by Peter Troy
Marcella would always insist that he stay for supper. Her cooking wasn’t improving as fast as Ethan’s carpentering, but Micah enjoyed the company a great deal. Two three four times a week, Micah’d come by. Just like that. Through the rest of October. Always with his tools at first, ’til Marcella told him that if he insisted on doing all this work they’d have to start paying him again. Said she knew her cooking wasn’t much in the way of compensation. And Ethan was quick to agree with that, then got himself slapped on the shoulder with an oven mitten. And all three of them smiled.
So that started a regular thing of Micah going to their house for supper a few times a week. Sometimes they’d have other folks over too. The Stimsons mostly. And he’d listen to Marcella speak her mind like no woman he’d ever met, even more than Olivia. On abolition. Women’s rights. Or just the proper way to set the dinner table. Didn’t matter, she had an opinion on all of it and wasn’t shy to speak it. And then Ethan might argue a little, or make a joke. And she’d come right back at him. And it reminded him of what he and Mary had back in Richmond. The playfulness Mary liked so much, and he did too. ’Cause it had made him playful for the first time since he was a little boy. Or maybe ever.
And at night back at the boardinghouse. When he wasn’t reading to keep his mind from such things. His thoughts would drift south, to Richmond or Charleston or wherever it was his Daddy had ended up. Only different now from the mournful nights along the Blue Ridge. Not all alone like he was then. Not a mule either. A free man. Mister Micah Plowshare, carpenter.
ETHAN
GETTYSBURG, PENNSYLVANIA
NOVEMBER 19, 1863
Da had been the one to suggest it to Mrs. Harrison, and it seemed strange indeed for him to say such a thing, and even stranger for him to volunteer himself to come along with Ethan. But there was no refusing, not when Ethan heard how Harry’s mother had lit up at the idea of it, and not when his Da seemed so anxious to come along.
Ethan had received Da’s letter just a week earlier saying how Mrs. Harrison would come to visit far more than she used to and they could hear the sadness in her voice. And it was never sadder than when she mentioned the dedication of the Gettysburg cemetery that was soon to take place, and her far too old and with the bad feet and all, unable to see such a thing, to see where her only boy would be buried. And Ethan could hardly refuse Da’s offer to go in her place. Besides, Marcella wanted to tell them the news in person, of her being in a family way, as she figured Mam and Aunt Em would want to hear it.
So she’s in Brooklyn while Ethan and his Da are both here for a day that seems to be turning into far more than a simple dedication of a battlefield cemetery. They’d arrived the day before, and that was when Ethan took the pictures of Harry’s tiny tombstone, smaller even than the one Aislinn had and laid flat on the ground just like hers, though it was hard to hold such a thing against the government, considering how many there were of them to be made. And then he’d taken several more of the view in every direction, knowing Mrs. Harrison would want to know what her only child would have to look at for as long as it took him to get to the Ever After.
That night they’d had to travel twenty miles out of town, back toward New York, just to find a hotel room for themselves. Ethan’d suggested that they just stay on the train and go all the way back home that night, but Da wouldn’t hear of it. And then there was this morning, with masses of people packed onto every railcar, and this tiny farming town overrun for the second time since July. The President will be in attendance, and Ethan tells his Da to go and watch the parade without him since he’d like to set his camera up by the podium where he’ll soon address the crowd. After all, he’d met the man those years before, but still has no picture of him.
As the parade begins to close in on the cemetery, he can see another photographer setting up more than thirty feet away, back behind the crowd quickly swelling into the thousands. There’s no sign of Da amidst such a throng, and he smiles to think he’s lost his assistant after all. When the ceremony finally begins, it moves with all the haste of the Army of the Potomac approaching Richmond, which is to say, it hardly moves at all.
There are songs from the band and greetings from the master of ceremonies, and an invocation, and more songs, and then the featured speaker, Edward Everett, who trudges on for nearly two hours, pressing patience to its limits, until at least half of the vast crowd dissipates into the surrounding areas while he’s still speaking. Da manages to slip his way up to the front beside Ethan, and they roll their eyes at each other every time it appears Mr. Everett is about to wrap up but then is moved to further eloquence.
Until at last he’s done and the band does what it can to stir some life back into the survivors. The President’s introduced, and the crowd offers enthusiastic applause as he walks to the front of the platform and begins to speak in a voice still familiar to Ethan from a few years before at Cooper Union, but firmer now, deeper, with the resonance of all that he, and the Nation, have endured.
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal …
Ethan can tell right off that this is a speech destined for far greater things than Mr. Everett could hope to achieve, and he’s mesmerized by the poetry Mr. Lincoln, President Lincoln, has added to his searing prose of nearly four years ago. And he freezes for a moment, not a photographer, just an admirer, as he was back at Cooper Union.
But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract.
