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There were times when Philip Hamilton would stand and stare at the Ceracchi bust of his father, sitting proud on its pedestal as it dominated his mother's sitting parlor, for longer than he cared to admit. He would hold himself perfectly still before the silent statue, trying to find something of himself in the cool marble likeness, and thus spark a note of recognition within his brain. Yet, his attempts to draw a picture from his earliest memories was ever as trying to summon a voice from the dead, and he was largely unsuccessful in his endeavors.
Even Eliza – the younger Elizabeth, that was, their Lizzy - had memories of their father that he did not: memories of strong arms and warm kisses and hushed lullabies before bed, and she was hardly three years his senior. Philip, though he liked to imagine that he could call to mind sensations of warmth and comfort in his father's embrace, was at times unsure if such remembered sensations were truth, or mere wishful thinking on his part; and so, he did not consider such fantasies often for the fallacy of doing so.
If asked, Philip could honestly see but little of himself reflected in the unfeeling marble sculpt. Maybe there was something about that smiling mouth, half-grinning as if he knew a secret and was amusing himself with some clever retort, now forever unspoken. Or, perhaps there were shadows of filial resemblance in the shape of his jaw and the line of his nose . . . most certainly in the shape of his nose, Philip ruefully admitted . . . yet, for the greater portion, he resembled his mother - along with something unidentifiable that he would have to attribute to his grandparents, none of which he had ever known but through the portraits of those on his mother's side. Yet, even those trapped memories were inconsequential to his wonderings; indefinite in a word defined.
“You have his eyes,” William was the one to catch him staring that particular afternoon, looping an arm about his shoulders and smiling a smile that most certainly resembled the smirking bust of their sire to an unerring degree. Yet, that was always William: fast and smart and lashing at the world around him like lightning and storm-winds. In that way it was more than easy to espy his resemblance to their father. “Look at him: he is clearly too clever for his own good, with his genius not always properly applied, I would say.”
Philip understood the jab for what it was; even so, he did not shrug his brother's arm away from his shoulders. Instead, he gave an exaggerated sigh, and rolled his eyes to retort, “It is not my fault that you already inherited all that was mercantile about him, I would argue. There was naught left for me to take.”
Perhaps unwittingly mirroring their father, Philip had just recently completed his studies in the law at Columbia University, but since graduating, William could not understand his taste for more altruistic cases and innocent – but poor - clients. But, then, William always had an eye for a pretty penny, and, in his view, the more daring and rigors required to accomplish such a fortune, the better.
“What can I say?” William shrugged, showing his teeth in a gesture that pushed at some memory, ever too young and tender within his mind to be fully formed. “I suppose that the world would not have been wide enough for two such Hamiltons if you were.”
. . . that, Philip more than knew. Oh, did he know.
And so, he fell silent as he continued to stare at his father's cold white eyes. William, noticing his gaze, merely squeezed his shoulders one last time in unspoken support before turning away.
.
.
Even so, there were times when he did not look for his father's likeness in his face, but for his resemblance to him. The first Philip, the other him: the one who had been all bright colours and bold strokes, carrying their father's legacy to the point where he even perished as he did. Sometimes, Philip wondered if everything about his being was opposite of his eldest brother, the one he never had the opportunity to know, just so he could carve out his own place in the world whilst holding onto the legacy of his name. Where the first Philip had been rash, he was cautious; where Philip had been loud in his joviality, he was soft, even subdued in his humor; where Philip had flaunted his father's genius within his own mind, he quietly wove his way though the complex legal systems for those who did not have a chance to do so for themselves underneath the heavy thumb of the law, so much so that his serving as an assistant district attorney underneath his brother James was quite by accident, not by fulfilled ambition.
Yet, there were times when he'd come to visit his mother's house (such as today, when he came to bring Eliza the drafts for the state charter she was determined to procure for her orphanage, the same orphanage Philip had helped her tend since his earliest of memories) and Angelica would look up from her vigil by the piano to focus her bleary gaze upon him. Her fingers stilled from where she was mournfully plucking away at the piano keys . . . one after another . . . over and over again in the same haunting, eerie scale . . . and she inhaled sharply to recognize -
(Even though Philip had never played the piano; not once.)
“Philip!” Angelica smiled to exclaim, her fidgeting, anxious features splitting with true joy to see his face. “I have been waiting for you; I knew you would come back – everyone continues to tell me that you are gone, but I knew that if I waited, you would return to me. And now, here you are.” Her skirts whispering about her feet, she stood from the bench to glide over to his side, moving more like a faerie creature than a woman of flesh and bone.
