Chapter 18: The Launch

The Rask launch gala filled the old seaplane hangar on Lake Union with six hundred people.

In the center stood one very large hull.

It was a black pressure sphere on a rotating platform, under spotlights.

RASK was painted on its flank in white letters.

Cameras ringed it.

Above it hung a banner. *Built to go deeper.*

I stood at the back in my navy tie and the one good suit I owned.

Kit stood beside me in a borrowed tuxedo.

Two men in ushers' jackets stood a polite distance behind us, with wired earpieces and Navy haircuts.

"They're really good at this," Kit whispered.

"They're better than that."

My mother had gone ahead.

She sat in the front row in a gray dress, next to the commander.

Her purse sat in her lap and her eyes stayed on my father.

She hadn't looked back once.

Joan sat at the audio desk by the north wall, in a black jacket and a headset.

A laptop lay open beside the sound technician.

She raised two fingers off the desk.

*Patched.*

My shoulders dropped.

"Ladies and gentlemen," said a voice, and the room hushed.

My father stepped into the light.

He wore a black dinner jacket and a plain white shirt.

He looked ten years younger than he had in the lobby.

He didn't use notes.

"I'm a boat builder," he said.

"My father built boats, and his father built boats."

"I've never pretended to be anything else."

Laughter, warm and easy.

"Tonight we launch the finest pressure hull ever sold to the United States Navy."

"It will carry our sailors deeper than anyone has carried them before."

"It will bring them home."

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