And in the midst of these dignified words, it takes his Da to rally Ethan from his stupor, handing him a glass-plate negative from the satchel. After a few seconds to get the camera ready and the lens focused, Ethan takes the picture, just as the President looks out over the crowd, as if beseeching them to something more than just the rah-rah of a fine band and a blustery speaker.
… that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.
The crowd pauses, perhaps surprised that this speech of less than three minutes is all the answer the President has to the two hours that preceded it. When they do break into applause, it’s first as if they’re expressing their relief for his brevity, but it builds in a steady crescendo, becoming jubilation, as they begin to understand just how good it was.
The band begins to play again, and then there’s closing remarks and a prayer and more music, but for Ethan there is one line from Mr. Lincoln’s speech that reverberates through his guilty thoughts, until it grows into a haunting.
It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they have thus far so nobly advanced.
The crowd soon disperses in every direction, some to tour the battlefield, some back into town following the President to the rail station. But Ethan and his Da stay there for many minutes more, his Da listening to one of the militia guards describe how the battle proceeded. The way the man speaks to his small admiring audience, Ethan knows he’s either a General or wasn’t anywhere near the damn battlefield. And when one of the young boys listening asks where he was stationed during the battle, Ethan’s suspicions are confirmed.
Over in that direction, the militia guard says.
On Little Round Top? the boy asks.
No … not quite there—back behind the ridge … guarding the supply lines.
Ethan shakes his head, then smiles to think of what Harry might’ve had to say at such a moment. And then he’s reminded of the four of them, once together, with only himself and Smitty left now, and Smitty minus an arm, and he feels ashamed to think that he’s been the one to come through it with just what lingers of a hitch in his step and a shoulder
that sometimes tells him a few hours ahead of time when it will rain. And the haunting of Lincoln’s words, to serve as judge and jury … to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they have thus far so nobly advanced … ’til he begins to think that there’s still more he could do, supply lines he could guard or caissons he could drive or … even bedpans to empty and stretchers to carry … the unfinished work … the unfinished work …
And every manner of foolishness drifts through his embattled mind until Da comes up beside him unseen, wrapping an arm around Ethan’s shoulders and pulling him tight to him for a moment.
What you lads went t’rough, he says, shaking his head. I thank th’Lahrd for sparin’ ya, son. Sure I do … now more than ever … and I will for all my days remainin’. But now let’s go home, lad. You’ve done enough.
IN THE DARKROOM AT THE back of Mr. Hadley’s studio the next afternoon, Ethan develops the glass negatives as methodically as ever, making large imprints of Harry’s tombstone, and a panoramic collage of the view all around it, seamlessly pressing the landscape photos one beside the other, and Harry’s stone beneath them, until the picture is nearly three feet long side to side and two feet high, and creates the effect of actually being there on the hill outside of Gettysburg in a way that only a true artist and master craftsman could elicit from the limits of two dimensions. He stands a few feet away from the great drying image before him, and allows himself just a hint of a smile, thinking that this will be a fitting tribute to his great friend and, somehow, to all the lads as well.
Then there is the final picture he took, the one of Lincoln, and he holds the undeveloped negative between his fingers for several long moments, pondering what best to do with it. But the words do not haunt him as they did just the day before, and he smiles with greater satisfaction than he’d even allowed himself at the sight of the masterpiece he’d just created. Carefully, he slides the plate back into its thick cotton sleeve, to be stored away with all the other negatives that actually became pictures. And he allows himself to believe, at long last, that maybe he has done enough.
And sure isn’t there plenty of other unfinished work that needs lookin’ after …
MARCELLA
COOPERSTOWN
MARCH 21, 1864
For the longest time you thought you would’ve been better off to have married as an orphan. Surely there wasn’t anything in your heritage, nothing tangible to the living, to represent you in any sort of presentable way to your in-laws. Even Abuela could hardly redeem your family line, since she had admittedly come to her senses only in her fading years, and even then only after a lifetime of submission—and luxury. What manner of woman was she, or Mrs. Carlisle even, compared to a mother-in-law and her sister who were veritable mountains of fortitude in comparison? And still they had accepted you, willing somehow to overlook such a blemished family line as if they believed you were still salvageable.
You knew there had been times when Miguel and Bartolomé accosted Seanny when they saw him on Wall Street, always asking after you but then turning quickly to business before Seanny could even answer them. You had only learned anything about these meetings when you overheard a Christmastime conversation between Ethan and his brother, with Seanny confessing, “I don’t know what to tell’m, Ethan. None of the men I work wit’ trust that man or his sons.” And later, “I told’m Marcella was expectin’ and they didn’t so much as bat an eye, just asked whether I knew anything about the contracts on the Navy Yard.”
A week after that you received a response to your Christmas letter to your mother, mentioning only that it would be a fitting tribute to name the child, if it was a boy, after Papa. “Maybe then he will be happy to receive you here again,” your mother wrote, and then spent two more pages talking about Pilar’s upcoming wedding. You had often heard Ethan’s Mam talk about how protective she was of her children, and you realized that day that you would have to protect this child from your family, quarantining them as best you could like the deadly fever they would surely be. And all it took was to simply stop trying to include them in your life.
