How many people got to say that?

In the crush of people, Margaret could barely distinguish Dottie’s voice from Gladys’s and she gave every effort to not lose them. Gladys held her right hand and was weaving her way through the crowd, inching them closer and closer to the front. Dottie held Margaret’s left hand, and between them, she felt like the middle car of the Tinker Toy Train in the window of FAO Schwarz.

That Gladys and Dottie were the engine and caboose, respectively, seemed apt.

“This is good enough!” she shouted to Gladys, who was pressing on. Margaret flushed with embarrassment as they wound their way through people who had arrived hours earlier, dismissing the fact that their tardiness was due to waiting for Dottie to finish feeding Joanna. It was her first time leaving her daughter with someone else, which would have been frightening enough. But she was leaving Joanna with her parents. Her parents, who had wanted their granddaughter to be raised by some other family. Dottie’s hesitance was understandable, but Gladys and George had convinced her that there was no better way for them to bond with Joanna than to spend some time with her.

And, to be fair, they had at last proven themselves warm, though not enthusiastic grandparents, once George and Dottie announced their engagement.

Margaret knew that Dottie, too, was replete with excitement for seeing the Missouri completed and launched into the East River. So she was glad that her friend had given the reins to the Troutwines for the afternoon.

“Would you look at that.” Gladys stopped, having led them only a few rows away from the front, where speakers were already lining up at the podium and news outlets had fixed microphones in every possible spot. “She’s a beauty.”

“She sure is,” Dottie agreed.

“Why are ships spoken of in the feminine?” Margaret wondered aloud.

“Because they’re goddesses,” Gladys answered without hesitation.

Dottie smiled. “Of course you would say that.”

“I’m serious. It’s an ancient tradition. Putting female carvings on the fronts of ships, like a mother or a goddess guiding it to safety.”

“You only mentioned goddess,” Margaret said. “Do you have something against mothers?”

“Not since this girl became one.” Gladys nudged Dottie in the side with her elbow.

The crowd began to cheer as the navy band struck up a tune. Excitement buzzed through Margaret’s veins like the many wires leading up to the lectern.

Gladys looked up, and Margaret and Dottie followed her lead. Though they’d been close to the Missouri many times, they had not been nearly touching distance to its hull before, as they were now. Margaret felt dwarfed by its towering metal edifice and marveled that such a thing could even float. The chains alone, looped and gathered on either side of it, looked as if they made up half the weight.