It was a night filled with jubilation and excitement. When they got back to Linda's room, she was so high she could almost fly. She got out of bed and walked down the hall to see her son in the nursery window, and she stood holding on to her husband's arm, and they both looked like the proudest parents alive.

“Isn't he beautiful, Teddy?”

“He sure is.” Teddy couldn't take his eyes off his son. “What'll we call him?”

She looked at Teddy with a smile. “I kind of thought we could call him Bradford, for your brother.” As she said it Teddy felt a lump in his throat, and he reached out and held her and said nothing.

That night a bond had formed between them that he knew that nothing would sever. They had waited half their lives to find each other, and he had thought he would never get over Serena. But Serena had been a dream for him, an unattainable woman he had always loved, and who had never really been his. She had belonged to Brad and then to Vasili, and never really to him. She had loved him, but she had never belonged to him. This woman who had just borne him a son was now his, and he knew it, just as he was hers and would never belong to anyone else again. And as they walked slowly down the hall, back to Linda's room, it was as though the ghost of Serena di San Tibaldo quietly tiptoed away for the last time.





52

But Teddy sounded jubilant as he reported. “No, she was just terrific. You've never seen anyone go through it better. And she looked just beautiful.” He almost cried again. “Wait until you see the baby!”