Brooklyn
I was late. Wash had requested my presence at the waterfront at 9:00 a.m. sharp, but Johnny captivated me, squealing in delight as we sprawled on the floor in his room, bouncing a rubber ball between us. Now scampering about on two sturdy legs and beginning to talk, he was at the age when a mother falls in love with her baby all over again. His squeals made me laugh and squeal with him.
Mother snapped her fingers for our attention. “Emily, you have fifteen minutes to get down there.” She made a grand wave toward the door. “Now shoo.”
I picked up Johnny, gave him a squeeze, and kissed the top of his head, taking in his soapy baby scent. “Thank you, Mother.”
“You really ought to procure a nanny.” She pulled my squirming, protesting baby away.
“We’re managing well without one.” I spoke through clenched teeth. Inwardly, I agreed with her but felt obliged to support the opinion of Wash, who felt raising our son ourselves was the more modern approach. I kissed the soft pink hands Johnny held out to me.
Donning my hat and gloves, I hurried out the front door. The coachman paced the cobblestones in front of our carriage. A gust of wind stole the little green cap off my head, and he bent to retrieve it. Apparently, Eleanor’s hairpins couldn’t substitute for a proper hat pin.
The end of June in New York can be clammy and chilly or full of glorious sunshine, a harbinger of warm days to come. That particular day was of the former, unpleasant sort. The air was scented with the coal fires of winter, and I berated myself for not bringing a wrap.
The clickety-clack of the wheels seemed to tick off each maddening second during the brief ride to the waterfront. A deep fog had settled in overnight, but change was in the air as the wind picked up, breaking blue holes in the sky. On a ridge above the shoreline, swirling puffs of white gauze parted, revealing children wearing short coats as they played in the street. The muddy brown East River slowly reappeared, full of choppy whitecaps as it made its way toward the Narrows.
We stopped at the waterfront where small waves lapped sand and pebbles. The driver offered his arm as I stepped out, considerable relief on his face to have delivered his charge more or less on time. I made out my father-in-law’s unmistakable frame and purposeful stride along the pier that ran beside the ferry slip and took in a deep breath to brace myself.
Years of meetings, speeches, and hard work had raised enough funds to get the project moving. I had expected a small crowd and reporters from the newspapers, but only Wash and a worker setting up a tripod were present on the narrow ribbon of shoreline.
“Ah, there you are, my lovely.” Wash beamed at me as I stood above him on the pier. In some ways, he was so very much like his father: calm, calculated, methodical. But Papa lacked his son’s warmth, the openness and playfulness that drew me in. When work went well, Wash was happy and engaging. Indeed, now he was engaged up to his shins in river muck, shoveling dirt into small mounds. “This is Mr. Young, Father’s surveyor.”
“Foreman, as of yesterday,” Mr. Young corrected with a tip of his cap. He was of medium height and build, dishwater-brown hair, and cheeks scarred from youthful blemishes. Many men, including GK, hid them with beards, but Mr. Young had no such vanity. He pieced together his tripod, compass, and scope and fiddled with its settings.
“Please pardon my tardiness.” I glanced around. There was no one but the seagulls, whose cries seemed to berate my absence for this special event. “Did I miss the ceremony? Johnny had just—”
Wash laughed. “It’s a big moment for us, but not enough fanfare to interest the public.” His eyes sought Papa, who was at the end of the pier, looking across the river through a spyglass. “Father wasn’t interested in even this bit of ceremony.” To Young, he said, “Even though he’s been obsessed with building this bridge since I was ten.”
“I know,” Young said. “I’ve been with him almost that long. You made a wise choice, heading off to war.”
“As it turns out, the escape was only temporary.”
The fog was lifting, and I could make out a flash of red across the water on the Manhattan shore. Relief at not having disappointed them lifted within me as well.
