chapter twenty

In a vain attempt to harness my swirling thoughts and emotions, I pull half a dozen books from the shelf and haul them to the kitchen table. I have to at least start on the Society’s report, and I decide that if I stay away from the den, where I’ve placed the journal, the temptation won’t be so overwhelming. I’m also trying to avoid the windows. If I can’t see the city, perhaps I’ll forget about Eric.

But I wonder, with so many unanswered questions in my life, with no certainty of closure, will I be able to focus enough to create a compelling report for others?

I scan through several volumes for nearly an hour and then methodically rework my outline, tossing attempt after attempt into the garbage. I am ready to try again when I get a call from Tom at the bridge with an address and phone number for Ben Bryant in Palm Springs.

For the next thirty minutes I hold a staring contest with myself, my books, and Bryant’s address. I blink, and the address wins.

My phone call to the professor is short. When I tell him that I need two days off to visit a friend in Palm Springs, he’s hesitant. When I add that the friend is a man, he wishes me well.

I tell myself that I’ll be quick. I’ll find out what I can about the journal, return straight home the following day, and finish my first draft by the weekend. Then, on Monday, after I turn it in to a waiting and anxious boss, I’ll gather my courage and confront Eric.

• • •

Traffic swinging past L.A. is worse than I anticipate. By the time I arrive in Palm Springs and check into my hotel, it is nine-thirty at night. I question whether it’s too late to visit Mr. Bryant, but decide to drive by and see if a light is on.

The sheer number of new developments is shocking, but I soon locate the Dumuth Park neighborhood where Mr. Bryant lives—cookie-cutter, but clean and well kept. I find his house number on the mailbox and am relieved to see through the windows that the lights are on inside.

I don’t know if he’ll remember me, so I have brought a picture of my father. I push the doorbell, wait, and then hear shuffling. When the door opens, I am greeted by the confused stare of an old man—late eighties, bald head, with weathered, shriveled skin. At first I am not sure it is Mr. Bryant. His features are even more sullen and brooding than I expect.

“Yeah?” His voice is coarse.

“Mr. Bryant?”

“What?”

“Mr. Bryant, I don’t know if you remember me. I’m the daughter of Kade Connelly.” I hold out the picture of my father, and with unexpected swiftness he reaches out and snatches it from my hand. He pushes up his glasses and then lowers his head to study the huge frame of a man standing in my photo on the edge of the bridge. Ben’s eyes soften as his focus seems to drift. I give him time, waiting to see if I can detect any recognition. I see none.

“Do you remember him?” I question, hoping for anything as he hands the photo back.

“Your father was a man’s man, Katie,” he answers, his voice still gravelly but more kind.

“You remember me?”

“Remember you? Hell, I remember that as a baby you used to spit up all over me. Does that count?”

He’s a craggy, rough-hewn man, but I remind myself that with men on the bridge, their façade is often misleading. He invites me in, offers me some coffee, and we sit on his couch to visit.

“I hope I’m not keeping you up,” I say.

“Don’t sleep much lately. Not since Frances died.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. It will happen to the best of us.”

“Yes, I know that firsthand.” I don’t mean to sound pitiful in my answer. I am just trying to make conversation, but immediately I regret my words.

He leans forward, understanding that I refer to my father. “I’m sorry I didn’t make it to your dad’s funeral. I lost Frances a few weeks before—they wouldn’t let me drive anymore, and . . .”

“It’s okay. I understand.”

We sit without speaking until the silence becomes uncomfortable and I decide that I should get to the reason for my visit. “Mr. Bryant . . .”

“Please, call me Ben.”

“Ben, I’m here to ask you about a book that I found in my father’s things. It’s a journal written by a man named Patrick O’Riley.”

“Patrick O’Riley.” He repeats the name as if he’s heard it before.

“So you know about it?” I ask.

He seems hesitant. “Officially? No. Don’t know a thing about it. You aren’t a reporter, are you?”

I smirk at the thought. “I’m too shy for that. I found the journal in Dad’s desk. Judging from his notes, he seemed anxious to find its owner. I need to know more about it.”

Ben takes another long stare, probably trying to decide if I am harmless.

“What am I worried about?” he finally says. “They can’t fire me, and I doubt they can take away my pension. Just in case, though, you didn’t hear it from me.”

“I understand.”

“We found it,” he replies matter-of-factly.

“Found it? What do you mean? Where? How? When?” As my questions rattle out, it dawns on me that I sound exactly like a reporter. I stop and try again. “Why don’t you start at the beginning and tell me all about it.”

“Can I get you some more coffee?” he asks, in no apparent hurry.

“No, thank you. I’m fine.”

“So, you want to hear about the journal?”

He pats my knee as if I were still a little girl—and perhaps, to an old man, I am.

“I was working with your father that day under the trellis, replacing some of the older rivets with new, high-strength bolts. It was your father who spotted the metal box tacked to the inside of the beam. I don’t know how he noticed it, the way it was hidden, but he did. It was built to look like a beam extension and then tacked on at the corners. We broke the spot welds and pulled it off, not really understanding what we’d found. He presumed it had been placed there by the original crew to cover a poor seam. It wasn’t until we ground off the corners and it popped open that we realized what we had. Best way to describe it is a homemade time capsule. Some of the original bridge crews were known to do things like that.”

“There were other boxes?”

“Not like ours. I’m talking about men leaving their marks on the bridge: their initials, coins with messages scrawled onto them dropped into the cement pours, that sort of thing.”

