The Engineer's Wife

by Tracey Enerson Wood

  “Johnny? JOHN!” I searched the barge, racing around the stacks of stones we had hidden in moments ago, then scrambled on top of a stack for a better view. My body tingled and sweated with panic. He was nowhere to be seen. Climbing back down, with panic narrowing my vision, I heard a splash near the side of the barge. I rushed over. Johnny was in the water, flailing his arms, his head barely afloat.

  I leapt off the barge and belly-flopped the six feet down into the water. Gasping for breath, I grabbed Johnny’s shirt collar as he sank beneath the surface. He lunged for me, wrapped his arms around my neck. Fighting the current and my billowing dress, I pulled and kicked through the water until at last I reached a ladder on the pier. Breathless, I gasped, “Take hold of the ladder, sweetie.”

  He did as he was told and scampered up the ladder, no worse for his adventure. Soon, a gaggle of children joined him. As I dragged myself and my anchor of a dress up the ladder, I felt myself once again being grabbed under the arms and hoisted aloft. I rubbed the salty sting from my eyes and saw O’Brien.

  “You all right now?”

  I nodded, my teeth clenched against my old adversary, the river.

  His six children engaged Johnny in a rough-and-tumble game of tag. Patrick and his five younger siblings, the youngest about seven years old, were all dressed in bathing costumes and had left a trail of towels and lunch pails across the pier.

  O’Brien pulled a towel from around his neck and handed it to me, but a thread caught on his silver chain and locket. It drew me awkwardly close to him for a moment. He laughed it off, then modestly pulled a shirt over his bathing costume.

  “Bit of advice, ma’am. ’Tis quite dangerous to swim in full dress. Go on,” he said as he waved to his children, who were clamoring to go in the water. “Your children swim?”

  “Not yet. We only have the one.” I shivered into the towel. Bile rising in my throat, I didn’t want to talk. I wanted to close up like the wet clam I was.

  A child in the river shouted a protest, eliciting a response from O’Brien. “Patrick! You’ll not be dunking your brother!” He turned back to me. “Of course, wee John, nearly four years old now, isn’t he? ’Bout time for another one, nah?”

  I winced, although I knew he meant no harm. “Afraid not.”

  “Sorry, Mrs. Roebling. I wasn’t meaning to…” His face reddened.

  “Not to worry, Mr. O’Brien. It’s lovely to watch your children play.”

  “We enjoy coming out here on Sundays. Don’t be telling our Heavenly Father!” He raised his eyes toward the sky. “Join us with the wee bairn, won’t you now?”

  Johnny and I came at slack tide each Sunday thereafter for swimming lessons.

  Our first lesson fell on a gloriously warm day, so I walked the half mile to the river, pulling Johnny in his wagon. It seemed every shopkeeper was out sweeping the sidewalk in front of his business. I nodded greetings and exchanged pleasantries with many.

  At some point, I noticed a change. Was it my imagination, or were people turning their backs toward me? A sweet elderly Italian woman, who was always washing the windows of the family bakery, used to scurry into the shop and return with a sweet for Johnny. By July, she merely pursed her lips and slopped her rag back on the window. As the weeks passed, I was certain I was being shunned. I winced, hearing words such as harlot and whore coming from doorways of brownstones, just loud enough for me decipher.

  Was it our swimming lessons with O’Brien, unchaperoned by my husband, or my audacity to work in a man’s world that set their tongues wagging? It would do no good to confront them, I knew. I held my head high and proceeded with our Sunday journeys on foot. On other days of the week, I rode to save time, but I wanted Johnny to experience the neighborhood on our day together, despite our cool reception. Let them talk. Gossip has always been spread, and there is nothing to do but to live one’s life as best one can.

  One afternoon, we were having difficulty making our way through Brooklyn Heights. Small clumps of people blocked the sidewalk, making no allowance for my son and me. We crossed into the street, jeers and laughter following us. People poured out of residences and shops that should have been closed on Sunday in some sort of organized protest.