Wash waved Young away from the tripod and peered through the scope. “Father has made contact.” He turned to us and lifted his shovel. In an official tone, he pronounced, “And now, with two witnesses, I proclaim the New York and Brooklyn Bridge Project to be officially underway.” He plunged his shovel deep into the muck, and I clapped at his proclamation.
“I better go tell Mr. Roebling.” I glanced at the pier, but only a wisp of fog marked where Papa had stood. “Where—?”
“He probably went out on the rocks to get a better view.” Wash shrugged, his boot pressing the shoulder of the shovel, scraping into the grit.
I hurried down the weathered gray boards of the pier, picking up my skirts to avoid tripping. I shuddered at the thought of having to leap into the brown water to save Papa. Despite my experience in Europe, I still loathed rivers. I pushed those thoughts away. A person shouldn’t allow one tragedy to cause yet another.
As I approached the end of the pier, there was Papa, jumping from one to another unattached piling. My panic ebbed, relief washing over me. I called to him as he clambered among boulders, black and slick with river slime, jutting out of the water past the pilings, but my voice faded into the fog.
Busy with his footwork, he didn’t see me. He carried a red signal flag, its staff about ten feet tall. A gust of wind made it snap sharply and caused him to teeter on the slippery rock. He knelt down to gain stability, waves lapping at his knees while he lifted the spyglass that hung from a strap around his neck and peered across the water.
As Papa lifted his signal flag, the ghostly image of a double-decked ferryboat appeared through the fog, blocking the view across the river. Trails of black soot streamed from its twin smokestacks, and commuters crowded the rails fore and aft of the paddle wheel. Papa checked his pocket watch and shook his head. The ferry probably didn’t keep a schedule as precise as his own.
As Papa could neither see nor hear me, I turned back toward Wash. A gust of salty wind made me shiver, and I rubbed my arms, longing for the warmth of the nursery. If I returned home now, there was still time to play with Johnny before his nap.
Wash was drawing lines in the shoreline sand with the shovel and speaking to Young. “We drilled core samples in this area and hit bedrock at forty to fifty feet.” He looked up at me with a grin. “You tell him?”
“No, he needs all his concentration to perform acrobatics on the pilings, and now he seems upset that the ferry is in his way.”
Wash scratched his beard. “Ha! He hates ferries.”
The ferry approached Papa’s signal flag, the churn of its engines growing louder. But something was amiss. The ferry was travelling far too quickly, as if the land had popped out of the fog before it was expected.
I ran back down the pier. A moment later, Wash and Young’s heavy boots pounded the boards behind me. The ferry made its turn toward the pier and once again blocked the view across the river.
“Late again, blasted ferryboat,” Papa yelled from his perch atop a black boulder. “You’ll soon be replaced by real engineering, you bucket of bolts!” He shook his fist at the boat, and passengers waved back.
I cupped my hands around my mouth and yelled, “Papa, get back here!” An aura of foreboding filled me, sensing a danger that Papa did not.
He waved to me, climbed off the rocks, and stepped across the pilings toward the pier. The boat barreled ahead, dangerously off course, heading for the pilings rather than the slip.
“Slow her down!” Papa yelled. The wind picked up, blowing hard off the water and drenching him in waves that smashed against the pilings.
Passengers cried out, thrust off their feet as the boat overcorrected its course in a rapid turn. The ferry came straight at Papa, blowing its horn. He tossed aside the signal flag and stepped quickly across the pilings. Climbing up iron struts on the corner post of the pier, his right boot became jammed between a strut and the ferryboat slip, leaving his foot hanging over the empty slip. A loud blare of the horn filled the air, longer this time. I froze in place, watching in horror and not knowing how to help without risking my own life.
Wash caught up with me. “Father! Get away from there!” To me, he hollered “Get back!” as he climbed down toward Papa.
I tried to follow him, thinking the two of us could safely move Papa out of danger, but Young grabbed my shoulders.
“Please, ma’am. Stay here.” He rushed to help Wash.
“Papa! Move!” I stayed out of the way, frightened and useless as an ant under a falling tree.
