The revelation that John’s a husband and father just as the band is peaking in popularity prompted some damage control. In a prepared response published by Mirabelle magazine in October, John spoke of his present life on the road with the band and his past experiences, including being raised by Mimi and the devastating loss of his mother. The story ended with a confession about his new wife: “I’d like to tell you more about her but I’ve this old-fashioned idea that marriage is a private thing, too precious to be discussed publicly. So forgive me and understand.”

On board Pan Am flight 101, baby Julian is sleeping against his mother. Attuned to John’s many moods (if not always the rationales behind them), Cyn puts her hand on his and asks, “What’s on your mind?”

John flashes on a conversation he’d had with Sonny Freeman, the model wife of photographer Bob Freeman. Bob took the photo of the Beatles with their half-shaded faces for the cover of With the Beatles and its US counterpart, Meet the Beatles, released just two weeks earlier.

John has spent many late nights in the Freemans’ wood-paneled apartment, “talking about things like life and death, the way you always do when you’re young.” He’s also shared his premonition that he’d lead a life cut short by a gunshot.

“A bit nervous, is all,” John says.

Though Beatlemania is in full swing back home, Capitol Records—EMI’s US counterpart—had only begrudgingly taken the Beatles on, with the proviso that the label be the one to choose the songs for American albums. While it still stings that Capitol turned them down—repeatedly—there are signs that the label is taking the Beatles seriously by mounting a national promotional campaign. They print and distribute five million stickers announcing THE BEATLES ARE COMING and give every single disc jockey in the United States a stack of Beatles records to play.

Ahead of the American appearances, Capitol Records’ press release had announced Lennon as a “determined twenty-three-year-old whose somewhat stern face gives the impression of an angry young man.”

And now that face is staring back at his wife.

Cyn has brought along a stack of fan mail and reads aloud from the letter Sharon Flood of New York has written. “Perhaps you are not aware of this fact, but you are the first happy thing that has happened to us since the tragedy on November 22. You are the first spot of joy to come to a nation that is still very much in mourning, although the grief is personal and unpublicized.”