  A neighbor with whom I had some acquaintance ambled toward me. A large man, he had a kind face and graying hair that seemed to recede from his forehead, only to slip down his neck. He was dressed in a fine black suit, no doubt having just given a sermon at Plymouth church. The preacher lifted his top hat. “A pleasure to see you, Mrs. Roebling.”

  “Reverend Beecher, a fine day to be out.” I nodded my greeting. The dozens of people who had gathered about quieted. “It seems I’m having a bit of a problem gaining passage with so many others enjoying the fresh air.”

  Henry Ward Beecher was a beloved resident who had fought against slavery, not with a gun but with his eloquence, money, and influence. I greatly admired him. He was also known as quite the ladies’ man, and to engage in conversation with him risked setting the gears of gossip in motion anew.

  “Allow me.” He gave a small bow. Addressing the throng, he bellowed in his deep, resonant voice, “Clear the way, my friends and neighbors. Let this fine woman and her child pass.”

  Like Moses splitting the Red Sea, he walked with me through the crowd, down the hill through the several more blocks to the water’s edge. I thanked him when we reached our destination, the pier where O’Brien and his children had already gathered.

  “It was my very great pleasure.” He slipped a small card from his pocket. Engraved upon it was his name, and below it, President, American Woman Suffrage Association. “We meet at the church on Tuesday evenings. We would be honored for you to join us.”

  I ran my tongue along my teeth.

  “Don’t worry if we’re not your denomination. All are welcome. Why, we have Jews and Catholics and—”

  “Perhaps when I have a bit more spare time,” I answered in kindness, although a closer association with Reverend Beecher would further complicate my life. I tucked the card in my canvas swim bag. “I do hope to rejoin the movement soon.”

  “Splendid. You’ll call on me if you have any further difficulties?” He waved toward the dispersing crowd.

  I nodded, and he tipped his hat before proceeding down the street with his rocking gait, stopping to converse with all on the way.

  * * *

  Every week, the tower grew one course of granite stones higher, and the pier offered a pleasant view. One Sunday, as the days grew shorter and cooler, slack tide arrived near dusk. O’Brien and Johnny emerged from the water, glinting in the golden light. The sight of O’Brien with my sweet son nestled in his muscled arms took my breath away.

  “A regular fish, that he is!” O’Brien set Johnny down on the pier.

  I swept my little boy into my arms, cool and dripping. “Mama is so proud of you!” I planted a kiss on his cool, plump cheek before he squirmed away. “Is anyone hungry?”

  I offered cold chicken and biscuits, and the children swarmed like locusts. O’Brien and I carried our dinner a few steps away and sat on the pier, swinging our legs over the water.

  I wrapped a napkin around the small end of a drumstick and sank my teeth into its peppery crust. “Your wife—does she not swim?”

  “Died in childbirth, God bless ’er.” He wiped his mouth, then kissed the locket pendant he wore around his neck.

  “I’m terribly sorry. Raising six children on your own. And yet so dedicated to your work.”

  “Blessed to have the job, ma’am. Colonel Roebling has been very generous. Took me out of the caisson, he did. Oh, the lads tease me for that.”

  “You’ve taken care of him as well. I am grateful.”

  “Ah, despite everything, I’d do anything for the colonel, even if he did nearly put a bullet through my heart.”

  I gagged on a bite of biscuit. “C
ome again?”

  “Maybe that’s a story he hasn’t told,” O’Brien mumbled.

  “Tell me. You can’t say something like that, then leave it in the wind.”

  “Ah, ya got me there.” He pointed at the pink and purple bands in the sky. “It was nigh about sunset, just like this. I was in your brother’s division, don’t you know.”

  I didn’t know but nodded anyway.

  “Had my private stripe by then, so that made me more seasoned than most.” He chuckled. “I was assigned a horse and a mission to find the colonel—lieutenant back then—deep in enemy territory. I rode that horse hard, and after a day’s ride, I found him near York, right where General Warren said he should be.” He stopped and smiled as if the story was done. “Time to be packing up,” he yelled to the children.