“So there was more in the box than just the journal?”

“Sure. It was full of stuff.”

“What kind of stuff?”

“Notes from the crew, pictures of the construction, jewelry, housing receipts, couple of pin-up postcards, letters, lots of things. It was all wrapped in a pouch that tied in the middle. I still remember the words they’d burnt into the leather. It said, ‘Built Forever.’”

“Was it an official time capsule?”

“Doubt it. There’d be records of that. This stuff looked like something an iron crew might toss together. Our bet was they did it on their own, that nobody else knew.”

“What happened to the rest of it—the notes and papers? Do you have them?”

“Me? No. I’d have been fired for keeping stuff like that.”

“So, where are they?”

“We should have turned it all in and told everyone what we’d found.”

“But you didn’t.”

“No, we didn’t. Our boss at the time was a real . . . well, in the presence of a lady, I’ll just call him challenged. We didn’t know what he’d do with the stuff, so we emptied the contents into our lunch pails and then tossed the steel box off the bridge into the bay. It was stupid, I know, but sometimes people do stupid things.”

“Do you know where everything is now?”

“I thought we should sell it. Your dad kept saying that we needed to give it to a museum. He took the journal home to look it over. I kept everything else. All we knew was that we couldn’t turn it in or tell people where it had come from—not after so many days had passed, not without the risk of losing our jobs.”

“So, what happened?”

“You’re an impatient little thing, aren’t you?”

“Sorry. Go ahead.”

“There wasn’t a bridge museum, so I dropped most everything off with an anonymous note to one of the universities.”

“But not the journal?”

“No, your dad kept the journal. He decided it was like a family Bible—that it didn’t belong to a museum or a university or anyone but the family of the guy who wrote it. He figured whoever wrote it was probably dead, but he took it upon himself to find out, and if the author was dead, then your dad planned to give it to his family.”

“But he never did.”

“No. Not that I know of. He tried—oh, how he tried. Honestly, I think he felt guilty for keeping it, and then when he couldn’t find the owner or his family, well, it bothered him.”

“Mr. Bryant, I noticed you said that you dropped off ‘most’ everything. Did you keep anything at all?”

He pauses. “You sure act like a reporter.”

“I’m sorry; I didn’t mean it to sound that way.”

He studies me for another long minute before he stands and shuffles out of the room. He’s gone for only a minute.

“The stuff wasn’t ours, but since your dad kept the journal, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to keep something as well. There was a ring that my wife took a liking to, so I gave it to her. She loved it and wore it for years. But since she’s gone, and since your dad found the box to begin with, Katie, I think you should take it.”

He places his wrinkled fingers in mine and passes along an intricately carved silver ring. It’s beautiful. I am stunned, unable to offer any better response than a mumbled thanks. We visit a little longer, until I sense it is time to leave.

“Mr. Bryant, one last thing, and then I’ll let you go.”

“What is it?”

“The rest of the items that you said you dropped off at the university. Do you remember which one?”

“It was the one on the west side, near the lake—let’s see, what’s it called?”

I smile at the thought. It’s the university where I work. “SFSU, San Francisco State University?”

“Yeah, that’s the one. Check with them. Who knows, they may still have everything.”

• • •

On the drive home I can’t get the journal out of my head. My father was right. It doesn’t belong in a museum where people will glance at the cover under glass as they stroll past. There are too many dreams, fears, and hopes embedded in its pages. It’s a personal story of a life that needs to be cherished by his family. It belongs to his children, and their children, and then their children.

My father desperately wanted to find them. He’d tried every O’Riley in San Francisco, probably every O’Riley in California, and, knowing Dad, every O’Riley across the country. But my father was an ironworker, not a researcher. I, on the other hand, am paid to dig up obscure facts and information. I know the ropes; I have people I can call, places I can look. And now, with the Internet, surely I can track down his family. I owe that much to my father; I owe that much to Patrick O’Riley.

The more I contemplate the task, the more energized I become. It’s right down my alley, a job on my own turf. And not just for Patrick, or for my father. Deep down, I know this is a job that I need to do for me.

My breathing quickens, my thoughts jump around with waving hands. Instinctively, I map out the paths I’ll take, the places I’ll start. As I do, one obstacle keeps flashing a warning in my head. I’ve promised the professor that in just a few days I’ll submit a comprehensive outline.

I can’t do both.

• • •

I drop the ring on the table. The design is unlike any I’ve ever seen. The band is formed by what look to be two connecting arms, each reaching around until they meet. The hands at the ends of the arms are intricate, with every detail of the fingers and nails showing. In the center, where the fingers touch, they hold a small silver heart. And below the heart—in fact, connected to it—extends a small crown.

I consider what might possess an ironworker to include a ring in the box. I’ve known many men who worked on the bridge, but most refused to wear jewelry, afraid they would catch it on a rivet and cause injury. Intrigued, I push the ring onto each of my fingers until it slides safely around the third finger of my left hand. I twirl the ring around and again study the design sculpted into the surface. There is something familiar. I’m sure I have seen these shapes before.

I sit perplexed until my mind makes the connection. When it does, I jump from my chair. As I hold it close, words from the journal flow from my lips.

“With this crown, I give my loyalty. With these hands, I promise to serve. With this heart, I give you mine.”

The crown, the hands, the heart—they are all there. In an instant, I know. On my finger I wear Anna’s ring.