Balance of Power

FIVE

The funeral mass was held in a simple Roman Catholic church in the Sunset District, near the stucco home where the Costello family had lived since Lara was born. The mourners filling the church were parishioners and other friends. The sole public official besides Kerry was Vice President Ellen Penn, who had represented the district before advancing to the Senate; the press pool was limited to ten reporters, consigned to the rear and confined to pads and pencils. Kerry sat with Lara and Mary, Carlie and Clayton Slade beside him. A few times Carlie touched Kerry's hand, as if she knew that Kerry felt alone. He did not know what Lara would say, or how she would manage to say it.

The caskets holding Inez, Joan, and Marie were draped in cloth. When it was time, Lara walked toward them. Instead of pausing at the altar, she went to her mother's casket, gently resting a palm on the cloth. And then, softly, Lara spoke to Inez Costello.

"You always believed in me," Lara began. "You always believed, in the mystical way that mothers do, that I could meet whatever challenges awaited me.

"You didn't ask me to succeed for you. You didn't look at me, and see yourself, or see a surrogate for your own dreams. You just saw me." Lara paused, tears coming to her eyes. "And so, Mama, I saw myself as you did. Because I so believed in you."

Once more, Lara gathered herself; watching, Kerry could feel the depth of her loss.

"You gave that gift to all of us." Briefly, Lara smiled at her sister. "When I look at Mary, I remember all the stories you told me about her teaching, and about the children—sometimes troubled—whose lives she was making better. Because you just believed so deeply in all that she was doing . . ."

* * *

Minutes passed; the passage of emotion between Lara and those who listened, at first worried for her, settled into a calm communal sadness. As Lara finished speaking to Joan, the church was hushed.

"You saw our mother raise us alone. You saw how hard it was. But when it mattered—when you saw Marie at risk—you determined to protect her in every way you could." Fighting back tears, Lara said clearly, "And in every way you could, you did . . ."

* * *

Standing beside Marie, Lara spoke of watching her at Dulles Airport, walking away from Lara toward her future, as if now reminding the child of her past.

"You were our future," Lara said softly. "We imagined your graduations, your achievements, the life you might create. For us, one of the joys of growing older would be watching you become the person you were meant to be . . ."

Briefly Lara faltered; only the impossibility of doing so kept Kerry from reaching out to her. Then, once more, she regained her selfcontrol. "Now," she told Marie, "too soon, you are at peace. And those of us who love you, and whom you have left behind, must find a way to give your life the meaning you would have given it by living . . ."

* * *

At last it was done. The black limousine bearing Kerry, Lara, and Mary led the funeral cortege from San Francisco to Colma, a suburb whose primary purpose was to serve as a final resting place for those who, because San Francisco had banned new cemeteries, could no longer be buried in the city. The featureless miles of grey monuments struck Kerry as Arlington without the grandeur, lending a bleak symbolism to what, the involuntary skeptic in Kerry feared, was an eternity of nothingness, the common indistinguishable fate of all who rested here. But all that had been left to him was to secure for the murdered women and child the rarest of Colma's blessings, a resting place beneath a tree, on a modest bluff some distance from the marble rows.

Her arm linked with Mary's, Lara stood beside her husband, watching the three caskets descend into a common grave. As the last dirt was scattered, it began to rain. Only then did Lara take Kerry's hand.

* * *

Their day was far from done. Before the funeral, Lara had called grieving parents in Illinois, whose nineteen-year-old daughter had flown to San Francisco to begin her sophomore year at Stanford; now they drove to the Richmond District, where one of the two security guards had lived with his family.

His widow was puffy-eyed with grief. "This is the President," Felice Serrano told her twelve-year-old son.

Manfully, he shook Kerry's hand as Felice expressed sadness for Lara's loss. "Tell me about Henry," Lara requested softly.

Felice glanced at her younger children, two dark-haired girls ages seven and four, as though to pluck a detail from memories too copious to summarize, emotions too complex to express. "Every night," she answered, "Henry read to the children. He wanted them all to go to college."

"Like my mother," Lara answered. "And so we did."

Felice nodded, less from conviction, Kerry thought, than from the hope of reviving her own shattered dreams. Then, as though concerned for him, she told her son, "Maybe you could show the President your father's wood shop."

"Could you?" Kerry asked the boy.

Self-consciously, George Serrano led Kerry to the garage, leaving the others behind.

The workbench was immaculate, the implements neatly put away, the signposts of a man who taught his son order, responsibility, and a respect for one's possessions. Their current project had been a bookshelf: to Kerry, there was something desolate about the shelfless frame, a symbol of a life which would never be completed.

"What part did you make?" Kerry asked.

The boy touched a wooden board, leaning against a wall, which would have become a shelf. "Everything," he answered. "This time, Dad let me use the saw."

"Show me," Kerry requested. "My father could never find the time."

For the next half hour, talking as needed, the President and George Serrano sawed and inserted the wooden shelves. When at last Felice and Lara came for them, conversing quietly between themselves, the bookshelf was complete except for varnish.

At the door, Lara clasped Felice's hands. "Thank you," Lara said. "This can't have been for nothing. None of us will let it be."

* * *

In the limousine, Kerry turned to Lara. Her face was etched with sadness.

"All day," he told her, "I've been watching you pay tribute to your family, comfort Mary, and give Felice Serrano at least a measure of peace. The word that comes to me is 'grace,' in all its meanings."

As if exhausted, she rested her shoulder against his. In quiet despair, she answered, "In the end, being with them helped me. But what do we do now?"

* * *

The next morning, Kit Pace announced that the President and First Lady would return to Martha's Vineyard, for several days of rest and seclusion. Among the staff, the decision was controversial, though none had a voice. But Kit was more than satisfied. Lara's eulogy, widely reprinted, had touched the vast public which wished to mourn with her, as had her calls and visits to the victims' families who, when asked, had remarked on her kindness and concern. As for their planned retreat to Martha's Vineyard, Americans would admire a man, even a President, who subordinates all else to supporting his wife in her time of loss. If the country waited a few more days, Kit believed, the Kilcannons' reentry into public life would be all the more compelling. She wondered if they understood this perfectly.