“I’d love to visit Hawaii,” she says. “But it’s such a long plane ride and I’m a little scared to fly.”

“You can do anything you want if you set your mind to it.” Mark flicks his attention back to the Dakota’s entrance. “The human mind is an incredible thing. Once it’s made up, nothing can stop it from doing what it wants to do.”

Chapter 60

Chapter 60

I’ve been waiting so long to be where I’m going…

—“Sunshine of Your Love”

John has a scheduled photo shoot with Annie Leibovitz for the cover of Rolling Stone magazine. To prepare, he visits his local barber and requests a style reminiscent of the Teddy Boy look he favored during his teenage years in Liverpool.

When he returns to the Dakota, Sean is there. John takes a few minutes to watch cartoons with him in bed.

“D’ya know what I wanna be when I grow up?” Sean asks, sitting up straight, clutching a soft pillow in his tiny hands.

“No, what’s that?” John asks.

“Just a daddy.”

“Ya’ mean ya’ don’t like it that I’m working now, right, and goin’ out a lot?”

“Right,” Sean answers.

“Well, I’ll tell you something, Sean, it makes me happy to do the music and I might be more fun with ya’ if I’m happier, right?”

“Uh-hum.” The boy nods.

*  *  *

Annie Leibovitz sets up her camera equipment in John and Yoko’s bedroom.

It’s a reunion of sorts. Though Leibovitz is now chief photographer for the magazine, she and John had first worked together in 1970, when she was a freelance photographer and he was newly an ex-Beatle. She had persuaded Jann Wenner (who claimed the negatives from the shoot) to book her a student fare from San Francisco to New York. Leibovitz’s portrait of John appeared on the cover of the January 21, 1971, issue, which also contained Wenner’s first major interview with him.

“Listen, I know they want to run me by myself on the cover, but I really want Yoko to be on the cover with me,” John tells her. “It’s really important.”

Leibovitz tries to promote her boss’s mandate, but John is insistent. ‘I want to be with her.’”

The photographer pivots to another idea—to reprise the nude Two Virgins shot that appeared on Rolling Stone in 1968.

John agrees to strip down, but not Yoko. She decides to keep her black top and blue jeans on. Leibovitz chronicles the pose as it evolves, moment by moment. John wraps his naked body around his fully clothed wife and kisses her affectionately on the cheek while lying on the carpeted floor next to their bed. Yoko’s eyes remain open, contemplative.

“This is it,” John exclaims. “This is our relationship.”

*  *  *

“One more, one more,” Annie Leibovitz says, turning her camera for a better angle.