“I'm not Philip . . . I'm Phil, Angie . . . your younger brother, remember?” as ever, he weakly voiced his protests, but he never had the strength to deny her outright when she took his hand and led him to sit next to her at the piano. Once he was dutifully rooted by her side, she abandoned her mournful scales in favor of a lively, quickly paced concerto, her hands dancing, feather light, over the keys as once, his might have done as well.
.
.
When he arrived at the courthouse on the last day of Aaron Burr's divorce trial, Alexander's eyes were wide with surprise to see him.
“Phil?” his brother frowned as he came around the side of the railing to stand before his seat. “What are you doing here?” A heartbeat passed, and Alexander frowned the same pinched lip expression that was not quite their mother's disapproving glower; Phil imagined that it was one from their father's arsenal, though he'd never say so aloud. “You should not - ”
“ - I am here for the same reason you are,” Phil interrupted, narrowing his eyes up at his brother and refusing to move from his place.
“I have been hired and commissioned by Mrs. Burr – the soon to be former Mrs. Burr, that is – to protect her interests in this case,” Alexander did not quite agree. “It is not the same as idle curiosity – one that, if sated, shall not truly satisfy anything you'd wish for it to.”
“Say what you wish, but I know why you took this case – don't lie and say that this is merely a duty for you,” Philip would not allow a lawyer's turn of phrase to turn his mind, just as he would not from the opposing council in his own courtroom. Instead, all of the carefully disinterested, nonchalant reasons he had to justify his presence faded away as he lowered his voice to say, “You . . . you knew our father, Alexander. You were there for his good years, just as you were blessed to remember . . .” his humors, his joys, his tempers, his pride . . . his love . . . but he could not find his voice to say so aloud. The words stuck in his throat, useless to his aid. Instead he swallowed to say, his voice a low, whispered sound from between his teeth, “ . . . he took that away from me. I . . . I just need to see him, I need to see . . .”
See, and perhaps then he would understand . . . and with that understanding he could at long last lay the ghost ever hovering before him to rest, never to haunt him again.
Alexander frowned in answer, still clearly ill at ease with his choice, but he did not try to turn his opinion again.
And Philip sat, still in his place as Burr entered the courtroom, wearing a rich suit that had clearly been carefully tailored to make it seem as if it had seen better days. His childhood self had ever imagined a wolf's face when the name of Burr was spoken, and yet, the man before him now looked . . . weary - old and weighed down by his days. His face was craggy with the passing of the years (years which he had stolen from his father, Philip forced himself to remember), and deeply etched with too many cares and worries to properly define. He offered but little of a defense for himself as the proceedings wore on, and it was the lack of fight, the lack of vigor that took Philip quite by surprise. There was nothing of the canny, nothing of the shrewd and calculating politician about him. Instead -
He was throwing away his shot, Philip finally understood; he had little left to care for, and it was that apathy, that disinterested indifference that had him finally exhaling the breath he'd been holding. He remained still and on edge throughout the remainder of the proceedings, unsure how to hate that which was already so defeated by his own hand, and, instead -
- when Aaron Burr turned at the session's end, and found his eyes amongst the few faces filling the mostly empty seats, Philip felt a dull thrill tear through him to see recognition bloom in the older man's eyes. He tilted his head up, and felt his throat turn strangely tight as their eyes met and held. As he stood, a hundred words seemingly rushed through his mouth to gather on his tongue. He wanted to scream, to accuse: I never knew my father because of you. You took him from me, and I had to forge my own way alone, alone . . .
Yet there was a strange, wet shine in the other man's eyes, and when the time came for him to speak, to state his reasons for his deserving recompense, Philip found that he could not find his voice. Burr opened his mouth once, and then twice, clearly trying to summon the words that would never serve to mend the breach between them, but Philip turned before he could speak, and walked away. He did not look back again.
.
.
Philip married later in life than most of his siblings, to a woman he had made wait for so long that he was amazed when she accepted him the day his courage to ask for her hand finally came.
Perhaps that too was done in the shadow of his father's memory, knowing how so many still heard Reynolds whenever the name Hamilton was spoken, even those many years later. The sins of the father were oftentimes visited upon their sons, and he was unfairly judged as tainted by the man whom he had no conscious memory of – as if the virtue of good, fine girls was at risk simply by sharing a room with him.
