“Waffles?” Beaming, Monroe grinned. “You remembered.”
“I can’t promise they’ll be the same as your Mammy’s,” I said, laughing again at the memory of how he’d blurted out his craving to me all those years ago. “But I’ll slather them in butter.”
Theodosia rolled her eyes but settled in at the table and assisted me as I prepared the old family recipe and heated the irons. “At least come out with us tonight. Both of you.”
“Oh, I couldn’t. Not without Hamilton.”
“Of course you can,” Theodosia said. “Your Jenny can watch over the babies and Monroe can be your escort.”
At that, Monroe stared at his feet. “I—I cannot imagine that would be thought, well, at all proper.”
Theodosia laughed, and the next words she spoke reminded me so much of Angelica. “Perhaps not in your country of Virginia. But you’re in New York, now. A veritable vortex of folly and dissipation if the gazettes are to be believed.”
I ladled the thick, golden batter into a hot iron. “Oh, be nice, Theodosia. Monroe is a very mannerly gentleman.” I recounted how, upon my offering to help tend his wounded shoulder, he’d nearly tripped over my mother’s sideboard table in fear my father would shoot him.
Theodosia howled with laughter while Monroe chuckled at the memory, and the impasse about our plans for the evening was solved when my husband stumbled into the house stamping snow off his boots, nearly crashing headlong into his old friend. I could scarcely contain my amusement when Alexander murmured, with utter bewilderment, “Monroe?”
The two men clasped hands, appraising one another from head to toe before clapping one another on the back with glad tidings. And within hours, Alexander had sent word of the reunion and called together an impromptu gathering in our dining room of Washington’s young upstarts, a heaping plate of waffles between them. Colonel Burr appeared at dusk with whiskey, and these one-time brothers-at-arms talked late into the winter’s night, telling old stories and debating how, in Monroe’s words, we could cement the union.
I can never express how much good it did my heart to see these old friends and survivors of the war all together, laughing by a fire. Nor can I find words to say how much it hurts my heart now, knowing their friendships would come to a bitter, bloody end . . .
*
June 1785
New York City
“British ship in the harbor!” Jenny cried, rapping excitedly on the bedroom door. And though such an utterance would have caused panic only a few years before, it was now, for me, a bringer of joy. One for which I’d been waiting for days. “It’s a big one, mistress.”
I was already dressed, my hair pinned. But I hadn’t fastened my earbobs or chosen a bonnet to match my dress, and in my excitement I didn’t bother with either. Instead, I flew down the stairs. “My sister’s here!”
Alexander, on a rare day home from court, was holding Philip in the air and making our darling boy laugh. “You can’t know if it’s Angelica’s ship—”
“Sisters know,” I insisted, rushing for the door.
“I’ll arrange for a coach,” Alexander called after me, but I didn’t wait. I didn’t wait for anything. Not even a parasol to guard against the summer sun. Instead, I took to the tree-lined sidewalk and ran the five blocks to the water and Burnett’s Key. As the brick streets gave way to planks and mud, I dodged horse droppings, wagons, barrels, and giant coils of rope, the unmistakable scent of the river filling my every breath.
I was sweating by the time I saw the ship moored to the dock, but I didn’t care because the three tall masts and rigging of that ship were as welcome a sight as any I’d ever seen.
“Angelica!” I cried, bouncing on my feet and waving when she appeared out of the disembarking throngs wearing a fashionable French straw hat with a striped ribbon and pink flowers in her hair.
“Betsy!” We fell into each other’s arms while servants scurried to collect her trunks and baggage and children. And we gazed upon each other with joy. She’d been gone nearly two years, and now I couldn’t get enough of her.
Alexander finally caught up with me and had nothing but warm smiles and affection for both Angelica and her husband, whose elusive disposition brightened considerably as Alex filled him in on all the latest goings-on about the city.
That night, at a raucous impromptu supper of cold ham with thick slices of bread and butter, we all crowded around my little table, laughing and drinking wine and singing together. And when I put my baby daughter, Angelica’s namesake, into my sister’s arms, I fell in love with both of them all over again.