Chapter Thirteen
brAINTREE
Massachusetts
“Papa!” Nabby threw her arms around John’s neck with such enthusiasm that she knocked off his tricorn. Then the boys, laughing
with happiness at their father’s return, launched themselves at his knees, threatening to pull him down.
But my good man was a sturdy oak and could not be felled. He ruffled Johnny’s hair, kissed Nabby’s nose, then pried Charlie
and Tommy off his legs and into his arms. “My little patriots!”
I hadn’t expected him home and stood in mute shock. Thus, he scolded, “I suppose Your Ladyship has been in the twitters because
you’ve not received a letter by every post. But come give me a kiss of forgiveness, because I’ve come to make my apology in
person. Methinks the Continental Congress can do without me for a month or two.”
A month or two. Then he’d be home well into the new year. It meant going to meetings together on Sabbath days followed by cozy candlelit
suppers. It meant a happy Christmastide and help mending fences and creaky floorboards. And it meant that if the cannons boomed
again, I could cling to him for safety . . .
Now John presented me with a tin. “I remembered your tea.”
I gasped, clutching it to my bosom, then I playfully turned up my nose. “I wanted it for the smallpox, so it comes late. But
I’ll take it and be grateful.”
“It’s the second tin I purchased for you,” he replied. “I sent the first to Boston when you asked, but the messenger delivered
it to Mrs. Samuel Adams instead.”
I spluttered with laughter. “Oh! Do you know I think I drank some? She invited me for tea in Boston, and I thought her husband far more considerate than mine. Especially since it was very fine tea.”
“Only the best for my very fine wife,” John said, puffing warm breaths into his still-cold hands.
I put the kettle on the fire and warmed some dinner for him, knowing it was his habit to ride hard without stopping for rest
or sustenance. And as he tore into warm biscuits spread thick with butter, he asked, “Well? What think you of the declaration?”
“It was marvelous,” I said. “Truly, John.”
“No corrections or complaints?” He arched a teasing eyebrow.
“Well. I did think slavery would be denounced.”
“It was,” John replied, his shoulders falling. “But we removed the denunciation to appease the southern states or they wouldn’t
sign.”
My nostrils flared. “And which states prevented you from remembering the ladies? The declaration says all men are created equal. Whilst you are proclaiming peace and goodwill to men, and wishing to emancipate all nations, why must you insist upon retaining
an absolute power over wives?”
John licked butter from his fingertips. “Does not the term men include all mankind?”
“So, then you did mean to include ladies?”
John smirked. “You’ll have to ask Jefferson what he meant when he wrote it.”
“I’m keener to know what you think. Because remember, husband, arbitrary power is like most other things which are very hard—very liable to be broken.”
Now John held up his hand in a plea of mercy. “I thought I left Congress. I am scarcely in the door, and yet another constituency
is heard from.”
“I’ll let you eat your biscuit in peace, Mr. Delegate,” I said, kissing his balding pate. “But we shall revisit the topic.”
“Of that I have no doubt.”
That night, after I had readied the bed with a copper warming pan, our eyes met.
The long-suppressed emotion of so many long months apart and countless tribulations now welled up inside me such that I began to tremble.
I had pushed down every wish, and silenced every murmur, acquiescing in a painful separation.
But now, as John moved to embrace me, my fingers tightened into fists, not knowing whether I wished more to thrash him for being so long away, or caress him in gratitude for his return.
“Abigail,” he said, holding my trembling body tight. “I regret all that has conspired to keep us apart, but now I am yours.”
I was tempted to tell him certain attitudes had also come between us, but never once had the flame of love dimmed, and now
at the rumble of his baritone by my ear, love flared anew. “I have missed you, husband. Friend of my heart.”
He kissed me, and I returned that kiss. Yet I knew he wanted more. I could feel it as his body pressed to mine, and an answering
call warmed my blood. But as John’s fingers began the nimble work of unfastening my clothes, I was seized with fear.
And as I pulled away, he mistook the cause. “Come now, my Abigail, don’t be cross. You’d pity me if you knew what a lonely,
forlorn creature I’ve been without you.”
“I am not cross,” I said, palms pressed to where I could feel the beating of his heart. “I think no man but you could’ve led
Congress so nobly in these times. Who else could have persuaded the other colonies to band together for independence?”
He frowned down at my splayed fingers on his chest. “Then why do you fend me off?”
I flushed, finding it unusually difficult to explain. “I long to fold you to my fluttering heart, but our youngest isn’t nursing
anymore, and I fear the danger of another child.”
John’s frown transformed into a mischievous grin. “With all the other dangers we’ve hazarded, this is what you fear? I’d welcome
another child. Each of our little ones is a delight, and you’ve oft mourned that they grow so fast . . .”
“I have,” I admitted as his persuasions began to work upon me.
“We shall try for another little girl this time,” he murmured against my hair, pressing upon what he surely knew was my weakest
spot.
We still mourned our lost little Susanna. And he knew I still ached to give Nabby a sister. The thought of an infant girl mewling against my breast tugged at my maternal yearnings.
Yet, my mind raised a thousand objections. The farm, the finances, and the struggle to feed the children. Never mind the war. All of it weighed upon me. “Is it right to bring another child into a world of chaos?”
“We live in trying times, but my guardian angel whispers that we shall see happier days.”
Suspicious of his optimism, I asked, “Is that guardian angel General Washington, perchance, with some hopeful military intelligence?”
But John would not be distracted with questions about the war and pressed a kiss to my neck. “Come to bed with me, my dear,
and let’s add another to our little flock. Think how nice it will be to walk in the garden with Charlie in one hand and Tommy
in the other, Nabby on your right hand and Johnny upon my left, to view the cornfields, the orchards, and so on. And you the
picture of fertility, another babe in your womb.”
Certainly, I was tempted. But I felt so much older and less fit to carry a child as when last I was pregnant. Which is why I felt compelled to confess, “John . . . they told
me you were dead.”
The rumor had ripped through the colonies that John Adams had gone to inspect the troops in New York and been poisoned. A
British spy had done it. Or a rival in Congress was the culprit. Or a Loyalist innkeeper had slipped the toxin into my husband’s
stew.
“Even after you wrote to reassure me you were still alive,” I continued, “the story continued to reach me so brutally, so
frequently, and with a nearly perverse glee by those I might have counted friends that I began to fear it was prophecy.”
“No,” he said, kissing my fingertips in tender reassurance. “That is superstition. Mummery and nonsense. Here I am, alive
and well. And I mean to stay that way.”
“But it’s all I can do to manage without you even without a child at the breast.”
At last he sobered a little at that, nodding thoughtfully. “I know how much I have put upon your slender shoulders, but you should not fear being alone. I promise that if God should bless us with another child, I will be home with you for the birth and difficult early months.”
Now here was a temptation stronger than his honeyed words or silky caresses—stronger even than the thought of a milky-scented babe
in my arms. To have John home again!
If a new child would ensure my husband’s return, perhaps by adding to my family, I might unify it again. It was the one temptation
I could not resist.
So it was upon his solemn promise that I surrendered to my good man. And when caught up in the throes of passion, he whispered,
over and over again, “I am yours, yours, yours.”