Rebecca McLane, however, carefully and calmly pulled away each and every brick from the walls he had unwittingly built around himself, and when, not even a year into their marriage, she gave him a son . . .
. . . he did not understand how he had ever thought himself to be full before, when he was then fit to bursting with the great love he suddenly held within himself. He could not keep from smiling, he could not stop himself from leaning on his wife's shoulder so that he could peer down at their son and gently trace the soft fuzz lining his skull . . . the soft shape of his brow . . . the impossibly fragile grip of his newborn hands. Everything about the tiny creature she held was enchanting, and demanded his attention in equal measure.
“What should we name him, my charmer?” Philip whispered into her skin to ask.
At his question, he felt Rebecca still, and the languid contentment that had overtaken her following the rigors of her labor failed her for a heartbeat's time. “I was thinking Alexander,” she whispered her choice. “For there is something in his eyes . . . it's that same something that drew me to you, all those years ago, you know.”
For a moment, he could not find his voice to answer. He had to work to summon his speech. “No – no,” the refusal came more sharply than he first intended, and he swallowed in order to recover his words before they ran away with him. “Alexander . . . my father was no father to me, and I'd not burden my son with such an infamous name.”
“Phil,” Rebecca gave a sad sigh to say, and he frowned to turn his face into her hair, not wanting to bring an old, long scabbed wound into such a sacred, perfect moment as this one.
“My father . . .” his wounds may have been scabbed, but they were not yet healed - this he was baffled to find as his words tumbled forth, quite without his consent. “His pride . . . his legacy was more important to him than ensuring that I had a father. I was a footnote in his mind the day he picked up that pistol, and I am now nothing more than a footnote in his history, and I shall not . . . I cannot . . . ”
He closed his eyes, and had to work to find his breath about the stone suddenly filling his throat. But he did not have to say anything more: Rebecca simply reached up the hand that was not holding their child to cradle the side of his head, her fingertips gently soothing him as she threaded them through his hair. Just barely, he felt some of his tension drain from his body, and he sighed into her neck.
“Rather would I name him Louis, for your father,” Philip at last found his voice. “He has been both a father and friend to me too, through many a trying time now, and he deserves this honor.” Even still, he had to fight away the pang he felt behind his heart, as if he was somehow betraying his father's memory with his words, and he fought it away through the long force of habit.
“Louis, then,” after a considering moment, Rebecca finally agreed. She tilted her head, and he met her searching grey eyes without blinking his own. There was a sad, bittersweet shadow to her gaze, but she did not press their honoring his father's name again. “Proud would I be to have a son of mine bear that name, and I know that my father shall be overjoyed as well.”
Would that I too could call him father, Philip swallowed just in time to keep himself from saying aloud – for, Louis McLane, more so than living for the country he served, adored and cherished all thirteen of his children. In turn, he'd given Philip what he now valued most in the world despite his own father's name; for that, he did not have the words within himself to describe his gratitude for the undeserved honor bestowed upon him.
They said nothing more than that, and when, some minutes later, Rebecca finally fell into a much deserved slumber, he took his son to hold close and turn about the room to keep him from fussing while his mother rested. Through the white drapes, the sun was just starting to dawn above the New York City skyline, and he held his son up to the golden light, feeling his heart fill as they shared their first sunrise together.
“My father wasn't around, little one,” Philip leaned down to breathe in his son's dear, baby scent, seeing his own eyes (his father's eyes) blink up at him all the while. “But I'll be different: I swear I'll be around for you.”
.
.
After their mother's death, his brother John devoted himself with an ever increasing zeal to seeing their father's story told as Eliza Hamilton had long struggled to tell it.
More than Philip cared to admit, he was drawn into John's endless need for a second pair of eyes as he sifted through the thousands of pages and letters their father wrote and had written to and about him. After returning from the home of Alfred and Julia Mulligan when the former had found a forgotten trunk full of his grandfather's letters, John had been quick to call him over to look through the veritable treasure trove of documents. At first, Philip had declined granting his aid, but, even so, he was not long able to stay away, no matter how he first delayed his visit; that, his wife wryly attributed to his inheriting the insatiable Hamilton curiosity in spades.
The work was long and tedious, but endlessly fascinating for the window of time it opened into their country's history. More so than that, he enjoyed the hours he was able to spend with his normally taciturn older brother, and he felt a sense of accomplishment fill him for knowing that they traveled down a road their mother had well trodden, with his memories of Eliza still a warm and painfully tight thing about his chest.