  “Go on,” I encouraged.

  He folded a towel and wrapped another around his neck. “I reined my horse in when I saw the lieutenant. His mount hung its head and could barely take another step, and he himself didn’t seem much better—in danger of falling asleep and sliding out of the saddle. My horse whinnied, which woke him. In a flash, he had his revolver raised and pointing squarely at me chest. I said the password, and the colonel—I mean lieutenant—holstered his sidearm.” O’Brien slid the locket back and forth on its chain.

  “The general was worried. Thinking Roebling was knackered from his long ride, he sent me to check on him. He had real important maps of Gettysburg. The lieutenant said he was hoping to get a night’s rest, and he’d never climb in a saddle again once the war was done. ‘It’s only a day’s ride from here, sir. You could have a rest and be there by ’morrow’s eve,’ I said. That would have been soon enough. But he fetched maps from his saddlebag and handed one to me. ‘You take this back tonight, Private. I’ll follow with the other one tomorrow. Split them up, in the event one of us manages to survive.’”

  O’Brien hung his head, his eyes moist. “I gave him a telegram. It was getting dark by then, and he lit a match from his cigar to read it.

  “‘Congratulations. Seems like you should be smoking this,’ he said and offered me his cigar.” O’Brien’s voice grew soft. “I told him the child would be our sixth. But my wife was having difficulty. ‘Sorry to hear that,’ he said. I gave him another letter, this one from the general himself. ‘My orders are to continue on to New York to attend to my wife, sir. If you can spare me.’” O’Brien looped the locket from around his neck, kissed it, then handed it to me. “This was hers.”

  “Did you make it back in time?” I ran my finger over the locket, its monogram nearly worn smooth.

  He shook his head. “He said, ‘This is war, Private.’” O’Brien eyes were wet and red-rimmed; it hurt to hold his gaze. “He told me to get the map back to the general. I started to argue, but the look of him, worn down like an old shoe, I had no choice.

  “I took the map and went on my way while he went into an abandoned house for a rest.” O’Brien saluted the ghost of time past.

  I handed back the locket. “It seems you’ve earned a special place in his heart.”

  “I wish to be treated like any other man.” He yanked the towel from his neck and snapped it sharply. “See what happened when he assigned that gobshite Einar to the caisson in my stead.”

  With O’Brien and I engrossed in conversation, his children had snuck in one more swim. They climbed the wooden wall that surrounded the construction site and leapt into the water from it while Johnny helped me pack the basket. “Did you see her again?”

  He shook his head.

  “I’m so sorry.” How awful Wash must have felt.

  The children shouted from the water. “Da! Come see this!”

  Patrick’s arm dripped with dark-brown goop. We rushed over to investigate, offering a hand to help them out of the water. Each of the children had dark slime coating various appendages. They hopped about, waving their hands and holding their noses at the noxious smell. We grabbed towels and wiped the sticky substance off them. In the water next to the tower floated a viscous slick. I grabbed an empty jar from the dinner basket and collected a sample of the slimy river water.

  * * *

  Later that evening, Wash lathered Johnny while he played with toy sailboats in the tub. “Why, exactly, do you have one of my workers teaching Johnny to swim?”

  Johnny blinked his big blue eyes, looking like an elf with a tall hat of white bubbles.

  Wash’s irritation puzzled me since we had been taking the lessons for several weeks. “O’Brien offered after witnessing your son’s near drowning.”

  “For which you were totally negligent and irresponsible. Bringing a child to the work site! And a picnic with a worker and his family? Emily, you’ve lost the distinction between work and home life.” He made a game of rinsing Johnny off, using a colander to create a rain shower.

  “I most certainly have not. Anytime you choose to accompany your wife and son to work, to a picnic, to any activity at all, you are most welcome. But don’t expect us to hide ourselves from society; that’s your peculiar way.” Johnny stood up in the tub, and I wrapped him in a towel. “And workers are just people like us. Sharing a meal with a lovely family should not be forbidden due to some archaic notion of class.”

