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Table of Contents
Tuesday afternoon - 20 January
Thursday evening - 3 March (two years later)
Thursday evening - 3 March
Friday- 4 March
Friday afternoon - 4 March
Friday afternoon - 4 March
Saturday- 5 March
Sunday- 6 March
Monday- 7 March
Tuesday- 8 March
Tuesday- 8 March
Wednesday- 9 March
Wednesday- 9 March
Wednesday afternoon - 9 March
Wednesday afternoon - 9 March
Thursday- 10 March
Thursday evening - 10 March
Friday- 11 March
To Adrian and Anne
Tuesday afternoon
20 January
12:26 PM
“I, Florentyna Kane, do solemnly swear …”
“I, Florentyna Kane, do solemnly swear …”
“ … that I will faithfully execute the office of the President of the United States …”
“ … that I will faithfully execute the office of the President of the United States …”
“ … and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States So help me God”
“ … and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States So help me God”
Her hand still resting on the Douay Bible, the forty-third President sle and the beginning of another Florentyna Kane knew about struggles Her first struggle had been to be elected to Congress, then the Senate and finally four years later when she had become the first woman Vice President of the United States After a fierce pried to defeat Senator Ralph Brooks on the fifth ballot at the Democratic National Convention in June In November she survived an even fiercer battle with the Republican candidate, a forressman from New York Florentyna Kane was elected President by 105,000 votes, a in in American history, sained over Richard Nixon back in 1960
While the applause died down, the President waited for the twenty-one-gun salute to come to an end Florentyna Kane cleared her throat and faced fifty thousand attentive citizens on the Capitol Plaza and two hundred million more somewhere out there beyond the television transmitters There was no need today for the blankets and heavy coats which normally accompanied these occasions The weather was unusuallythe east front of the Capitol, although soggy, was no longer white from the Christmas snow
“Vice President Bradley, Mr Chief Justice, President Carter, President Reagan, Reverend clergy, fellow citizens”
The First Gentlenized some of the words and phrases he had contributed to his wife’s speech
Their day had begun at about 6:30 AM Neither had slept very well after the splendid pre-Inaugural concert given in their honor the previous evening Florentyna Kane had gone over her presidential address for the final ti only es
When she rose thata blue dress from her wardrobe She pinned on the tiny brooch her first husband, Richard, had given her just before he had died
Every time Florentyna wore that brooch she remembered him; how he had been unable to catch the plane that day because of a strike by maintenance workers but still hired a car to be sure he could be by Florentyna’s side when she addressed the Harvard commencement
Richard never did hear that speech, the one Neeek described as a launching pad for the Presidency—because by the time she had reached the hospital he was dead
She snapped back into the real world of which she was the h power to bring Richard back Florentyna checked herself in the mirror She felt confident After all, she had already been President for nearly two years since the unexpected death of President Parkin Historians would be surprised to discover that she had learned of the President’s death while trying to sink a four-foot putt against her oldest friend and future husband, Edward Winchester
They had both stopped their match when the helicopters had circled overhead When one of them had landed a Marines captain had jumped out and run toward her, saluted and said, “Madam President, the President is dead” Now the A to continue living with a woman in the White House For the first time in its history, the United States had elected a woman to the ht She glanced out of the bedroolinting in the early-ht
She left the bedroo roo to her children William and Annabel Florentyna kissed all three of them before they sat down to breakfast
They laughed about the past and talked about the future but when the clock struck eight the President left theo to the Oval Office Her Chief of Staff, Janet Broas sitting outside in the corridor waiting for her