Chapter Text
Alexander Hamilton learns of the death of John Laurens on a Thursday.
Hamilton walks from the Schuyler estate into the early morning bustle of Albany toward his rented office. Having recently passed the bar in July, Hamilton works tirelessly each day to solidify his position as a patriot lawyer. The war may not yet be won but the resolution in favor of the American cause is all but decided. Any Tory lawyers left within the city should soon see their list of clients diminishing and Hamilton intends to catch them with open arms. Come November, he will join Congress as a newly appointed delegate from New York, but Hamilton wants his law practice well established ahead of such departure and ready to return to.
Hamilton clutches his portfolio and a copy of Blackstone’s ‘Commentaries’ borrowed from his friend James Duane as he walks along the dusty street. He thinks he should return the book today having had it near a month, but one more case on property disputes bears adding to his own workbook of essential law. He wonders if Laurens will return to the law after the army. Perhaps Hamilton could persuade him toward a New York practice instead of remaining in Charles Town.
“Good morning, Hamilton.”
Hamilton turns his head as he passes the Alchemist shop to spy Aaron Burr as he comes into step beside him. “Burr.”
“I must say, I find it a wonder that you bother with your office.”
Hamilton chuckles. “And where should I put my practice if not an office, Burr, a boat upon the Hudson?”
“Why, I could well imagine you as Captain of a ship, Hamilton. With hair as red as yours, it would be the prefect beacon to command the attention of your crew no matter the weather or your place upon the deck.”
“I prefer my feet on dry land and within my office that you so decry.”
“I do not decry an office, as I have one myself.” Burr shifts the portamento he carries, the newspaper trapped between Burr’s arm and midsection sliding precariously. “Only in that your residence being the Schuyler mansion, I would think that a far grander option for the receiving of business.”
Hamilton scoffs as they finally turn down the wide expanse of State Street where they both practice. Dust rises from a horse trotting by them on the busy street and Hamilton brushes a line off his gray coat. “One must differentiate between the home and their work.”
“Really? Most men with mansions are keen to have such business come to them and their grand parlor rather than the other way round.”
“Ah, but it is not my own mansion, is it, Burr?”
Burr smirks and looks forward as they walk. “It is your family’s and you live there just as wholly.”
“Yes, and General Schuyler has business of his own, my wife and his both with guests to entertain. Where do you suppose I should preform my practice, beneath my father-in-law’s boots or my wife’s tea table?”
Burr laughs in the back of his throat. “Oh, I think there is the garden, a pretty bit of hedgerows in the back or perhaps the children’s room? You could begin your son at his education early, have him fetch any book or paper you might need with one hand as he plays with his ball in the other?” Burr frowns and looks at Hamilton again. “Does he walk yet? I confess I do not recall, does the walking come first or the legal transcription?”
“You are in quite a cheerful mood, have I missed word of peace declared?”
“No indeed, can a man not be pleasant on a fine morning, unless you see something within I do not?” Burr pulls his newspaper out from under his arm and holds it out for Hamilton. “Should you not expect your former commander to write you personally of such a thing, were it so?” Burr wheedles.
Hamilton taps Burr’s arm good naturedly with his portfolio then takes the newspaper. “I left General Washington’s service at Yorktown, Burr. I cannot expect myself to be first among his correspondence in military matters.”
“Ah yes, but you and I both have friends in the army to hope for word before the newspaper.” Burr brushes his hand over the paper as Hamilton unfurls it one-handed. “There is news enough of general skirmishes in the southern quarter still. I expect them to continue up until the moment the ink dries upon a peace treaty.”
“Yes,” Hamilton says with a frown. He thinks of Laurens whom he wrote to some weeks past, urging him to finally give up the fight and choose congress instead to quench his fire. “The south has cause for such strife with at least two of their major cities still under British control.”
Burr waves to a passing carriage out of the corner of Hamilton’s eye. “They are but prideful holds since the British have lost so much more. It makes me weary to think upon when I should prefer a return to normality.”
“Normality is no longer normal, Burr, as we shall soon be rulers of our own na…” Hamilton trails off as a familiar word on the printed page before him catches his eyes.