The ferry horn blew long and loud, then was nearly drowned out by the gnashing of the engine’s gears as they ground into reverse. The paddle wheel frothed the water as it strained to change direction. Passengers crowded the rails, yelling and gesturing frantically. Instead of an ant, I became a girl, struggling against a raging river current.
Papa struggled to pull his boot from the crevice, lost his balance, and nearly fell into the water. He tried to unlace his boot but was unable to untie the knot. The ferry slammed into the free-standing pilings and snapped them with a loud CRACK. The boat shifted sideways from the impact and slammed into the end of the pier, its boards shaking beneath me. Wooden planks heaved and crumpled from the force, pulling Papa toward the water and further entangling his foot. I screamed for Papa. I screamed for Elizabeth. No! The river must not take another!
The passengers screamed also as they toppled from the impact, as the ferry continued its uncontrolled landing. It smashed against the slip, now only a few yards from Papa, his legs dangling over the water and he still trapped in its path.
Climbing through the jagged, broken boards, Young reached him, grabbed him under the shoulders, and pulled him back from the water. Wash lay next to Papa, trying to pry out his foot. He was also in the path of the ferry. My mind went white. I saw nothing but a head of honey hair against the silver-and-gray one, a broad back in a dark shirt.
In addition to his trapped foot, the spyglass strap around Papa’s neck was caught on a broken board. Ignoring Young’s warning, I dropped to my hands and knees and crawled across the mangled pier, avoiding the holes and broken planks. Papa turned his head to me, his eyes strangely calm, and hooked a thumb under the strap tight against his neck. I pried the strap loose of the board.
“Get back,” Papa gasped, and I scurried back to safety. Wash and Young pried away jagged boards quickly but calmly despite the screams of the passengers and the sound of wood and metal clashing.
“Wash!” I screamed, the ferry now inches away from his head. With a shout of anguish, he grabbed Papa’s boot and pulled mightily, the boat narrowly missing Wash as he tumbled backward. He held up his empty hands, helpless, as the ferry crushed into his father.
* * *
Three weeks later, Papa lay in our guest bed, his swollen leg elevated on a mound of pillows. Over and over, I relived the moment, wondering if I had gotten there a moment sooner, had not frozen, statue-like, at the critical time, I could have made a difference. Were it Wash or Johnny, would I have hesitated?
Guilt squeezed my chest like a too-tight corset. I had failed Elizabeth. I had failed Papa. I sensed my own gentle father’s presence, consoling me as he had so many years ago. I longed to have myself a good cry, to fall apart utterly and have someone else pick up the pieces as my father did then.
But I kept my qualms to myself; there was nothing to do about that. Only the task at hand, trying to save Papa’s leg and possibly his life. So I sniffed back tears and literally rolled up my sleeves. Abiding his emphatic instructions, I poured water over his mangled, toeless foot, a task I had kept up night and day since the accident. Exhaustion gradually consumed me as I numbly poured my regrets and sorrow over the angry red stump of his foot.
“It does no good,” Wash whispered in my ear as I refilled a pitcher at the kitchen tap. “But I adore you for doing it all the same.” He wrapped his arms around my waist, rested his chin on the top of my head.
It would have been unkind to say at least it keeps the stench of rotting flesh at bay. Instead, I nodded, resting my arm over his for a moment of comfort.
Wash’s sisters took Johnny to their home in Staten Island, and I was ever grateful for their help. Our home was not a fit place for a young child at the time. Workers visited, hats in hand, gathering instructions and assuring themselves that John Roebling was still in charge. While we worried we might lose Papa, they worried that the whole bridge project—and their jobs—were jeopardized. Every day, Dunn, a tall, ruddy laborer, came by to ask if he still had a job.
Mr. Young, tears streaming down his face, barely left Papa’s side. He offered some comfort, a welcome relief from the selfishness of the others. “The old man’s still got it, I tell you. Tough ol’ coot was still barking orders as they hauled him away.”