It was not until they were near the bottom of the chest when they found a small note, not as old and weathered as some of the other pages, detailing good news within. At first, Philip did not look up when John carefully opened the letter to read it – not until his brother frowned, and something sadly pained bloomed in his eyes. It was not the first time he had worn such an expression that day, Philip knew, and he did not think anything of it until -
“Phil . . . look at the date. I . . . I think that this is about you.”
His curiosity piqued, Philip took the letter with a careful hand, seeing his father's familiar, cramped scrawl across the paper, as if he did not have room enough on the page to contain the overflow of his words. He skimmed the beginning of the letter, where his father asked about Elizabeth Mulligan's health and inquired after William Mulligan's studies, before detailing the slow healing of his mourning family in the wake of the elder Philip's death, and yet . . .
Providence has blessed me . . . Philip continued to read . . . Heaven saw fit to preserve the baby alive, for today Eliza felt him move for the first time . . .
. . . if all is well, we expect his arrival some time late in the spring, or perhaps early in the summer . . .
. . . Eliza senses, as all mothers seem to know, that she carries another son; yet I only hope him to be healthy, born safe from the shock his dear mother suffered . . .
. . . He shall be a light in our dark days, just as Solomon must have been to David after the pains his sins inflicted upon both Bathsheba and himself . . .
. . . my dear friend, I will send word to you again when my son is born as the happiest of men, and I hope to have the pleasure of your family's visiting to see the newest, cherished addition to my own . . .
At first, Philip had to reread the letter once . . . twice . . . and then three times over, in order to make sense of the words. The note was simple, but the joy and relief it related was all but palpable, so much so that . . .
When he blinked, he found that his eyes were strangely wet, and he had to reach up and wipe at his eyes with the back of his hand, quite taken as he was.
And, all the while, John watched him with a careful expression, his own eyes warring between warmth and pain as they often did during the days he spent pouring over their father's life.
“If you wanted to keep that one, I am sure Alfred would not object,” John offered. “If we continue,” he added then, “perhaps we can even find the note announcing your birth?”
Philip only nodded, not yet trusting his voice's ability for speech. After reading the letter once more, he carefully, delicately folded the parchment to preserve his father's words - cherishing them as evidence of a love he had not been old enough to remember, or conscious enough to appreciate. And, finally, he felt his welted heart give way for scars, and begin the path to healing anew.
.
.
In his later years, there were few things that Philip enjoyed more than sitting in his son's New York residence, and listening to his grandson play the piano.
Little Louis, named for his late uncle, was a smart, clever boy; already interested in his father's medical profession and keenly watching the world around him with his wide, dark eyes . . . eyes which had yet failed to leave the line of Alexander Hamilton's descendants with every generation to pass.
Sometimes, while his wife happily chatted with her daughter-in-law and his son busied himself with finishing his lingering business for the day, he would sit with his grandson at the piano and listen to the boy go through his scales. His fingers were feather light over the keys as he coaxed from it its song with a natural talent, so much so that he could not help himself from recalling: my brother, and then my sister, were quite gifted with the piano. They would have adored knowing that you followed in their footsteps.
And yet, out of all the stories he had to share, none amused his grandson more so than the tales he had to tell of his own father. Louis was besotted by his great-grandfather's rather unique – unbelievably so, at times – story, and he was ever pestering Philip for more and more, each and every time he visited.
“Wouldn't you rather hear about the time I had to try an honest to goodness pirate in my court?” Philip let out an exaggerated breath of mock jealousy, tickling his grandson's sides from where he was next to him on the piano bench. “Pirates are much more interesting than politicians, would you not agree?”
“But we left off at a duel last time!” Louis complained as only children could, his dark eyes impishly bright as his smile stretched in a more than familiar arc. “The story cannot end there.”
“Duels are never quite as fascinating as you first would think: never romanticize them for more than they truly are, child,” Philip shook his head to say, an old, familiar ache once again settling to dully pierce his heart. And yet, though he could not change the past – for it was impossible to claim control over who lived and died - their stories . . . .
He sighed, and summoned an affectionate smile to ensure that his father's story would once again be known . . . and, someday, told to the next generation to come, long after he was gone. “You see,” Philip wrapped an arm around his grandson's shoulders to say, “General Lee had spoken his mind, and my father could not let his disrespect against General Washington stand. And so, he and Lieutenant Colonel Laurens concocted a plan, a plan which went quite like this . . .”
And history told itself from there.