He reads no particular article, only skimming to notice recent imports or any action by the State legislature on the issue of collecting taxes. However, a different word catches his attention entirely out of the realm of his new domestic life here in Albany – no, not a word, a name; a name he has just been thinking of, a name from that very military realm on which he and Burr speak; a name he holds very dear, as dear as his son’s, as dear as his wife’s.
Hamilton reads:
John Laurens, aide-de-camp to His Excellency General George Washington and son of Henry Laurens, surrendered his life to the cause of liberty in a skirmish along the Combahee River of South Carolina on the 27th of this month. Lieutenant Colonel Laurens dies a brave –
Hamilton stops reading.
Hamilton hears his own breath rushing loud in his ears, faster, shriller so he hears nothing else.
It sounds as loud as waves upon the Hudson during a storm; it sounds like hurricane winds outside a barricaded door; it sounds like cannon fire, like musket shots, like screaming –
He has difficulty swallowing. He tastes dust from the road – or the field or...
He feels dirt coating his tongue as though he falls face first into the mud. He tries to close his mouth, to swallow that taste away, the taste of damp earth, of soil slick with moisture, with something more than water.
Hamilton breathes in deeper – he tries to breathe but he cannot breathe deep enough – his tongue feels too thick, too heavy with wet, bloody earth and the rush in his ears screams louder, such a pitch that Hamilton thinks he must stop breathing, must choke on the blood in his mouth to make the noise, the screaming, end.
Oh, dear God, please make this feeling end.
“Hamilton!” Hamilton blinks hard and stares down at the book held out in Burr’s hand. “Is the news so diverting I must say your name three times?”
“My name?” Hamilton whispers.
“Your book,” Burr says as if correcting a student. “It dropped from your hand. Did you not see?”
Hamilton takes the book with the hand holding his portfolio. “No.”
“’No,’ he says.” Burr makes a gruff noise. “I suppose you compose another essay upon taxes in your mind and entirely forget me. Hamilton, I think you too –”
“My apologies, Burr,” Hamilton interrupts. “You are quite right; I must leave you now.”
“I did not say –”
“I am late to my own business.”
“Late?”
“Thank you, Burr.” Hamilton clutches the newspaper tight in his hand and weaves around Burr. “Good day.”
Behind him, Burr scoffs a laugh and says something about tea with his new wife, but Hamilton walks on without looking back. He strides purposefully down the cobblestones past blurred yellow and brown wood, past doors with words he little marks. His fixes his eyes on the building with his name upon the door until he reaches the stoop. He grapples for the key within the pocket of his coat without letting go of the newspaper. The paper crumples as he forces a corner of it into his pocket enough so Hamilton might finally pull out the key. Then he scrapes it into the lock and shoves the door open. He turns in place, locks the door behind him then drops the key upon the wood floor.
Hamilton turns into the one large room on the first floor and places the portfolio and book upon the desk. He trods upon letters on the floor in the hall, likely left by the early post. Then he turns to the narrow stairs and walks up with the newspaper folded between both hands. On the second floor he turns into his work room, one desk beside the window, a small circular table with a cup still upon it and a bookshelf against the interior wall holding all his workbooks and texts on law.
Hamilton stands in front of the window. The sunlight hits Hamilton in the chest. If he turns his head to the right the angle of light reflecting off the streetlamp outside blinds him.
Hamilton breathes out slowly then opens the newspaper in his hands. He reads from the very beginning of the article detailing the death of Lieutenant Colonel John Laurens until the very end.
“August 27th…” Hamilton says aloud, a week and a half past now.
Hamilton reaches for his desk but stops when he realizes his copy of the letter he wrote Laurens some weeks ago would not be in this desk. It would be in the desk in his bedchamber at the Schuyler mansion.
He breathes through his nose attempting to count days in his head.
“On the 27th I wrote to Meade,” Hamilton mutters.
He wrote Richard Kidder Meade of his son Philip, gave his love to Meade’s wife – a happy letter, an ignorant letter when Laurens was bleeding, dying.
