1865
Wash and I married in Cold Spring in January 1865, eager for our new life together. Mr. Roebling softened toward me, never repeating the accusations he had made at Ringwood. Indeed, it seemed Wash was becoming more able to keep his bearings or at least better at hiding it when he couldn’t.
Mother conspired with Mr. Roebling—who insisted I call him Papa—to have two separate wedding cakes, one for each of us. They were connected by a sugar sculpture of what Wash described as a “remarkably accurate scale bridge.” Lemon tickled our noses and buttercream coated our lips as we demolished every last bite, blissfully unaware of the prophecy held in the delicate spun sugar.
* * *
A few weeks after the wedding, we left for a weekend in Maine to be followed by a visit with the Roebling clan. At the train station, Mother adjusted my wrap, more out of parental habit than any real need. “Well, off you two go. My last baby to leave the nest.” She erased an imaginary smudge from my cheek, then blew a kiss as we boarded the train.
I eyed the rows of seats crowded with chatty passengers. Wash bumped behind me, slowed by armloads of hand luggage he refused to let the porter carry.
“It’s a long ride. You won’t mind if I lay my head in your lap to get a bit of sleep?” I asked him.
His eyes twinkled. “Even better. Here we are.”
At the rear of the railcar, thin sliding doors hung on either side of the aisle. Wash dropped the luggage and checked his ticket. “This one.” He slid the door on the right, revealing a small compartment with a pull-down bed.
“How wonderful!” Relief at gaining a bit of space and privacy buoyed my spirits.
Giggling like ten-year-olds, we climbed in the berth and secured the door and a velvet curtain behind us. We weren’t in there two minutes before he was unbuttoning my dress.
“Wash, they’ll hear.”
“Shh.” He pulled off his trousers and shirt and slipped under the sheet. “Come here.”
I leaned close.
He whispered in my ear. “We’ll be very quiet.” He slipped my dress down and kissed my shoulder. He placed a finger gently on my lips. “Can you do that?”
“Mm-hmm.”
His hands pulled up my skirts and found my bottom. He kissed my neck, ran his tongue toward my breast.
I moaned.
“Control,” he said.
“I’m trying.” I laughed as I scooted under the sheet with him. It felt wicked, but I pressed my lips together while his lips and hands wandered. My skin sensed his touch more intensely through our enforced silence, his body warm against me, his scent of anise and cinnamon enveloping me like morning fog. He kissed me, deeply, hungrily, across to my ears and down my neck, tenderly cupping my breasts and making me shudder.
I ran my fingers over the powerful muscles of his chest and arms, skimming past his hips and scraping down his thighs. Yearning to be filled by him, I could wait no longer. I slipped my hands to his buttocks and drew him to me.
Wash glanced at the curtain. “We need to—”
“Shh.” I closed my eyes, tilted my hips for him. With each rock of the train, we rode higher, his skin hot against my flesh. I rose up, up, up until I feared I would burst. We were as one—not two lovers on a train but a single spirit, bound for a destination that was ours alone. I bit his shoulder so my cries wouldn’t give us away. With sweet release, we tumbled back to earth in each other’s arms.
“Tickets.” The conductor’s voice seeped through our protective curtain as he made his way through the car. “Tickets.”
Wash donned his shirt and trousers in a flash and slipped outside our berth.
He returned with a sheepish grin, and we laughed at our close call. It was a small bed for the two of us, but we didn’t mind. We lay face-to-face, the rhythmic chugging of the train a drumbeat to the melody of our voices. As it grew dark, Wash lit the sconce over our heads. The warm light and shadows it threw heightened the handsome lines of his face: a broad forehead over widely set eyes, a strong, straight nose, and full lips peeking from his honeyed mustache.
Wash reached into his trouser pocket. “I have something for you.”
“Let me help.” I reached down, but he playfully slapped my hand away.
He opened a small velvet box to reveal a set of cameo earrings. “I got these in Fredericksburg.” He brushed back my hair and fastened one on my ear. “Carried them with me, one in each pocket. Many times, my fingers came across them, and I would think of how lovely they would be on you.”
In his palm, the silhouette of a woman in the cameo glowed in the candlelight. He pressed the earring into my hand, then clasped my hand in both of his. “Knowing this day would come, well—” He swallowed, his eyes hollow and unfocused.
“They’re beautiful.” I touched his cheek and brought him back. “I’ll save them for a special occasion.”
In fact, I would be loath to wear them. The change in his face was not what I wanted every time he saw them on me, and I couldn’t countenance how they came into his possession during a devastating battle. I unclasped the one on my ear and tucked the pair back into the box. If they had somehow helped him get through the war, I was grateful for that. But now was the time to forget the horror and move on.
* * *
After an all-too-short weekend in Maine, we traveled to Papa’s home in Trenton, along with several of Wash’s siblings. Not exactly a honeymoon, but it was pleasant enough. The family was as busy as a hive of bees, Papa and Wash with preparations for their next project, the other sons running the wire company. The company, which Papa had founded, made iron and steel rope by machine-twisting long strands of wire into bundles called strands, then aligning those strands into cables of varying thicknesses. They were used in all sorts of industries, including bridge making.
Papa had hired Wash to help finish the Cincinnati-Covington Bridge, which had been long delayed by the war. Both men were eager to get to work. There was much excitement in the Midwest for the project to link Ohio and Kentucky, and Papa’s name and picture appeared in national magazines. Headlines declared “Famous Engineer and War Hero Son to Bridge Ohio River!”
In the evening, the family left Wash and me alone in the study. Its high ceiling, crossed with rough wooden beams, gave the room an air of importance. A settee and a couple of small tables dwarfed by a weathered oak table occupied the space. Schematic drawings of a suspension bridge covered the table, along with pages and pages of detailed plans with careful notations of materials and measurements.
