When we disembarked at Rincon Park, Brady and Conklin helped Jacobi out of the car and blocked for him. Joe put his arm around Jacobi’s back and said, “Lean on me, Chief. Put all your weight on me.”
We found our reserved-for-SFPD block on the seating walls. We had a primo view of the bay, the ferry terminal, and the bridge decked out in swags of lights.
This was San Francisco in her party dress.
Thousands of people had collected on the Embarcadero to watch flowers blooming in the sky. We had just gotten settled into our seats when the first fireworks were launched from barges off Pier 14. Music was synced to the display, and the crowd cheered with each new explosion.
When the ten-second countdown to midnight came over the sound system, my husband grabbed me. Nearly squeezing the breath out of me, he showed me without words how afraid he’d been for me and how he couldn’t bear to lose me.
For the next twenty minutes the sky crackled with rockets and pyrotechnics, all reflected in the water below and capped off with a brilliant grand finale.
My husband and I kissed in the New Year.
I told him, “I love you, Joe. I love you so much.”
“I’m so lucky, Blondie. Do I say it enough? I love you, too.”
“You say it a lot.”
He kissed me again.
And then I cried. The feeling had been building, and it came out in full waterworks with heaving sobs. Joe held on to me until I was laughing again.
My best and dearest friends were all around us, hugging one another, kissing their partners, and I noticed that I wasn’t the only one with wet cheeks. I’d never seen Brady cry.
At Jacobi’s urging, we huddled, rugby-style, to wish one another the best of everything. We girlfriends pressed cheeks and ruffled one another’s hair before settling back into the arms of our men.
This was it. The best New Year’s Eve of my life.
I felt ready for whatever the New Year would bring.
Epilogue
* * *
JANUARY 2
CHAPTER 94
THE NEW YEAR’S holiday had ended, and for Joe, January 2 began as a workday like any other.
He had kissed Lindsay good-bye as she left for the station, walked Julie to the pre-K school bus, and settled her into her seat next to her favorite aide. Then he went back home, made a roast beef snack for Martha in exchange for a handshake, and sat down at his desk. At ten-something that morning, as he was paying bills in his home office, his desk phone rang.
The caller ID said Drisco, a landmark hotel in Pacific Heights.
He picked up the phone and said, “Joe Molinari.”
All he heard was soft breathing, so he said, “Hello?” and was about to hang up when a young woman’s voice said, “Papa? Papa, it’s Francesca.”
Joe felt the floor drop away beneath him. The receiver nearly slipped from his hand. He got a grip and said, “Franny? Is that you?”
There was nervous laughter and then she said, “It’s me. All grown up and right here in San Francisco.”
It felt crazy but he believed her.
The last time he’d seen Franny, she was Julie’s age. Just about four. Talking. Asking questions. Why, why, why? He hadn’t been able to answer the important ones.
He filled the lengthening silence by asking, “Okay to call you Franny?”
“Of course. Okay to call you Papa?”
“Of course.”
They both laughed and then Joe asked, “How long will you be here? Who or what brings you?”
The daughter he hadn’t spoken to in more than twenty years said, “You, Papa. I came to see you. I have to fly home in two days. To Rome.”
Joe loved the sound of her voice, Standard American with a hint of Italian. He said, “Two days? When can I see you? What’s your schedule?”
“I’m free until my flight on Friday.”
The last time he’d seen Franny, she’d been wearing footie pajamas and sleeping under a mobile of the cow jumping over the moon in the small bedroom with baby-farm-animal wallpaper in the Washington, DC, apartment. The time before that, she was also asleep. And before that, also sleeping, ad infinitum.
He tried to picture her as an adult. “Would you like to