Hamilton sucks in another breath and reflexively reaches out to brace his hand on the windowpane.
“The 27th… the 27th… before that I wrote. I wrote on the… I wrote….” Hamilton breathes in deeper through his mouth. He shuts it and breathes through his nose again. “I wrote on the… 15th,” Hamilton says louder. “I wrote Laurens on the 15th.”
Twelve days. Twelve days lie between the day Hamilton last wrote Laurens and the day he died. Hamilton thinks of letters sent in the past, the distance between New York and South Carolina, the difficulty of letters finding a man over moving military engagements. Twelve days could be just enough time for a letter to find its source in good weather, with a strong horse, in peace time, even with August heat and hundreds of miles it might not be impossible.
Hamilton knows though, he simply knows as a twisting knot in his gut. “Laurens never received my letter.”
Hamilton’s knees stab with pain before Hamilton realizes he falls. He palms scrape hard on the wood floor as he retches violently. He thanks something unnamed in the back of mind that he chose only coffee for his breakfast before leaving the house as he retches again. Hamilton then shoves himself up onto his knees. The momentum sends him falling backward until his spine knocks against the edge of the door frame.
Hamilton breathes hard, the foul taste in his mouth and the newspaper still clenched in one hand. He cannot slow his breathing, does not try to any longer, as his hands shake.
“He didn’t…” Hamilton whispers. “He didn’t…”
Laurens did not receive Hamilton’s last letter, he did not read Hamilton’s request for Laurens to come to Congress – an obvious desire to protect Laurens from the fight, to keep him near; he did not read Hamilton’s honorific of ‘dear’ upon him – a word like darling, like mine; he did not read ‘Yours forever’ – as good as, better even, than love. Laurens died without Hamilton’s words to comfort him – without Hamilton’s hand in his, without Hamilton near at his side. Laurens died. Laurens is dead and Hamilton will never see him again in this long life.
“Oh, John…” Hamilton whispers, almost a moan. “John… John…”
Hamilton drops the newspaper, presses shaking hands against his face, and cannot stand again for hours.
Hamilton first hears it a week later.
“We do not know how long his father might yet be in Paris,” Betsy says. “Should we not write him there of our condolences?”
Hamilton stares at the candle on his desk. The flame burns almost impossibly still, no breeze from the cracked window or even Hamilton’s breath to move it.
“Or perhaps it should be better to write to his sister?” Betsy asks. “She is yet in South Carolina, is she not?”
“I do not know,” Hamilton says as he stares still at the candle.
“What of his widow?” Betsy asks again. Hamilton hears her close the doors of their wardrobe. “She is yet in England?”
“She died a year past,” Hamilton answers flatly.
“Yes, my apologies, I knew this.” Betsy sighs. “It is terrible to think of their child, to lose both parents so near and she so young. Perhaps we might write them all.”
“I cannot.” Hamilton sits back in his chair, the candle flame as still as before even with his movement. “There is naught we might say to alleviate any of their woes. We cannot bring him back despite any pains felt and words with not change this.”
“Alexander…”
Hamilton breathes in deeply and holds it, feels the pressure rise in his chest. He wonders how Laurens died, the article gave no such detail other than the skirmish itself and Laurens’ fall at near the beginning. Was his throat slashed by a dull blade? Was his same arm in which he was wounded at least three times shot again? Did some savage redcoat knock Laurens from his horse and choke the life out of him over taught, painful seconds?
“Alexander, I know you…”
Hamilton breathes out harshly down against his chest. “My apologies, Eliza, it is a loss still so near I think myself unable to console another.”
“He was a dear friend and too young yet to leave this life.” Betsy’s hand slides over Hamilton’s shoulder, her thumb brushing at the base of his hair. “Find comfort in that he has gone to his reward.”
Hamilton shuts his eyes – thinks of Laurens’ hand where Betsy’s lies, his lips pressed firm over Hamilton’s, a whispered word Hamilton cannot remember. “I will,” Hamilton says aloud.
