“Now I see, my darling. Now I see!”
Thinking about it now, as she waited for the Fulton Ferry, she remembered it as one of the most profound experiences of her life. She recalled it with a clarity she had never known before, as if the experience were somehow etched in her brain, never to grow fuzzy with time. Emily remembered feeling as if she were alone: just her and Wash. She wanted him to know that she never really saw the bridge until that moment, never fully understood how magnificent a vision it was. From the start, before a stone was laid or a cable strung, it had lived within him, fully formed. Only then, standing on the windswept walkway in the center of the span, did she know what he had always seen. She marveled at it. Emily was experiencing what Washington had only imagined. She was in her husband's dream, living the vision. She willed herself back to him. The seagulls soared and sang.
Emily was shaken out of her reverie by the crunch and creak of the ferry grinding into the dock on the New York side. The wood squealed and groaned as the captain gunned the engines to bring the
Winona
fully into the dock. The round bow of the boat slid across the tarred oak planks. Emily settled back into the velvet of the carriage's interior and returned to that December day. They had drunk champagne. It was chilled and waiting for them on the New York side. They drank to the bridge, to Wash, and to a number of other things she couldn't recall. At the last, it was Farrington who said simply, “Gentlemen, I give you Emily Roebling.”
Emily could still recall Bill Kingsley, the general contractor, raising his champagne flute and saying, “A very great lady, indeed.”
It had been taken up by all of them. Some even toasted her twice. She had blushed under their compliments but in her heart she knew she deserved them.
Later Farrington told her, “Maâam, I'm not a great speechmaker, as you well know. I could have talked a lot more and said a lot less, if you take my meaning. All of us here know what you've done and what you've meant to this project. We're in your debt, ma'am. I can't say it plainer.”
She had rushed home to Wash after. He had been waiting in his study.
“I watched you, Em,” he had said slowly. She remembered trying to tell him what it was like for her, how it was nothing like she had come to expect. She didn't remember how she had tried to explain her feelings, only that her words were inadequate. Emily had a dreamy recollection of the late-afternoon sun casting softly glowing strands across the room. Lazy dust motes swirled and shone like fireflies as Wash took her in his arms. The New York skyline was outlined in shimmering yellows and oranges by the setting December sun, and the gothic towers of the bridge were on fire. The cables were ropes of light, gleaming and molten, as if from the forge. They hadn't bothered to draw the drapes. It wasn't important. There had been nothing outside that room, not even the bridge. It had been a very long time for both of them. They were familiar as an old flannel shirt but new as midnight snow. The cables that bound them held new wires of understanding that day. They renewed their bonds in that little study on the second floor of 110 Columbia Heights.
Sitting back in her carriage now, Emily still felt the glow of that afternoon. She thought back to how they had lain there afterward, a mist of sweat cooling on their skins. They had watched as the spire of Trinity Church pierced the setting sun, slowly splitting it as it slipped below the city canyons.
She asked him then, “Would you do it all again, knowing what you know now? Build the bridge, I mean.”
Her husband had stared long at the ceiling, as if an answer could be found there. Emily had waited, knowing.
“Yes” was all he had said. It was enough.
It was incredible really, that a man would say that he would subject himself to ten years of pain and disability to accomplish what he had. But he said it, as she knew he would. She understood now, as she never had before, how rare it was to create something as monumental as the Brooklyn Bridge. It was the work of a lifetime. It was a castle in the sky for the industrial age ⦠a monument. This was an age when engineers like Wash were the men of the hour. They and their creations were lauded and honored and marveled at as never before. Things were changing fast as inventors and engineers raced to create things like electric lights and telephones and horseless carriages. But unlike these things, which would change again, almost as fast as they were invented, the bridge would last. Millions would cross it, use it, admire it, and on a Sunday, strolling on the promenade, simply enjoy it. Not one man in a million has the chance to build something like that, and Washington Roebling had done it â¦
they
had done it. Such things were worth sacrifice.
