Three Rivers Rising (18 page)

Hadn’t given it much thought:
just figured the job out east wouldn’t wait forever,
that this detour meant I was needed here
indefinitely.

But what about after that?
Help rebuild Johnstown, yes,
but stay on and call it home?
Nurse for a local doctor?
Dresser in a hospital?
Can I ever go back
to that life?

No.
The right thing to do
is to go where I am needed most,
wherever in the world that may be.

When our work in Johnstown is done,
I will kick out the coals of my fire,
grab the little ax
and the chipped pot—
these are truly useful objects—
and go to the railcar with the red-and-white sign.

“Good,” she will say,
plain, not smug,
and she will direct me to the work that requires my hand.
Miss Barton is a woman who knows the natural order of things—
same as me—
and the natural thing
is for me to team up with the Red Cross.

East Conemaugh

Maura

I’m making a new patchwork now,
pieces of the lives of strangers uphill:
part of a roof,
half of a barn door,
other planks,
all washed down from Mineral Point,
or South Fork, maybe.
They look like treasures compared to nothing.
I drag them over to where I think our house used to be
and assemble
a makeshift shelter
for the children to toddle in and out of,
to keep the rain off when we sleep.

My knuckles are split,
my palms full of splinters.

I picture a family in Johnstown below
using pieces of our house for the same purpose—
or maybe even
airing out a shred of my quilt?
But I’m not mourning it.
I don’t even want it back.
The story has changed.
I see us for what we are:
a child bride
with babies one after the other after the other,
too close together,
and a husband more than twice her age,
who loves his family
and loves his work,
but
who might not have a choice
about entering this new life,
this
consuming
public
life.
Alone.

I had decided to share Joseph
if I must,
but,
truth is,
he belongs to them now.
They are the ones to decide
how much to share him
with me.

Not a story I should like to tell,
nor a quilt I should like to make.

Pittsburgh

Celestia

Peter reads aloud to me,
same as every evening
since we arrived in Pittsburgh.
He lingers over the last line,
closes the book,
and stirs the fire.
I raise the fur-trimmed blanket to my chin
as he sits at the foot of the chaise longue.

“What should we read next?”
Peter scans the wall of books behind me.
“You choose,” I say.

I care only for the sound of his voice,
reassuring me that he is really here,
a guest in my parents’ home—
parents who claim and defend me.

We are warm and dry.
We have plenty to eat
and my health will be completely restored
after a few weeks’ rest.
We are together.
Mother,
Father,
Peter,
and me.
If only it were not too late for Estrella—
I will never forget my vow to find her.
If only I knew where to begin,
or if only Mimsy would return and offer a clue.
But we have not heard a word
in all this time.
Estrella may be beyond our reach,
never hearing of Father’s change of heart.
Will he try to locate her?
To tell her?
Even so, could she ever forgive him?
Is she lost to us forever?

The volunteer ladies have taken over the ballroom,
and so the house is filled with commotion,
chatter,
comings and goings,
gloves mislaid,
and enormous pots of tea.

When I arrived home,
I expected to find Mother
wracked with worry,
reclining on her fainting couch,
alternately waving smelling salts
and a silk fan,
complaining of vapors
or some such.
Instead I found a new version of Mother,
back straight,
jaw set,
quietly orchestrating a monumental relief effort
with a zeal in her eyes
that says
she was
saving me
by bundling blankets,
coats,
foodstuffs,
by prying into the wallets and string purses
of our wealthy friends and neighbors,
and she would not stop or sleep or eat until
word came
of my safety.
Or demise.

Mother fusses
when I insist on helping the volunteers,
but I tire quickly anyway.
She helps me to a stuffed chair
where I cut lengths of string
for tying up bundles of blankets or clothing.
Peter is off exploring the library,
where we will meet later.

All the biddy hens are here:
Louise Godwin
and Lucille Marshall,
acting like the dam broke just to inconvenience them,
their whole crowd
kissing the ground they walk on.
They clear throats,
try not to look at me,
and busy themselves at the other end of the ballroom.
I can hear them just the same:
“What her parents must have suffered!”
“She could have been killed!”
“If she were mine, I wouldn’t allow her back in the house!”
“Imagine, throwing her life away on that…urchin!”

My voice surprises us all: “His name is Peter.”
All whispering stops and I sit upright.
“He watched over me when I was ill”—
I move toward them—
“and he is here
in this house
at my parents’ invitation.
You are not welcome to speak of him this way.”

Mother looks at me with alarm,
but then her new quiet strength takes over
and she comes to stand beside me,
leveling her stare at those gossips.
Mrs. Godwin smirks and exchanges glances with her friends.
“Think about what you’re saying, my dear.
One word from me can bar the door
of every quality family on the Eastern seaboard.”
“Speak it, then, if you must, Louise.”
Mother hands me a blanket.
“We have more important work
to get on with.”
We resume folding and stacking blankets.

