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Finally, in June 1982, Frank returned to Hoboken to see his eighty-five-year-old godfather, but he didn’t go alone. Accompanied by his secretary, Dorothy Uhlmann, and his best friend, Jilly Rizzo, he knocked on the door of the Garricks’ three-room apartment in a senior citizens’ building on the edge of town.

“After all those times of him calling us and then not coming, I didn’t believe he would ever show up,” said Minnie Garrick, “but there he was at the door looking so sheepish and nervous. Frank was out on the little porch, so Frankie went out there and put his arms around him. They both started crying.”

“He [Sinatra] said he was so sorry and he should have done this a long time ago, but he was scared,” said Garrick. “I told him he should have done it a long time ago too. He sat down in here on the couch and gave us a big basket of fruit with a cellophane wrapper and an envelope with five one-hundred-dollar bills. ‘And that’s just the beginning,’ he said when we opened the envelope. He told me we’re all that he has left now, so he wanted to keep us close. He even wanted us to move to Palm Springs and live with him, but we couldn’t do that. We have our own children and grandchildren here.… Frankie’s so changed from the hard-charging kid he used to be. In the beginning, he was just like his mom. A real pusher and tough, tough, tough, but now he’s like his old man. Real quiet and calm. That’s Barbara that’s done that. She’s a real lady.”

Two weeks later, Frank sent a limousine to Hoboken to bring the Garricks to Atlantic City, where he was performing for four days. Dorothy Uhlmann gave them a photograph of Frank in a tuxedo that he had signed: “To Frank and Minnie with much love and affection, Your godson, Francis.” She then told them that Frank wanted to talk to Mr. Garrick alone, man to man.

“I went into his apartment in the hotel, and Barbara was getting ready to leave, but Frank told her she could stay because she didn’t know what we were talking about. For the next hour and a half, we reminisced about Hoboken and what had happened so many years ago. He told me that after he had appeared at the Union Club once they booed him and he hated it. He said that he’d never come back again. He said that Hoboken hated him because of his mother, and I said, ‘No, they don’t, Frank. Not at all. They’re proud of you. You’re doing wrong by not coming back.’ That’s when he said that maybe he would go back one of these days, but … He talked a lot about Dolly’s death and how terrible it was. He said he saw the wreckage and how they found one arm here and another arm there and piles of her clothes twisted on the rocks. He wanted to know about his baptism and how the priest had made a mistake and named him after me instead of Marty. I told him the story and he laughed. ‘Yeah, my mom told me all about it,’ he said. I guess he wanted to hear it again.

“Barbara never said a word during the whole time we talked. She’s perfect for Frank. She takes care of him and she knows her place. She’s lovely.”

A few months later, the Garricks received another photograph from Frank, this one a colored glossy of himself and Barbara sitting next to each other holding hands. The picture was framed in gold with a gold-painted plaque that read: “To Frank and Minnie. Love & XXX, Frank and Barbara, July 1982.” For Christmas they both received Cartier tank watches, and anytime Frank performed at Carnegie Hall they received free tickets for themselves and their friends. The next year, Frank took them a painting he had done. They hung it with pride alongside their picture of the pope and the statue of the Infant of Prague.

Thrilled to be reconciled with his godson, Frank Garrick spoke glowingly of Sinatra’s visit. The reporter who interviewed Garrick wrote a long story, which was picked up by Frank’s clipping service.

“He was very, very upset,” recalled Garrick later. “The next time I saw him he asked me if I had said all those things, and then he told me never ever to talk to anyone again like that. He