Betsy’s hand falls away. “Come to bed, Alex.” He hears her footsteps, the swish of her banya, as she walks to the bedroom door. “I will bring Philip from the nurse.”
Hamilton rubs a hand over his eyes as Betsy leaves the room. He thinks sleep may elude him for some hours yet. He could try to begin work on his tax plan. It will be only two months before he leaves for his new position with Congress in Philadelphia. Before then, he promised Robert Morris to help lobby the New York legislature about stronger laws in regards to debts and taxation. Perhaps such work will be enough to distract Hamilton from his thoughts, from the memories, from the carved-out hole in his heart.
Hamilton drops his hand and opens the desk drawer. He pulls out fresh paper and quill. He rubs his finger over the tip. “Dull.”
He reaches to one of the drawers in front of him for a pen knife, glancing at the candle. The flame remains still. He thinks oddly as if it might be frozen, a testament to another fire – a passionate, dutiful fiery heart gone out.
Then Hamilton hears a sigh beside his ear.
Hamilton jerks sharply around, his pulse spiking. His eyes sweep around the room, left then right twice over. The room remains empty but for himself. He stands up quickly and shuts the window. Then he turns around and looks at the room again. He hears the distant sound of Betsy’s voice as she speaks to baby Philip.
Hamilton holds his breath trying to hear the sigh again – not the wind or some other creak of the house. It was distinct, entirely human and particular. When one knows another person – works, fights, sleeps close beside them – every sound they make, a laugh, a turn of phrase or a foot upon the ground becomes recognizable. Hamilton could tell you when he hears Betsy’s footsteps on the stair with certainty every time.
The sigh he heard sounded exactly like Laurens.
Hamilton stares at the room, nothing there but the usual furniture, his marriage bed, baby cradle, the desk he stood from, the red patterned wallpaper.
“It is but your grief,” Hamilton forces himself to admit aloud. “Nothing more.”
He turns back toward the desk to pick up his quill. On the center of the desk, the candle flame flickers gently from side to side.
Hamilton and Eliza sit in the front parlor after supper. General Schuyler talks in the hall with one of the kitchen servants.
“And salted pork, we need more adequate stores for the winter.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Mrs. Schuyler wishes for the plates, the English set to be…” General Schuyler’s voice begins to fade as his footsteps move away down the hall.
“He calls it the English set as if it has not been in this house some twenty years,” Eliza says quietly into her needle point.
She and Hamilton laugh once together, looking up at each other over the small tea table between them. She purses her lips at him, and he raises his eyebrows back, cheered for a brief respite by her dark eyes. Then they both turn back to their pursuits.
Hamilton attempts to read the book in his hand but finds he has reread the same page thrice over without recalling near a word. His mind will not settle upon the distraction, instead attempting to bring up memories Hamilton cannot bear to recall now – not with his wife near, not with no one to tell, not when he mourns alone.
“Mrs. Burr plans to call tomorrow,” Eliza says as she pushes a needle into the fabric circle in her hands. “For tea, if you have no case to keep you in your office?”
Hamilton clears his throat, focusing on the face of his wife, then shakes his head. “No, I have less now before me and Congress more pressing.”
Her eyes peek up from her work. “You do not serve yet.”
“Soon.”
“More woeful to me when you do.”
Hamilton smiles fondly. “Do not think I will not miss you as ardently as you foresee you shall miss me.”
“But I shall have the comfort of our son and this house. You will only have the comfort of your fellow politicians which cannot be called so much a comfort.”
“It is my duty and I shall bear it by the knowledge of all I do for our country.”
Eliza nods. “As dutifully as you served upon the field of battle, I know you will also on the floor of Congress. At least there I need fear far less for your life.”
Hamilton struggles to swallow, his mouth suddenly dry. He wants to tell her; he wants to try and explain how he knew those fears too – how his fear came true.
A playful noise comes from what sounds like the stairs. Eliza sighs and puts her needle work aside on the table. “He should be abed. Did the nurse… Molly?” She stands up and walks through the parlor door. “Molly, where is Philip? I heard…” The red flowers of her skirt disappear around the corner down the hall.
‘Alex.’