Dunn replied, “God, I hope so.” I hoped Papa didn’t hear when he added, possibly to disguise his anguish, “I need this job.”
Wash, never one to enjoy a fuss, much less a crowd, shooed them down the hall. “All right, fellas. Conference is over. I’ll see you at the work site shortly.”
Papa’s face was frozen in an unnatural grimace, his lips in an uncontrollable contraction away from his teeth. He hadn’t uttered a word in two days. Lockjaw, the doctor had told us. While Papa was by nature overbearing, he had always been kinder to me than to most, and I would have given anything to hear him bark some orders.
I carefully parted and combed his hair, just as he would have, and held up a mirror for him. When I saw the startle in his eyes at the reflection of his contorted face, I quickly tucked away the mirror. How he must have felt, a man accustomed to being in control of many men and machines, reduced to having someone comb his hair.
Wash wiped the drool from his father’s chin. “You don’t have to meet the men here. I’ll take your messages to them.”
Papa was suffering from near total paralysis and groaned with pain, but his mind was clear, and with great difficulty, he could move one arm. Picking up a scrap of paper and clenching a pencil like a bird’s foot around a branch, he wrote You can do it.
Wash read the note, still clenched in his father’s hand, and assured him, “Of course, Papa. I’ll keep you up-to-date. Every detail. I’ll run back here a hundred times a day if I have to.”
Papa added a word to the note.
“‘No’? What do you mean?”
Papa underlined you, impatiently stabbing the pencil.
Wash paused, his face crinkling. “No, Papa, I can’t do it without you.”
Papa’s eyes grew fierce, and he moaned. With his one good arm, he banged against the bed.
“Calm down. You’ll give yourself another spell. Emily—help me!”
Papa moaned loudly through his grimace and grew more agitated, as if a convulsion was imminent. He grabbed my arm.
I stroked his hand and spoke quietly to him. “Papa, stop. We’re listening.”
He calmed and motioned toward a drawing of the bridge, which I gave him. He stared at it a long while, then planted it on Wash’s chest, holding it in place with a stiff finger. Wash clasped his hands around Papa’s, his head and shoulders sagging.
“Yes, Father. I’ll build your bridge.”
* * *
Papa rested peacefully for a few hours until he was hit by a seizure so violent, it knocked him to the floor. I helped Wash and Young put him back in bed, pillowing his rigid frame as best we could. At long last, his vast store of energy consumed, he slipped away.
Wash and I sat for hours, holding hands. I recounted memories of my own father, reliving boat trips and picnics and running through meadows, hoping to help Wash remember that his father would live in his heart forever. He shared memories of running around the farm as a small child and of later chasing his siblings around the wire rope factory. He told of working with his father, building aqueducts and bridges, all wonderful adventures now come to an end. When the tears finally came, he rested his head on my shoulder, and I held him, heaving and inconsolable as never before. The only thing I could do was be with him, my own tears a steady stream.
Later that evening, we stood arm in arm as undertakers carried out the sheet-covered body of his father. One of them came back and handed the bridge drawing to Wash, departing with a little salute of farewell.
“My orders from the general.” Wash dabbed at his eyes with a handkerchief.
The room seemed as though a storm had whipped through and left us desolate. I couldn’t imagine how I could hold my darling together while falling to pieces myself. I pushed the dark grief down into a gaping, swirling tunnel beneath me. I could address that later. For now, I had to be a sturdy rock for Wash to cling to.
“Can you build it without him?” I traced the lines on the drawing.
But I needn’t have worried about Wash. While Papa’s scent still lingered in the room, my husband held on to his father’s presence by donning it like a mantle. “I made a promise I intend to keep.” He took my hand, his lips caressed my fingers. “And I have you.”
My insides somersaulted with grief and trepidation. He had just turned thirty-two, and I was but twenty-five years old and no replacement for his father. How would I be of any use? I twined my fingers with his. “Sehr gut.”