Emily's carriage pulled to a stop in front of the Astor Library, at 415 Lafayette Place. She stopped her daydreaming and looked out the carriage
window as Hughes their butler and driver set the brake and stepped down from the driver's seat. This had been a fashionable part of town at one time. Walt Whitman had once lived across the street in the row of town houses called La Grange Terrace after the country seat of the Marquis de Lafayette. But that was many years ago, and the street, although still respectable, was no longer home to the wealthy and famous. They had moved farther uptown. It seemed everyone wanted to live near Central Park now.
Hughes opened Emily's door, and she stepped down to the blue slate sidewalk in front of the new north wing of the library. For a moment she stopped to look up at the elegant Italianate brownstone façade. There was still the slightest scent of cut lumber and concrete to the place. The north wing had been completed just a few months before.
Something attracted Emily's attention to the street behind her. Thinking back on it later, she could never recall exactly what made her turn and look at the long row of columned town houses across Lafayette Place. She had admired those buildings before. They were so different from most of the new buildings going up now and had a classic, Greek revival style that she thought timeless. Legend had it that inmates from Sing Sing had done the stonework, but that was fifty years ago. Most had been divided into apartments now.
A tall, broad-shouldered man with an imposing mustache caught her attention for no reason she could explain. She supposed it was the way he walked, but it was hard to put her finger on it. He moved toward the front door of the Grange with an easy stride. She watched him. There was no swagger, just an ease that spoke of a man at home with who he was. He tipped his hat to a woman leaving the building. Emily liked the way he did that, especially the brief glimpse of his smile and the way his eyes crinkled at the corners. Emily wondered idly about the man as he took a first step toward the front doors of the building. Then he hesitated and stopped, turning toward her. She had been surprised to find herself staring at the tall stranger across the street. Staring at strange men was definitely not something she did. Still, he was quite handsome, she noticed as she flicked her skirt and turned up the stairs to library. Wickedly she couldn't resist one last glance before she went in the front door. To her amazement, the man was still watching her, the ghost of a smile playing on his face. She couldn't help but smile too. Thank God Hughes hadn't noticed. It was embarrassing enough to be caught staring like some streetwalker. But in truth she rather enjoyed it. He had looked at her in a way she hadn't been looked at in some time. She had the feeling that somehow they had known each other before. Odd, how a glance from a strange man across Lafayette Place could do that.
Her step was light as she entered the big central hallway of the library. Emily took the stairs to the second floor. She had been around hundreds of
men almost constantly since she had been assisting Wash. Every day she had been at the construction site, the only woman in a manly world. Emily knew just how unique that was. For Emily to be treated as an equal where men ruled was extraordinary indeed. She remembered how at first every man's eye had been on her and how nervous she had been. The workers sometimes had stopped what they were doing to stare as she got out of her carriage. On occasion she felt that those stares had been not quite appropriate. She had gotten used to it, though, and to a lot more. Stares from strange men were not all that uncommon for her. Still â¦
T
om opened the door to his apartment. It creaked on its hinges in a familiar, homey sort of way. He knew he should put some oil on the thing, but the squeaking hinge was a kind of “welcome home” to him, and he never did seem to find the time to oil it. He went on in to the kitchen and put the small bag he carried down on the counter near the sink. The squeaking hinge did serve some purpose after all. Tom's two cats, Grant and Lee, trotted into the kitchen with an urgency they usually reserved for catching mice or fighting. Lee rubbed against his leg, arching her back and straightening her tail. She purred as if he were a long-lost lover. Grant took a more direct approach, jumping up on the counter, mewing pitifully, as if he hadn't been fed in weeks. Tom stroked Grant's neck and rubbed him behind his ears. The big cat twisted his neck and closed his eyes, soaking up the attention. Tom's thoughts started to drift to the woman he had seen across the street.
