And so it all came apart.
In late May of 1870, the front pages of the Enquirer were filled with the Fenians’ invasion of Canada. Troop movements were reported from dozens of American cities. General O’Neill personally led the assault. I read every syllable of the Cincinnati coverage, praying I wouldn’t see Cait’s name among those killed, assuring myself that a woman wouldn’t have been permitted near the fighting. I wondered what she and Timmy had done . . . were doing.
The unlikely invasion had a comic-opera end. O’Neill’s advance force ran into withering fire from thirteen thousand alerted Canadian militiamen. Grant, disappointing the Fenians’ hopes as he had the gold bulls’, issued a proclamation forbidding American citizens to violate the neutrality laws. When O’Neill regrouped his men and moved back to his own lines, a United States marshal calmly entered his quarters and ordered him at gunpoint into a waiting carriage. O’Neill was driven ignobly through his own army to prison. Within a few days the operation collapsed.
In Leslie’s an engraving depicted the capture. There was O’Neill as I remembered him in Cait’s parlor: round-faced and black-browed, with a drooping mustache; he wore his officer’s tunic, IRA visible on his belt buckle, gleaming spurs fixed to his high boots. All dressed for war—and gazing forlornly into the barrel of his captor’s gun. In several histories I read that the debacle had exhausted the Fenians’ remaining credibility; the organization faded away. Poor Cait, I thought.
“Oh, Daddy,” complained Hope as we crossed Portsmouth Square. “Do we have to go to that old church again?”
“Not for long.” I squeezed her hand and tried to steady Susy, bucking like a pony on my shoulders. Around us Asians gambled and winos sprawled on the grass. A couple in matching polyesters studied a tourist map. I pictured the rows of saloons, the horses at the hitching rings, the old city hall frequented by portly, top-hatted, cigar-smoking men.
“Daddy, I’m talking,” Hope said.
“It’s a good place to go,” I said.
“But we see the same things every week—that mint building near where you work, then here, then the church—”
“Old St. Mary’s!” interjected Susy.
“That’s good, Suse,” I said, bouncing her.
“—then to ride the horse ‘n’ buggy,” Hope finished.“Oh, boy!” Susy bucked vigorously. “Horsey!”
“Why don’t you take us to Great America like other daddies?” Hope said.
“I will, honey.” Only five, I thought, and already she knew how to twist the knife. “But see, there’s this other kind of great America—how things used to be, how people used to live.”
“We know, Daddy,” she responded. “You tell us all the time.”
I bought ice cream cones as we walked along Grant through Chinatown. We ate them sitting on the grass in St. Mary’s Square. Across the street rose the cathedral, once the highest, most massive structure in the city. I told the girls that. They didn’t look impressed.
“What are those words?” asked Susy, pointing up at the inscription below the bell-tower clock.
“‘Son, observe the time and fly from evil,’” I read.
“What does it mean?”
“Sort of a warning,” I said. “For boys.” A row of whorehouses had stood where we were sitting. The Barbary Coast had been only a stone’s throw away.
“See all the bricks?” I said. “They came from New England. And the stones were cut in China and shipped all the way here. Those big crosses—see up on top? They weren’t put there till the church was rebuilt after the earthquake.”
“You know lots about everything, Daddy,” said Susy, her words muffled as I wiped ice cream from her chin.
“How about Marine World?” asked Hope.
“Another day,” I said. “It’s a long way out of town. Right now, let’s wait to hear the bells strike three. Did I tell you how the old bell was so loud that people all over the city told the time by it? And how the neighbors complained? How they switched to this sweet-sounding one after the earthquake?”
Both girls nodded. In a few minutes the bell chimed. I closed my eyes for a moment.
“Okay,” I said briskly. “Now, what say we hit the aquarium in Golden Gate Park. Then a coach ride. Who knows, maybe you’ll be handling one someday. Have you noticed all the drivers are women?”
“Okay, Daddy,” said Hope, resigned.
Later, as sunlight filtered through the trees near the Japanese Tea Garden, another fringe-topped surrey clopped past ours. I caught a momentary glimpse of its driver’s profile and my heart stopped: a pale cheek and a mass of jet hair partially caught up over a high lace collar.
Cait!
I may have yelled it. For an instant I was inside the milky radiance. Then I saw our driver swiveling in the front seat, smiling expectantly at me—she in Victorian costume, standard for the park’s carriages—as I held the girls tightly.
“Did you want something?” she said.
“That driver we just passed—do you know her?”
She leaned out and peered behind. “Sure, my friend Rosie Renard going in for her last fare.”
“Please,” I said, “would you mind . . .?”
“Following her?” The smile was less friendly.
“Yes, I think she looks—”
“Familiar?”
“More than that. Please?”
With visible reluctance she reversed direction in a turnout. The other coach had halted before the tea garden. I saw the driver step down, her booted foot reaching to the pavement from a long skirt. The jet hair was Cait’s, I was certain. She was slender, her movements graceful. Cait . . .
“Daddy, what’s the matter?” said Hope.
The woman turned as our driver called to her. With a plummeting heart I saw that her eyes were blue, her mouth too thin, her face . . . not Cait’s. I couldn’t speak. I waved our driver on.
“Are you