Hamilton turns his head at the sound of his name and stares toward Eliza’s vacant chair. He glances back to the parlor exit knowing Eliza walked out, knowing the voice was not hers. He stands up abruptly, yanks off his glasses and strides to the window, as though someone could be playing a jest upon him. He looks out the window toward the road in front of the house. Outside the road appears dark, a few lights in the distance nearer the Hudson. No person hides behind a bush or runs away toward the road.
“Nothing…” Hamilton whispers to himself.
He turns back around and glances toward the parlor door again. He turns his glasses around two times in his hands then shakes his head.
“No,” Hamilton says aloud again. “It is but memory or imagination.”
He knows whose voice he thought he heard, what voice he wants to hear again. Hamilton grits his teeth then moves back to his chair. When he picks up the book the pages have flipped ahead. The first word on the new page is ‘listen.’
The sun dips low outside Hamilton’s office window where he still sits at his desk. He knows he should retire for the evening and return to Schuyler mansion. However, he wants to finish the draft of resolutions for the legislature to grant the government more taxing power. Presently the states pay their debts to the central government on a more voluntary basis and often not in full.
“Surely our revolution has shown the need for unity,” Hamilton grumbles to himself. “Such unity maintained by a federal government but such with no money…” He sighs to himself and dips his quill in the ink. “Such ineptitude…”
Hamilton squints at the page, the light fading fast. During long nights over winter encampments when Hamilton would stay at his writing desk, candle near burnt out, Laurens would say, ‘Come sleep.’ Laurens would write beside him, ideas as progressive as Hamilton’s own and Laurens would say, ‘Sleep, my dear.’
Hamilton pulls his glasses from his face, blowing out a breath. He shakes his head then stretches his arms up toward the ceiling. A drop of ink from the quill in his hand falls on his cheek.
“Ahh.” Hamilton sits up straight and wipes at the ink. “Blast.”
He puts his glasses down on the desk and the quill into the stand. Then he rises from his chair, keeping his inky hand clear of his pale striped waistcoat, and turns to the circular table where he thinks he left a handkerchief. The table only holds a brief from his last case on a dispute over a property line.
‘Hamilton…’
Hamilton twists around to stare at the doorway to his office.
He cannot stop himself from calling, “Hello?” He knows no one else remains in the building but himself.
Hamilton huffs. “Stop it.” He shakes his head and shuts his eyes. “You didn’t hear…”
‘Alex…’
Hamilton’s eyes shoot open as he gasps. He turns all the way around, trying to see every corner of his small office. The sun barely shines now, almost completely set. Hamilton stumbles back toward his desk, grabbing a candle and tinder box with shaking hands.
“No… it’s not…” He breathes in deeply through his nose, nearly dropping the candle.
When he finally lights the wick and the soft light illuminates the room, he waves it to and fro, almost putting the flame out again with the force of his arm. He will not allow his thoughts to run away with him, will not succumb to the pull in his chest. But he knew that voice, he knows that voice so well. He misses that voice so much.
Hamilton stops waving the candle. He stands still within the small pool of light circled around him. He sees nothing, no one else in the room but him.
When he turns back to the desk, he spies his handkerchief folded into a perfect square resting beneath his glasses.
Hamilton crouches in his bedchamber with Philip seated on the floor in front of him. Philip holds a block in his fist knocking it steadily against a matching block on the floor.
“A man might try to place the block instead of causing such noise,” Hamilton says as he attempts to take the block from Philip.
Philip laughs and tugs it back as Hamilton’s fingers close around it. Hamilton reaches out to take it again and Philip laughs more when he tugs it back a second time.
“Ah, is this our game now? And here I thought to teach you the basics of construction.” He taps his finger on the block upon the floor. “Place it here.”
Philip taps the two blocks together several times, laughing at the noise he makes.
“But then leave it.” Hamilton picks up two blocks from the larger pile beside the two of them. He puts one block near Philip’s foot deliberately as the baby watches then places the second block atop the first. “Like so.” He gestures to Philip’s block. “Now you, sir.”