I enjoyed the drawings, artful renderings worthy of framing. The beautiful lines and symmetry of the bridge, cables strung like harp strings reaching for the sky, spoke to me. But a puzzling wall leading to the bridge detracted from its beauty.
“Why is this to be fashioned of stone?” I asked Wash.
“It’s rather crucial, to keep people from falling into the river.”
“What if it were made of iron cables so as not to block the view of the river and the bridge?” I drew a crude diagram. “More a fence than a wall. Wouldn’t that make it more visually pleasing?”
He studied my diagram, then the schematics. “Interesting.” He gave me a playful knock on the head. “Brains and beauty. Fabulous combination. Now if you learn to cook, I shall be able to retire in grand style.”
I gave him my own playful knock on the head.
* * *
As our days in the Roebling household waned, Papa and Wash supervised a servant packing Wash’s belongings in his spacious bedroom. They planned to leave that week on a three-day train trip, leaving me behind. In what had become a rather delicate issue, Wash had been evasive regarding when I would be able to join him in Cincinnati.
From my perch on the four-poster bed, I said as cheerily as I could muster, “My trunks will take some time to catch up with us.”
Papa paced, hands on hips, muttering “these newfangled ideas.” He ran fingers through his thinning hair. “There will be plenty of time for you to be together, but this is not the time. Meine Frau Johanna, Gott segne sie, understood this.”
Arguing with John Roebling was akin to facing a bull with a red cape. I ignored my thundering heart. “My place is with my husband.”
I hoped for validation from my husband, but he just nodded and handed an armful of uniforms to the servant packing his trunks. “Would you take these away, please?”
Papa waited until the servant exited. “Washington tells me you helped him with his schematic drawings.”
“I made a tiny suggestion to enhance the view of the structure.” I was getting rather accomplished at sounding calm.
The top of Papa’s head grew red. “Ladies are not suited for this work. There are complex principles involved for which you have no training. You will be at best a distraction and at worst a danger.”
I darted a look at my husband.
“My dear, this is between you and Papa. I won’t be caught in the middle.” Wash placed a pair of boots in a crate.
Papa and I glared at him from both sides.
Wash scrunched his face as if in pain. “Em, Papa is right. What we do is dangerous. Every day, I have to worry about a worker falling from a great height, a frayed wire snapping and slicing off someone’s hand—or worse.” He nodded toward Papa. “And it’s deeply troubling to have my own father facing those same risks.”
Papa rolled up some maps. “These risks are unavoidable, given what we do, and I have faced them for decades. And now, my son as well. My consolation is that I’ve given Washington the benefit of my experience and the best education in the field.”
“I’m not proposing to follow you to work like a puppy,” I said to Wash as he lifted textbooks from a shelf and handed them to me. “I have my own books to keep me company, and I’m not afraid of being alone, even in a strange city.”
“Tell her how we live, Son.”
“It’s not the life you’re accustomed to, Em. We live in dormitories, a stone’s throw from the site. Meals in a mess hall, one step up from an army camp.”
I tucked the books into a steamer trunk while digging my heels firmly in my position. “Surely, we can find private housing in a city the size of Cincinnati.”
“Perhaps. But finding something as close to the work site as I need to be would be a challenge. And the riverfront stinks of slaughterhouses and factories. You would find it quite unsuitable.”
“We can try at least. I’m willing to give up my creature comforts to be with you.”
Papa cut in. “It’s not only your comfort but your safety that worries us. Liebe Gott, it’s not Cold Spring.” He resumed his pacing. “And how would you manage a cook and a maid in a tiny flat? You can stay here with all you need. Or with your mother. If neither of those suit you, I will lease another home for you.”
“You can visit monthly,” Wash said. “We’ll have a special weekend together, just the two of us.” The men nodded at each other, pleased with their compromise. Wash laid his hand on my shoulder. “Of course I want you to accompany us, purely for my own selfish reasons. But your welfare is more important.”
Papa opened his arms as if to include the whole world. “Emily, mein Liebchen, you have many talents. There are things we need you to do in New York. Then you can be with your mother, and it is safer this way.”
“What would you have me do?” I shirked away from Wash’s hand, closed the packed trunk, and latched the brass fittings.
“This bridge”—Papa pointed to a model of the Cincinnati bridge—“is just a prototype. The real challenge is the East River. That’s what we’re working up to.”
“I’m afraid I’m not following.”
“We need support in order to be able to build the New York bridge. Political, financial, social. That’s where you come in.”
“Me?” My eyes widened. Those didn’t sound like tasks for which I was equipped. And most of all, I needed to be with Wash. “What would you have me do?”
Papa shrugged. “Speeches, meetings, dinner receptions, whatever necessary. We have to raise about seven million dollars.”
My mouth fell open. They were responsible for funding the project as well as building it? And they were looking to me for help? And speeches! The mention of them steeled my resolve to not be left behind. “I don’t care about living in a grand house or if I have to learn to cook on a campfire. I can survive without a maid. But I won’t be a wife who’s tucked away like a china doll.”
The men mirrored each other, arms folded across their chests.
“Perhaps I can help raise the needed funds in New York when we all return from Ohio.” I managed a weak smile. “What do you think, Wash?”
“I’m not opposed.”
I gave him a you-need-to-do-better-than-that glare.
Wash chuckled. “You see, Papa, I’ve married not only the fairest but the feistiest of women. Emily’s presence will not compromise my work. In fact, she is a gifted muse. And I can search for accommodations for both of us straightaway.”
Papa uncrossed his arms, and I faced him. “With your permission, Papa, I will accompany Wash to Ohio. Upon our return, I promise to support the East River Bridge.”
He took a long, appraising look at me, then with a nod, declared, “Sehr gut.”