My Dear Hamilton

by Stephanie Dray

“Enchanté, Mademoiselle Schuyler. I am Marie-Joseph-Paul-Yves-Roch-Gilbert du Motier, the Marquis de Lafayette.”

Had me kicking my feet squealing

“I did. And it was a nobody. Just another indebted drunkard—a ne’er-do-well named James Reynolds.”

The way i gasped reading the name

“She’s cold,” I whispered, awakened by the ghostly cry of an infant echoing in my ears. “In the ground. She must be so cold.” I started to rise, as if to go to her, but Alexander pulled me back into his arms. “No, my love. She’s with her creator now.” Icy tears trailed upon my face. “She never felt me hold her. She must’ve been frightened . . . and alone . . .”

When i say I am literally bawling

Meanwhile, I looked past him to my beautiful Ana, who would continue to age, but never grow old. My eyes saw her alive, but my heart felt like I was losing another child. I was losing another child.

With a quivering lower lip, the old general gently rested his gnarled hand atop the white stone and spoke to my dead husband. “At last, here I am. It is Lafayette, your old and constant friend. It is my hope that wherever you are now, you will remind me to our brother soldiers who have not forgotten their long absent comrade—and to my ancient friends all gathered about you . .

No lapse of time, no nearness to the grave or distance from it makes any difference.