  “It’s not class. It’s boundaries for those over whom you have authority. It isn’t appropriate to ask special favors of them. Don’t you see that?”

  I sucked in my cheeks. “I suppose you’re right.”

  “The river is not a safe place to swim. You of all people should know that. Do you think O’Brien merely happened by the day Johnny fell?”

  “What are you saying?”

  “Nothing. But I shall continue his lessons myself, in a more appropriate place. There’s a nice lake near Trenton.” He finger-combed Johnny’s curls. “I can still swim, you know.”

  I softened my tone. “I do take your point. A lake would be better. And I do try to maintain a professional relationship with all the workers.” A picture of O’Brien and Wash during the war flashed in my mind. “It seems you have some fondness for him and he for you. Did you ask him to check in on me?”

  “He’s a good worker. Time for a story, Johnny.” He grasped our son’s hand and stepped out of the room, no doubt aware of having breached the very rule he had asked me to follow.

  After we put Johnny to bed, I joined Wash in the library where I had left the basket from our picnic on the pier. A waft of pungent air filled the room when I opened it. I lifted out the jar of tainted water.

  “Good God, what’s that smell?” Wash poured whiskey.

  “I thought this strange. The children swam into it by chance, and I thought it might mean something.”

  He opened the jar, took a whiff, then stuck his fingers in it and rubbed them together.

  “Like turpentine. Rotten turpentine,” I said.

  “Where was it coming from, exactly?”

  “Seems to be bubbling up from the caisson.”

  “Burnt wood smells like this as it disintegrates.” He screwed the lid back on the jar.

  “But we flooded the caisson and filled every last space in the roof with concrete.”

  “What? I wasn’t told of this flooding.” He slammed the jar onto a table.

  “We discussed it might be necessary. I—”

  “We’ll deal with that later. Our concern now is that there are burnt and rotting timbers in the caisson roof. As the wood decomposes, the wet concrete will settle into the empty spaces, causing cracking and instability in the hardened concrete. The more weight we put on it, the worse it will get.”

  “But doesn’t all wood eventually decompose?”

  “To some extent, yes. But it won’t matter once the concrete is set.” He went to the bookcase and, after running his hand down dozens of volumes, selected one. “It’s here.”

  It was a text I ha
d had considerable difficulty with, reading it at a time where very different problems were occurring. “I’m afraid I rather skimmed over that one.”

  “We’ll correct that bad habit. From now on, you come to me with questions and take the exams at the ends of the chapters.”

  My spirits lifted. He wanted to tutor me. This was more interest than I had seen from him in months.

  But my relief in his seeming return to the man he had been soon faded as he slammed the book shut.

  “We have to chisel out every last bit of the concrete in the roof and replace the wooden beams.”

  “That will take months!” I cried, aghast.

  “How did you let this happen? I gave specific instructions!”

  “You’re leaping to conclusions, Wash. Maybe we won’t find more damaged beams.”

  “Oh, you’ll find them. Or you’re not looking in the right goddamn place!”

  * * *

  As bearer of this disagreeable news to the workers, I thought it might be more palatable if I assisted in the solution. I climbed through the hatch and down the ladder into the caisson, then up through the ceiling into the roof structure where the foot-wide beams crisscrossed in a thicket. I was met by Dunn, whom I had put in charge of the concrete excavation.

  His head jerked at the sight of me. “Mrs. Roebling! This is no place for a lady.”

  “I’ve been here before and survived, thank you. And by the way, my being here is not to be known outside of the workmen.”

  “As you wish, ma’am.”

  “Now, how can I help?” I held out my hands, clad in heavy work gloves.

  Dunn ran his fingers through his short strawberry-blond hair. “I don’t think—”

  “Shall I start over there?” I picked up an ax and pointed it to an area free of workers.