And now, when we were so soon to meet our maker, I wished that I’d never threatened to abandon my husband. It had made me feel stronger to threaten it, it made me feel more valuable to put him in fear. But now I wanted our marriage to be a fortress against all fear in this world and the next. “Please forgive me, Alexander, as I forgive you.”
In the midst of that peaceful, country field, he stopped me with a hand upon my elbow. “You forgive me?”
“For everything. With all my heart.” I reached for his hand, which he took and squeezed like a drowning man.
And yet he didn’t look convinced. “You say this only because you want to die at peace with me. But what if we live? Can you live with—” He shook his head and swallowed, as if remembering our last quarrel. “Can you choose each morning to live with me in forgiveness, despite what I’ve done?”
What had he done, after all? He’d put his hands on another woman. He’d taken momentary pleasure in guttural breaths and animal spasms. Yes, Alexander had done violence to my feelings and to my pride and to our wedding vows. But it all seemed so transient, so temporal now. For whatever wrongs he’d done me, he’d also given me a happier life than I’d believed myself destined for. He’d opened my heart and my mind; he’d taught me to think and to see injustice where I’d not seen it before. He’d taught me to stand for righteous causes. I could do more.
And if I lived, I would do more.
But first, I forgave my husband. Because I was a Christian, because I loved him, and because I must never allow Maria Reynolds to define us. “I do so choose to live with you, Alexander Hamilton,” I said, as if it were a wedding vow. “In forgiveness and grace and love, so long as we draw breath.”
I expected he would kiss me.
But either the illness or the weight of my words forced his knees to go soft. He lowered himself onto the grass of that isolated field, where insects buzzed amongst wildflowers, and the coming harvest stood in a golden line in the distance. And I sat beside him in the waning sun as we leaned, shoulder to shoulder.
“You mustn’t think that what I did stems from some deficiency in you,” he said. “The fault was mine. And I’ll make of myself a better husband, Betsy. I promise you.”
“And I will be a different wife,” I vowed. I wasn’t entirely sure how yet, but I felt more like a woman and less of a girl than I’d ever before been. “I think . . . I should prefer henceforth to be called Eliza. Or Elizabeth. Not Betsy.”
He nodded, clearly moved, his eyes blazing from blue to violet in the late-day sun. “So be it, my Eliza.”
Of course, starting anew depended on our surviving. But, for now, we had this moment. “Perhaps . . . should we write our last wishes while we’re still capable?”
After a moment’s thought, he said, “Just letters for the children. After all, we own nothing outright but some furniture, clothing, and paintings.” He gave an exceptionally wry grin. “At last, an advantage to marrying a man without means.”
We laughed. We actually laughed.
It all seemed so trivial now. The trouble we went to in getting lights and upholstered divans and imported wallpaper with trellises and vines to impress our Federalist friends. We could take none of it with us to the grave, and little good it should do our children.
When yellow fever took us, we knew it would be gruesome. We would, by tomorrow or the next day, bleed from every orifice and pore. Which made me grateful that I’d sent the children away, so they might never witness the ghastly spectacle. But Alexander and I would not look away. I knew we’d hold one another through every agony, until the last drop of blood.
Fortunately, God had given us this one last beautiful day. And so we found each other’s lips, until we found each other, skin to skin, as if for the first time, and there we made love beneath His blue sky, revealing ourselves in all our weaknesses to each other, and to the Lord.
Part ThreeThe War of Words
Chapter Twenty-Five
Autumn 1793
Albany
WE WERE SAVED.
Alexander was certain Dr. Stevens’s remedies had cured us and recommended it to others. But even medicine had become a political battleground. My husband’s enemies had allegedly wished him dead, toasting to his speedy demise, and now that he’d survived they refused to believe in the cure that had saved his life.
I wasn’t sure I believed it either.
It wasn’t the baths and the wine and the cinnamon and the Peruvian bark that saved our lives, I thought. It was a miracle. A miracle of grace and love and forgiveness.
And we were both changed by it.
Our bodies were weaker—Alexander would suffer from kidney pain ever after, and it would be years before I regained my vigor—but our spirits were replenished. Having fallen in love anew, we found within ourselves a new sense of what we valued most.
“Mama! Papa!” the children cried as we climbed the hill of the Pastures with nothing but the clothes on our backs. Oh, my babies! We hugged and kissed every one of them until we were all laughing and crying at the sweetness of the reunion. And we were inexpressibly proud of our brave Philip, who had seen his siblings to safety.
As we recovered at my father’s house, Alexander decided to resign his position in the government. “Six months and the new government would be on stable footing. Maybe less.” Having come so close to leaving our children penniless, he intended to return to his law practice and rebuild his fortune. Swinging in a hammock overlooking the Hudson River, he said, “I want to leave my family with more than a memory of me sitting up all night at a desk while
