“Yes, please.” Luther twirled about with excitement. “I’ll take the doll with the cracked head. I don’t mind.”
Sara smiled. She put Christopher down in his crib and he settled in nicely, staring through the slats as they went through dolls of all shapes and sizes, and divided them up. The last one, made of rags, had seen better days, and all the children agreed that it should live in Christopher’s crib and be his first doll.
When she laid the doll down beside him, he gave her a silly, drunken smile.
She rang for the pudding and the four of them had a tea party in the bedchamber, full of giggles and gentle teasing. When Siobhan’s footsteps were heard trudging down the hall, Sara reluctantly gave her good-byes, promising to return soon.
By then, Christopher was fast asleep.
Even after Miss Honeycutt’s return, Sara stopped in daily to visit with the children either before or after she returned from work. When Miss Honeycutt needed a break, Sara’d take them up to the roof promenade and let them run around, while she held Christopher in her arms.
Although Mrs. Camden had been gone less than a week, something about having her away, winning this temporary reprieve from the very fact of her in their lives, had made her and Theo even bolder. He slept in her bed most evenings, and she welcomed his presence, even if she couldn’t sleep through the night with him there. She would lie awake, wondering how much longer they had. He didn’t seem to mind that she was getting closer to his children.
For the past two nights, instead of lying awake in bed, listening to Theo’s snores, Sara crawled out and slipped on her dressing gown before sitting down at the sewing machine. Its whir made her heart sing. Deep into the night, she would work on her fancy new machine with fabric she bought at Stewart’s Department Store. First up were sashes for the girls and a necktie for Luther, all in different shades of blue, from cyan to a deep azure. For Christopher, she had already made a sailor outfit with a navy collar and matching tie.
In the back of her mind, she knew she was trying to make up for the baby she’d lost. Trying to prove to Theo that she was a perfect mother, much better than his wife. This morning, in the depths before dawn, she had wished the woman would die. She’d almost run her own finger under the needle and barely missed getting an awful prick, as if the machine had understood her selfish sentiment and decided to punish her.
On Friday evening, when Sara went downstairs to tuck the children into bed, Theo announced that he had a surprise for them all for the next day. The kids pressed him for information, and he held off for a couple of minutes, telling them that he couldn’t possibly let on about the secret or they’d never be able to get to sleep.
Which, of course, only served to rouse them more.
“Please, tell us!” Emily was now standing on her bed, jumping up and down.
“You might as well; they will never sleep as it is now,” said Sara.
“All right, then. Tomorrow we’re all going to see the ship carrying the Statue of Liberty.”
Sara had read about it in the papers, that the enormous sculpture, packed up in pieces on a French ship, had finally arrived in New York Harbor. Great festivities were planned for Saturday, including a parade of yachts.
The children erupted into cheers but crawled back into bed after promising to be ready to go at precisely seven o’clock the next morning.
In the brougham going downtown on Saturday, Sara sat next to Theo, with Christopher on her lap and Emily and the twins lined up on the other side, chattering away to one another. Christopher wore his pretty sailor outfit, the girls had insisted on their sashes, and Luther wore his necktie.
They looked like the perfect family. Which they were not.
Sara couldn’t shake a feeling of unease. “Theo, are you sure I should be in attendance with you?”
“Who else? Miss Honeycutt’s a bore.”
“I mean, people will talk.”
“Let me worry about them. You enjoy yourself. You deserve some fun, after how hard I’ve been making you work, Miss Smythe.”
She’d gone back to using Miss after returning from Blackwell’s, and it made her feel ridiculously dainty and young to hear it on his lips.
Theo climbed out of the carriage first, then turned to help out Sara and the baby. Emily came next, with Lula leaping out behind her.
Theo turned to Luther, irritated. When the child pulled back from his hand, planning on jumping down as his sister had done, Theo reached out and grabbed his arm, hard. “Act like a gentleman.”
“Yes, Papa.”
The boy rubbed his arm and went to stand beside his twin, grumbling softly.
Maybe Theo wasn’t as unconcerned about their appearance together as he let on. She didn’t like the way he took it out on the children, though.
Theo led them to a landing beside an enormous yacht. Before getting on board, a photographer asked to take their picture. Theo declined, but the children insisted Sara stand with them, holding the baby. The man scribbled down their address and promised to put it in the post after Theo had given him twenty-five cents.
The ship filled up with passengers, and Sara and the children found a spot to sit at the rear, while Theo wandered about and hobnobbed with the dignitaries and businessmen on board. As the yacht headed out into the harbor, Emily, Lula, and Luther squealed with delight and Christopher slept in Sara’s arms, lulled by the rocking of the waves.
How different this journey through the harbor was from the last. When Sara had arrived a little over a year ago, she was a lowly housekeeper. Now she was an assistant to an architect and lived in a flat in one of the newest and most splendid buildings in New York City. How far she’d come.
“There it is!”
The captain cried out from behind the helm and pointed at a great ship with a white hull out near the Narrows. Sara pointed out the French flags, and their vessel joined a parade of similar ones, all lined up behind the French frigate. A band on a neighboring ship played “La Marseillaise,” but the music was soon drowned out by the horns of the steamships and the deafening roar of cannon fire from Fort Wadsworth and Fort Hamilton.
The noise was too much for Christopher, who began to fuss.
Finally, Theo returned. “What a day. Are the young ones enjoying themselves?”
“They certainly are. It’s too much for him, though.”
A couple who lived on the Dakota’s third floor wandered by. Sara smiled up at them, but the man stared and his wife made a point of turning away.
Her face reddened. “I feel we are making an embarrassment of ourselves. It could hurt your business.”
“You know what I wish?” Theo placed his hand on hers. She wanted to pull it away, stop anyone from seeing their intimacy, but he held it firm. “I wish Minnie wouldn’t come back at all.”
Christopher began to cry. She rocked him gently. “He’s overwhelmed by the noise. You shouldn’t say things like that.”
“Why not? We’re both thinking it. I know that makes me a terrible person. But then I could marry you and you could move in with me where you belong. I hate what I’m doing to your life.”
“I love my life. I love the children. I love you.”
“My dear. We will figure this out, I assure you. To think that I almost lost you. What a mistake that would have been. Please have faith in me.”
It was the most he’d spoken of his feelings in a while. They’d both been under such stress.