Laurens, I like you a lot!

Chapter 6

*Skip to August 28 1782*

Eliza walks into the kitchen holding a letter, John's father standing behind her.

"Alexander, there's a letter for you from South Carolina."

"It's from John Laurens," I say, draping my little towel over my shoulder. The sink is full of just-washed dishes that I'm about to dry.

"No it's not," she says, breaking open the wax seal.

"Will you read it?"

"On Tuesday, the twenty-seventh, Lieutenant Colonel John Laurens was killed in a gunfight against British troops in South Carolina. These troops had not yet received word from Yorktown that the war was over. He's buried here until his family can send for his remains. As you may know, Lieutenant Colonel Laurens was engaged in recruiting three thousand men for the first all-black military regiment. The surviving members of this regiment have been returned to their masters. Alexander, John's dead," she says, taking a step toward me. She looks like a doctor about to approach a weary patient.

"What do you mean, he's dead," I shout at her. We're standing in the kitchen, she's in the doorway and I'm standing by the table in the center of the room. John's father is standing behind Eliza as if he's hiding from me.

"He can't be dead," I whisper, putting my hands on the table to brace myself from the overwhelming wave of grief I'm being hit with. My whole world is tumbling down. The letters I wrote to him, did he get my letter?

"Did he get my letter, Mr. Laurens," I ask, walking over to him, tearing up. "Please tell me he got my letter."

"I don't know if he got your letter, son, but he sure got the ones you sent him before," he whispered, throwing a package onto the floor.

"No," I yelled, dropping down to my knees. When he dropped the package, the letters scattered everywhere. I scramble to clean them up, scooping letters into my arms. My love for Laurens was, no, is a special thing and now it's on my kitchen floor. Mr. Laurens turns around and walks out of the kitchen. He opens the front door and walks out without so much as a goodbye.

Eliza comes back into the kitchen, only to find me sobbing on the floor with my letters in my arms.

"He isn't gone, Liz," I say through breaths. My throat is getting tighter and I can't breathe. She kneels down next to me and wraps her arms around my shoulders. I lay my head on her chest and tighten my grip on the letters.

"I know, Alexander. He passed away but he isn't gone. He's right here," she says, putting her hands over my heart. I take one hand and put it on top of hers. Then, I remove it.

"He should be right here," I demand, pulling away from her embrace. "I'm going to figure out of this happened. He was supposed to be with me for life, Eliza."

I stand up with the letters still in my arms. I walk them over to the table and dump them onto it. Eliza grabs the stray ones and stacks them neatly on the corner of the table, right next to the big pile of my rejected wordsmithery. Someday, if people were to read these, they'd be impressed with my fluency in the language of love and lust.

"Love, I'll read these after a while. If you wouldn't mind, it would mean the world to me if you'd just dump them in my study. Please and thank you," I say, kissing her on the forehead. I walk out of the house and begin to saddle up my horse. Her name is Peggy, named after the youngest Schuyler sister.

We ride into town, and I try to remember where Mulligan's house is. I first go to Horatio where the street is and take my usual route from there. It doesn't take long to remember exactly how to get everywhere; I figure it out before I made it to Mulligan's estate. I hop off Peggy and tie her to a post in front of Mulligan's place.