Philip smacks his two blocks together like the staccato of a military drum, a rat-a-tat-tat for soldiers marching in a line.
Hamilton swallows a lump in his throat then rubs a hand over Philip’s fuzzy head. He glances toward the cracked door, forces his breath slow. “It is a wonder I try, clearly this is not a task for men when one’s son is so young yet.”
He turns back to Philip, beginning to smile, then freezes with the expression half formed.
Philip sits the same as before with his precious block still clasped within his small hand. However, atop the block on the floor which Philip used as his drum rests a second block. Hamilton’s eyes shift to the tower he made himself which now boasts only one block instead of two. Hamilton’s eyes slide back and forth between the changed blocks.
“Philip?” He asks as though the baby could answer yet.
Philip stares at the blocks with Hamilton. Hamilton waits, he could not say for what. Then suddenly Philip laughs loud and shrill, slamming his block down on top of the taller stack. The new block clatters to the floor and the block in Philip’s hand falls with it.
Hamilton sucks in a sharp breath and picks Philip up. He quickly puts Philip down into his cradle then gathers up all the blocks, thrusts them back into the toy chest and drops the lid shut.
“My apologies,” Hamilton calls down the stairs. “I have kept it months past when I should have returned it!”
“Of all who might borrow my books, I know you to be among those I least fear of harming them,” Duane replies from the meeting parlor below.
Hamilton pushes papers aside on his desk, a few dropping to the floor. “That does not allow me to take near possession of them through inattention.”
Hamilton hears Duane chuckle. “I only feel the need to retrieve it now as we have but weeks left before you leave south and how might I regain it then? Or might I fear you whisk it to Philadelphia with you?”
Hamilton smiles to himself as he turns toward the bookshelf, rolling up his shirt sleeves. He did not think he would have put the book away, it not being his, but that might have escaped his notice in an alternate attempt at organization. He pulls at the books on his shelves checking titles. He glances over his shoulder, hoping maybe it lies in a window bay he overlooked.
“Hamilton?”
“But a moment,” Hamilton calls again.
He sighs and turns back to his desk to find his glasses. He may as well attempt to read the titles properly rather than riffing through hoping for some miracle of cover recognition.
He remembers the office at Valley Forge, Hamilton asking Laurens for a book from the highest shelf only to be able to watch Laurens stand from the desk and see the curve of Laurens’ calf, the pull of his breeches as he reached high, coat abandoned on his chair. Hamilton closes his eyes and leans both hands on his desk. He sees Laurens turn in his mind, book in hand, smile upon his face, ‘I think perhaps you do not even need this book?’
Something suddenly slams onto the floor behind Hamilton. Hamilton starts, eyes snapping open, and spins around. He half expects to see Duane standing in the doorway or maybe the chair fallen over beside him.
“Do you tear your whole office apart?” Duane calls from below.
Hamilton crosses the office slowly. Opposite the circular table at the base of the bookshelf lies a leather-bound book. Hamilton glances up and sees the space where the book must have fallen from, the other books on either side still standing upright. He reaches down and picks up the book. He holds it up in front of the space, just wide enough for the book to fit, not an inch of wiggle room.
Hamilton turns up the edge of the book toward himself. The spine reads, ‘Commentaries.’
“Hamilton? Do you require assistance?”
“I found it,” Hamilton calls back, his voice hoarse.
Hamilton walks down the stairs with the book in hand. He holds it out to Duane standing in the hall.
Duane grins wide as he takes the book. “Ah ha, as resplendent as the day I lent it.”
Hamilton clears his throat and merely nods.
“I thank you,” Duane says. He starts to turn toward the door when he stops. He thumbs open the cover with a quizzical look. “I think you do not mean to give me this?”
“This?”
Duane pulls out what appears to be a letter from between the cover and the first page. “It is not my name upon the direction.”
Hamilton recognizes the letter before he completely turns it over to read his name upon the face. He stares at the handwriting, as familiar as his own.
“Thank you for the book,” Duane continues when Hamilton says nothing. “I shall leave you to your letter. Good day.”