Soon Grant reminded him of his real mission in life, which was to feed him. Making a direct frontal assault, he began attacking the brown paper bag Tom had put on the counter. Grant always had been the more direct of the two, and he chewed at the paper with determination. Tom took the bag away from him and put the chicken scraps it contained in a bowl. Grant was black and white, with a white face and a black chin and neck that reminded Tom of a beard. Lee was Confederate gray with stripes of butternut brown and black. Her hair sprang out in a mane on either side of her neck, and she owned a beautiful fluffy striped tail that she liked to drape over her face when she slept.
Tom didn't think of himself as a cat lover. In his way, though, he supposed that he loved Grant and Lee. He supposed he had to considering all the litters of kittens he'd found homes for over the years. They certainly seemed to love him, or maybe they just loved the chicken scraps he brought them in the little brown bag. That was only part of it, he knew. They showed their affection for him in their own ways. Grant would never deign to curl up in Tom's bed at night the way Lee did. Tom imagined that he considered it beneath his dignity,
but he seemed to love nothing more than draping himself across Tom's lap while he sat reading. Tom was catching up on the classics at the moment, feeling guilty about not reading enough of late. His library was modest but growing slowly. Dickens was his favorite, though he liked Mark Twain's stories a lot. He also had a growing collection of autobiographies and memoirs of key military figures from the war. Having served, it interested him to read the generals' views of the same events. It always astonished him how different those memories could be. Tonight, though, he was finishing up
A Tale of Two Cities
.
The big red chair by the front window was Grant's favorite. Tom hadn't so much as cracked his book when Grant was settling himself in. Lee, on the other hand, warmed his bed every night. She would push herself into the curve behind his knees, kneading him like a plumped pillow, and when she finally arranged him just to her liking, she would purr them both to sleep. Some of Tom's lady friends didn't like it. Oddly, Tom had to admit that those who didn't were usually not invited back.
Tom got up for a minute to fix himself a roast beef sandwich and get a bottle of Clausen's out of the icebox. He emptied the water tray from under the block of ice, which was getting small, he noticed. Then he settled back into the big red chair by the window, and Grant sauntered over, a little slower this time, probably annoyed at being upset so quickly. Tom patted his thigh.
“Come on up, fella.” Grant jumped up, almost upsetting Tom's stout. “Get yourself settled, you old bastard. Spill one drop o' my stout and I'll skin your hide.”
Grant slowly worked his claws on Tom's thigh in a shameless play for a neck rub, but the sandwich took two hands. Grant looked up with reproach. Once Tom had reduced the sandwich to one-hand size, he gave in and stroked Grant's neck. The cat closed his eyes, arched his head, and vibrated in contentment. Tom opened his book again and started over. He sipped his stout, which was none too cold. Mostly the pubs and saloons served it warm, but since Tom could afford an icebox and the daily deliveries of ice that went with it, he had been acquiring a taste for his Clausen's chilled.
He gazed out the front window. Dusk was falling, and he'd have to light a lamp soon, but for now he just enjoyed the gathering gloom. A line of carriages had filled the curb for half the block in front of the library.
“Big doings across the way, there, Grant. What do you make of it, old soldier? Some sort of trustee meeting, I suppose.” Grant didn't answer. “Bunch of old farts plannin' a temperance meeting or some damned thing. Well, they'll never get my Clausen's, laddie. I'm defendin' the ramparts of drunkenness to my dyin' breath. âTis a far, far better thing I do than I have ever done ⦔ Tom
intoned, grinning at Grant. “Are ye with me? Sound off there, ye worthless flea bag. Are you goin' to let them top hats take our beer away?” Grant snoozed. “A little support here would be nice. It's a man's right to drink himself into oblivion if he so desires, and as long as he's not pissin' on their shoes, it's none o' their business.” Tom chuckled as Grant half opened one eye. “A fine effort, old man. I knew I could count on you.”