Then as the inevitable day approached, you found yourself grown oddly frightened, not so much of the pain of labor, but by the thought of whether you would measure up in how you made it through, and even more so, whether you would measure up as a mother. But then you saw the two of them, Mam and Aunt Em, step off the livery wagon in front of the house and Mam saying how “no woman should go through the last month of expectin’ wit’ only a well-meanin’ man to foul things up insteada helpin’ even a little bit.” And you knew that he’d written to them, since they would not think to impose themselves upon you.
It was in those final weeks of expecting that they truly became your own Mam and Aunt Em, with their roles quite reversed, it seemed. Mam was the one who had been through it, and she would politely chastise Em whenever her sister started to bring up matters that didn’t need to be discussed, things like miscarriages back in the Old Country or how Ethan and Seanny and Aislinn had had another brother for the space of two days “ ’til the Lahrd’d seen fit to take’m.”
And Mam would wave her hand or tap Aunt Em on the arm if she was close enough, and tell her, “Oh Em, she doesn’t need t’hear any of that … why wouldja … oh love, don’t you worry about those stories from th’Old Country, where there wasn’t a doctor fer ten miles at least.” And Aunt Em would catch herself and apologize for the rest of the day, herself becoming the soft one as never before. “Awww love, sure I didn’t mean … Nora’s right, there wasn’t a bleedin’ hospital or a doctor or a clean sheet t’be found in dat … ohh don’t you worry none … sure you’ll be fine.” Somehow it was a comfort to you to see Aunt Em like that, as if affirming that your own blemishes could somehow be overlooked. And your fears were allayed.
There was a day when you thought this would be it, and Ethan sent off a telegram to Da and Seanny to tell them the news. But then the doctor said it’d be a few days more at least. Still, Da and Seanny were steppin’ off the livery carriage the next morning, having traveled all night to see the new addition to the family. And they stayed, of course.
Until, on the day itself, it was Mam holding your hand and Aunt Em off in the corner talking up a nervous storm. For the first few hours it was just them, with the doctor coming in whenever he heard you calling out from the pain and staying until it passed. Then he’d go out of the room and reassure Ethan and Da and Seanny that everything was fine. And when the breaks in between the pain started getting shorter, Aunt Em started talking faster, getting more nervous and telling random stories from back in the Old Country or from just last week. It would have been funny to hear her if there weren’t knives jabbing at you from the inside, but then Mam was somehow calmer the more nervous Em became, and she let you squeeze the color out of her hand completely while whispering to you, “Easy, love … yer doin’ foine, love … that’s it, love.”
Then finally Em stumbled upon a story that genuinely interested you, describing how Ethan got his name, but started out by talking about the two miscarriages her sister had in the years after the difficult birth of Aislinn, and there was Mam chastising, “Jaysus Chroist, Em, d’ya think she needs t’hear about that just now?” There was something in hearing her use the Lord’s name that way that rattled Em out of her nervous frenzy and offered you a few more ounces of fortitude in the form of abbreviated laughter. But the knives were back soon enough, and plenty of screaming, and Mam whispering and losing the color of her hand, and Em in the corner in stunned silence …’til there were the last few pushes and the knives … and the whispers … and then it was done … the breath returning soon after … and the exhilaration of the absence of such pain overcame the fatigue for just a little while.
There was the cleaning up of your little girl to do once the doctor finished his work, and Mam was there wiping the sweat from your forehead as Em stood in tears in the corner looking at you and the little girl back and forth, with both hands covering her mouth. And
there was something that made you aware of wanting to include Em in the moment, so you asked her to tell you more of the story of how Ethan got his name, nodding to her to come and sit beside you, and her face lit up at the idea. Mam helped the doctor with the cleaning up, and you watched them while Em began to speak more calmly than before. “Well, Nora went to the Father an’ asked him fer a name that she could attach to th’little one while it was still in her womb,” and she looked at Mam, who didn’t seem to object to such a story then. “Well, ya know, she was hopin’ maybe the right name’d give’m a better chance of makin’ it out alive. An’ th’Father said that Ethan was a name from th’Old Testament, an’ that it meant strong and enduring. An’ dat was good enough. Nora didn’t even wait for th’Father to suggest a girl’s name.”
And the three of you laughed a little in those next few moments, talking about what it would have been if he had been a girl—little Ethania … Ethany … and so on, until your daughter was wrapped in the clean blanket and nestled across your chest. The three of you were in tears then until Ethan was brought into the room, with his Da and Uncle Paddy and Seanny trailing behind, and Aunt Em, seemingly restored to herself, started saying, “Not the whole bleedin’ lotta ya all at once wit’ what the poor girl’s been through, Jaysus,” and you laughed and said it was fine … as they gathered up closer to you, with Ethan on the other side across from his Mam, fumbling his hands nervously along your arm and cheek like a boy maybe half his age.