Hamilton manages to mutter, “Good day,” though his eyes do not leave the letter. It is the last letter Laurens ever wrote to him.
Hamilton turns the paper over and unfolds the letter he has read before, a letter only months old. He reads the final line, ‘You know the unalterable sentiments of your affectionate Laurens.’ He bites the edge of his lip. His hands start to shake. Hamilton folds up the letter sharply and he presses it tight between his palms. He holds his hands up against his lip, just the edge of the paper like a knife against his skin.
The last time Hamilton reread this letter he placed it into a box of correspondence inside his army trunk up in the attic of the Schuyler mansion.
Hamilton wakes suddenly with the feeling of fingertips upon his cheek. He breathes in deeply and tries to allow his eyes to adjust to the dark. Through the sluggishness of his senses, Hamilton knows it must still be the far early hours of the morning, perhaps one or two AM. He turns to Betsy still breathing deep with sleep beside him. He cannot see either of her hands, one beneath her pillow and the other under their blankets.
Hamilton sits up slowly, trying to look around the room. He looks to Philip’s cradle, but the baby does not move either. He maddeningly wants to say ‘hello’ to the darkness, ask ‘who’s there.’
He slides a hand up over his cheek. The feeling still lingers and Hamilton wonders if perhaps he touched his own cheek in his sleep and that could be the cause? He knows this to be false because he recognized the touch. He would know those hands anywhere, any time of day, even in the deep of sleep. Those hands awoke him many times before with the lightest brush or an eager grip – not the same as Betsy who strokes with two fingers and kisses his forehead. Those hands were a thumb along his jaw line, nails tracing the line of his hair, brushing against his eyelids, a fingertip pressed against his lips until Hamilton kissed it.
Hamilton pushes the covers back and walks quietly over the carpet in only his night shirt. He walks to the desk and runs his hand over the back of the chair. He sees well enough now, his vision adjusted to the darkness. Nothing appears out of place.
‘Alex.’
Hamilton sucks in a breath. He looks back and forth around the room, his wife and son still sleeping on.
‘Alexander.’
Hamilton shuts his eyes and firsts his hand around the back of the chair. He wants to ask, he wants to know, he wants so very much for the voice to be real and he cannot decide if the desire lies in sorrow or terror.
Hamilton opens his eyes again to the dark room and asks, “John?”
Hamilton waits, senses the minutes tick by in the darkness but Hamilton does not hear his name again.
In the rear garden of the Schuyler mansion, Hamilton and Eliza walk side by side. Inside the rest of the family eats supper in the parlor. The two of them begged a few more minutes to their walk before joining the rest of the family.
“The issue is not taxes alone, which you well know my views upon now,” Hamilton says as they walk between the hedge rows.
Eliza’s fingers play over Hamilton’s knuckles. “Indeed, I do.”
“It is the entirety of the articles of confederation. It did not serve well enough at the height of the revolution and it does less now.” Hamilton flicks one of the hedges with his free hand.
Eliza chuckles as Hamilton presses on. “We cannot expect to become a nation of merit or even proper function without a reconstruction of…”
Hamilton stops speaking abruptly and pauses their steps. Hamilton heard the clink of metal, like buttons of a coat tapping together. He looks down at his coat, all his buttons deep blue fabric covered to match his coat.
“Alexander?”
Hamilton does not answer Eliza. He listens to the wind blowing toward them off the Hudson. He hears the creak of the wood of ships on the water, so distant as to be near lost in the sound of the wind itself.
“Alexander, what is it?”
“I heard…”
Hamilton turns his face into the wind, smells the water even at their distance. A horse whinnies from somewhere out in the dark of the evening. Hamilton cannot say if the horse should be but one stabled on the mansion grounds or a horse from years past, a horse with a tall man astride and a sword in his hand. Hamilton hears the swish of moving air – not the gentle flow of wind but a cutting sound so the fear of attack climbs instinctively up his spine. He hears metal in the sound, the slink of a sword from a scabbard.
“Did you hear that?” Hamilton whispers.
“The wind?” Eliza asks.