Mrs. Godwin’s mouth works with sounds she cannot utter—
Mother has rendered her speechless!

Mrs. Marshall glares down her bony nose
and steers Mrs. Godwin toward the door.
They stop after a few paces. “Ladies …”
A few women follow them,
a few look torn,
but a good number crowd around Mother,
nodding and reaching for bundling string.

I fold a blanket up high
to hide my smile.

Peter

My thoughts return to Johnstown, to rebuilding,
to a home I could bring Celestia back to
once she’s well.

“Stay for dinner tonight at least,” the old man says.
“I have a special surprise planned for Celestia and her mother.”

Celestia

Dinner is beautiful.
The candles glow gold,
the linens are starched crisp,
the silver shimmers,
the beef is tender,
the sauce savory.

My velvet gown,
wine, and good company
warm me.

“Your cheeks are pink.” Peter smiles.
It brings me back
to our first days together
on the banks of Lake Conemaugh,
a lake that no longer exists.

Safe,
comfortable,
surrounded by people I love,
how I wish the same could be said
for the citizens of Johnstown,
who live with the scars
and high-water marks
of those three rivers,
whose search for lost loved ones
will never end.

I know what they feel.
I return Peter’s smile,
but he must see the sadness in my eyes.
“Thinking of your sister?” he whispers.
I close my eyes,
nodding.

A clatter in the drive
threatens to disrupt
our peace—
not the first time word from the office
called Father away—
but Father is not grumbling
and checking his pocket watch.
He is grinning at Mother expectantly.

Realization sweeps over me
and I rise to my feet.
“Oh!” is all I manage to say.

Mother looks concerned. “Celestia, dear, what is it?”
Father chuckles.
Peter looks confused.

Laughing,
running,
throwing open the front door,
jumping the stairs,
I am upon the carriage even before it stops.

Estrella has come home.

She is laughing and crying.
We are hugging,
she holds my face in her hands.
“Thank heaven you were spared!”

I kiss her hands. “Thank heaven you are home.”

At last,
everyone I love
under one roof.
And new people to love:
Estrella’s new husband, Lord Edgar,
who introduces himself,
“I had been waiting
my whole dull life
to be struck
by love at first sight
the instant Estrella set foot
on British soil.”
And darling Baby Henry,
a stout curly-headed fellow,
and Mimsy accompanying them all.

Mimsy pulls me aside
as she removes her gloves. “Edgar has a title and a castle
but he’s poor as a churchmouse,
like so many of them are.
We worked out a little arrangement
with your father’s banker.” Mimsy winks.
“Father
knew
where she was?”
“Oh, he always
knew
…
he could just never make contact,
left it to old Aunt Mimsy
to find a loophole.”
“A loophole?”
“A flat-broke English country gentleman
willing to be swept away
by your sister’s beauty and charm
before she even had need to let out her corset.”
“And she loves him?”
“They’re mad for each other.
See for yourself.” Mimsy nods toward
the little group.

Estrella straightens Edgar’s collar
and looks into his eyes.
He gently replaces a stray curl for her
and smiles.
Mother nuzzles the baby.
I am satisfied.

We are together at last,
snug under one roof.
This is the source of my strength,
the strength that will carry me
back to Johnstown
to face whatever challenges wait for me there
when I return with Peter.

Author’s Note

When I was a kid, a bunch of friends and I were talking about how cool it would be if our houses were underwater. We could swim through the rooms like deep-sea explorers, swim or boat to each other’s houses, and dive off the roofs. My dad happened to overhear and he explained that it would be the opposite of cool. We asked, “Has this ever happened anywhere, a town underwater?” A history buff, my dad must have told me about the Johnstown flood, but I was too young to sense the gravity of it.

In high school, I saw a movie about the flood in history class. I couldn’t get the story of class strata, power, and accountability out of my head for years. By the time I stumbled across the movie again on TV in the 1990s, I was thinking like a writer. I could picture so clearly the ladies in white reclining on the porch of the clubhouse, or strolling the boardwalk.
This would make a great novel!

Early on, I intended that my completely fictitious characters would be mixed in with real people—for example, John Hess, the railroad engineer who warned East Conemaugh with his train whistle. When I chose to tell his story as seen through the eyes of his wife, the characters took on lives of their own, deviating from the actual history. Following a thread like that, letting the story unfold in ways that surprise you, is the most enjoyable
part of writing. Thus we have Maura, and Joseph, instead of John Hess.

Another case is Grayson. Although the wealthy industrialists Andrew Carnegie, Henry Clay Frick, and Andrew Mellon were club members, none of them fit the profile of the philandering tycoon too powerful to coerce into marriage. Grayson, young and more of a man-about-town, is a stand-in.