Hamilton presses his lips together as the wind blows again like fingers through his hair – like a touch.
“Elizabeth! Hamilton!” The pair of them turn sharply toward the house where Eliza’s mother stands framed by light in the back doorway. “I must insist.”
“Yes, mother.” Eliza squeezes Hamilton’s hand. “Come along, Alexander, we must eat supper now and leave your wind where it blows.” She smiles cheekily. “The wind may not keep you, as you are my husband.”
Eliza turns, her cape sweeping across his hip with no sound – no metal, and she walks toward the house. Hamilton listens to her footsteps as she walks. He hears boots walking with her. The boots fall over pebbles and leaves, the crunch of autumn beneath them, closer, beside him. Hamilton cannot look down to see if the ground at his feet matches the sound. Each step sounds louder as it moves toward him, away from her, around him, heavier – distinct from her delicate heel.
“I hear you,” Hamilton gasps despite himself because he cannot hear it, the sound cannot be real. He stands still and no one else walks the garden with them. “Please… Jack?”
A voice whispers back, just as Laurens would sometimes call him – written over distance in a letter, found miraculously safe on the battlefield, or quiet in their too narrow bed, ‘My boy.’
The night before Hamilton leaves Albany to ride for Philadelphia and Congress he finally sees Laurens.
Hamilton rifles through his army trunk, picking out old correspondence which may be of use. He has many a letter to past representatives of congress on both army and personal business. Some might find use as reminders of past promises or actions. When Hamilton served as an aide-de-camp their office often needed to reference old letters or orders, the same may become true with Congress. Hamilton would rather prepare himself with any asset available for his first term.
“I have criticized them enough,” Hamilton mutters to himself. “Better to have all tools available.”
He pulls out a box of personal correspondence. He flips through the letters, many from Meade, some from Lafayette. Then he pulls out the stack tied with a ribbon. Why he decided to do so remains unclear even to Hamilton himself – proof of them all kept together, none found where they should not be, perhaps. Hamilton traces the edges of the letters encompassing five years and less time.
Hamilton sighs. “I would not leave you.”
He stands up and adds the tied letters to his crate of other correspondence and supplies for the journey. He carries the crate to the ladder and awkwardly manages both himself and the crate back down to the floor below. Climbing the ladder once more to close the ceiling hatch, Hamilton then places the ladder down against the wall in the storeroom. He picks up his crate and walks back out into the hall.
Further away, Hamilton hears the sounds of General and Mrs. Schuyler talking in their room, though he cannot tell any particular words. He also hears Philip’s laughter and Betsy cooing to him. Hamilton smiles fondly, already feeling a pang of loss at leaving the two of them here when he makes for Pennsylvania.
Hamilton turns away and carries the crate to the stairs. He walks down to the first floor and places the crate at the base of the stairs. He stands up straight again then abruptly grips the end of the banister.
John Laurens stands near the parlor door. He wears his uniform and baldric, his sword sheathed at his hip. A tear mars the top of his right lapel and nearly all of the cloth looks dirty, the white of his breeches dulled and smears of mud on his coat where he must have fallen. His skin appears ashen, a smear of gray gun powder or dirt over his cheek made by fingers. Strands of his hair fly free from his queue, visible as he wears no hat, giving his entire demeanor a wild appearance as if he stands upon a battlefield and not the hall of a house far north.
“Laurens,” Hamilton says so quietly he hardly hears himself.
Laurens turns his head, however, at the sound, the movement less like a person and more like a cloud, wisps of Laurens following slower than other portions. Hamilton realizes he can see through Laurens to the wall behind him.
“Oh lord, John,” Hamilton gasps again because now he notices the bright red, almost black blood covering the middle of Laurens’ waistcoat directly over his heart.
Laurens’ eyes take several seconds to focus, to center on Hamilton’s. They do not look like the same shade of blue as before he died.
When he says Hamilton’s name his lips do not move and his voice sounds like a sigh from far away, ‘Alexander.’
A shudder runs through Hamilton’s whole body. He slides down the banister, unable to let go, until he hits the bottom step gasping and staring at the empty hall.