Chapter Nineteen #2
It would be too dangerous to confess to any friend or neighbor.
Too cruel to confide in my children. Too shameful to tell my sister Elizabeth, whose marriage to Reverend Shaw I had judged so harshly.
Nearly as shameful to tell my sister Mary, who must have always suspected my smug belief that my husband was a better match than hers.
And it would be too humiliating to tell my father, who had never approved of John in the first place.
Pride goeth before the fall. Yes, I’d been proud of my marriage, and now worried for the depths to which it could yet fall.
Bottling up this fear made for sleepless nights. My mind had suffered a distress that could not be described and a wound much
deeper than it seemed. But apparently my daughter noticed my distress and whispered to our relations, for I eventually received
a visit from Phoebe, carrying jars of medicinal broths.
Looking me up and down, she said, “Word is that you’re ailing, Honey. Dr. Tufts wants you to take these.”
“I’m in perfectly good health,” I protested, ushering her inside. “Just tired. Nevertheless, I welcome your visit! How is
my father?”
“Same as always,” Phoebe said, commandeering the hearth. “But don’t think I can be put off the subject. If you’re not ailing,
then why are your cheeks so pale and your hair a bird’s nest?”
Self-consciously, I tucked tangled curls under my bonnet. I was pale from lack of rest and my hair unkempt because I couldn’t
muster the dignity to brush it. Of course, none of this could I tell anyone.
But Phoebe . . .
I realized that she might, indeed, be the only person in whom I could confide, which made me burst into sudden tears. Without
a word, Phoebe came and wrapped her arms around me, as if I were a young girl again at the parsonage, weeping over some childhood
trouble. And I melted against her, wetting her neck with my tears.
Phoebe rubbed my back, saying, “There, there, Miss Abby. What sort of trouble have you got yourself into?”
“It’s Mr. Adams,” I hiccuped. “I fear he does not love me any longer.”
There. I said the dreaded words aloud. Now they floated dangerously between us until Phoebe batted them away. “Well, if it’s
true, it’s not the end of the world. Love’s not good for much anyway. But dry your eyes and tell me why you think his heart’s
gone cold.”
It took me some time to pull myself together. I had to resort to drying my tears with my fichu and wrapping myself in a shawl for comfort.
Then, over a hot bowl of broth, I showed Phoebe the letters. The cold ones, the angry ones, the spiteful ones.
We had taught her to read—my sisters and I—and now I watched Phoebe’s wizened old eyes linger on the nastiest parts. “Well,
your Mister is in a mood . . .”
Exposing my wounds like this—even to an intimate—made my despair turn to fury. “Never did I know Mr. Adams capable of being
so mean-spirited! Whatever I’ve done to displease him, it cannot be so great an offense to justify this. I begin to believe . . .”
I could scarcely articulate what I’d begun to believe.
In revisiting these letters, I’d noticed that while John found nothing to praise in me, he had only praise for France. “The
delights are innumerable. The politeness, the elegance, the softness, the delicacy, is extreme.” How delicious the cookery.
How charming the manners. How elegant the entertainments. How educated the women. How pleasant the climate there being, he
said, “not a softer air, a warmer sun, or a more delicious appearance of things about Boston.”
It was a suspiciously romantic turn of phrase for the likes of John Adams. Had he, perhaps, made the acquaintance of a softer,
warmer, more delicious woman? I had tried to shake the thought away, but now miserably whispered to Phoebe, “Mrs. Warren told
me it is the custom of every important man in France to take a mistress.”
I could’ve cursed Mercy for telling me that, but it wasn’t Mercy who had made me wonder. It was John, and I resented him all the more for it. “If he loved me, he would never!”
Drily, Phoebe said, “Oh, people can hurt you plenty even if they love you. But I don’t think you have to worry about Mr. Adams
taking a mistress.”
Eager for any scrap of hope, I asked, “Why not?”
“Well, by my reckoning, Honey, a husband like Mr. Adams—a churchgoing husband who prides himself on personal honor—well, he’d feel guilty. Knowing he’s sinned, he’d scrawl sweet nothings to his wronged wife and press flowers between the pages to ease his conscience.”
Well, I had not thought of that. The few times in our marriage that John knew himself to be wrong, he’d been very contrite.
Remembering this flooded me with relief. “That is an astute observation about husbands; how did you come by it as an unmarried
woman?”
Phoebe snorted. “Enslaved people don’t survive to be my age without studying human nature.”
That ought to have prompted some soul-searching on my part about Phoebe’s situation, but I was too absorbed in my own troubles.
“Well, what am I to do? Even if Mr. Adams hasn’t strayed from our marital bed, he’s made a mockery of it. I didn’t think him
capable of mistreating me. And I won’t tolerate it.”
Phoebe snorted again. “Oh, yes you will.” This brought me up short, but she continued on without a care for my bruised pride.
“You don’t have a choice. When you were a’courting, you did your best to find a groom who would treat you well. That’s the
last freedom you had. Now you’re married, and in marriage, you belong to him.”
That set my teeth on edge, for as a religious woman I had never believed it. “Men who wish to be happy willingly give up the
harsh title of Master for the more tender and endearing one of friend.” Then, remembering to whom I was speaking, I added,
“The ownership of any person is unjust and immoral.”
Phoebe stared at me hard, for she would always understand the injustice and immorality of owning human beings in a way that
I would never be capable of understanding. “You don’t say?”
Now I felt shamed. “I did not mean to imply that marriage is slavery—”
“No,” Phoebe said. “It sure isn’t. But there’s plenty in common. My people say you might get a kind, loving master. You might
get a cruel one. Either way, you’ve got a master.”
I swallowed, not daring to meet her eyes, for no matter how often I’d challenged my father, he refused to give up the right
to her, even though he knew it was a sin. Yes, my beloved father. A pastor and man of God. A kind master, but still a master . . .
“There shouldn’t be any masters,” I said in mounting determination. “A thing I intend to say to my father again when next I see him.”
“You’ll do no such thing,” Phoebe said, wagging a finger in my face. “It won’t help me. And it won’t help you to argue with
your husband across the sea either. Perhaps he has some reason to make the British think he’s a stern and unfeeling patriarch—a
facade meant for his protection and yours. But it doesn’t matter if he has a good reason or a bad one. Do you think vicious
little letters are the worst thing Mr. Adams can do to you? He’s fallen in love with France, you say. Well, what if he stays
there? You wouldn’t be the first wife in this family to be deserted.”
My mouth ran dry, because she was right. My drunken brother had abandoned his wife, leaving her bereft of hope, housing, and
sustenance. And though I helped to support his children, I did not dare ask what humiliations my sister-in-law endured to
survive.
What recourse did she have? None. She could attempt to divorce him, but the process was not only rare, costly, and uncertain,
but would impart a stigma she’d carry all her days. The truth was that women had little protection. It would be better if
my sister-in-law were widowed, for whilst my brother lived, his wife and children were tied to him, his absence an anchor
that dragged them down into poverty and shame.
A fate my children and I might share, Phoebe insisted, if I didn’t follow her advice. “You write back sweetly to your husband.
Apologize for even the slightest shadow of a complaint. Be solicitous of his health and flatter his vanity. And if he has taken a mistress, do not imagine you’ll ever benefit by taking the slightest notice of it.”
That was too outrageous a suggestion to be borne. “I cannot apologize and mean it. It would be dishonest, and he’d know it.”
Phoebe eyed me for a fool. “Then you best take the pieces of your broken heart and glue them back together in such a way that
you can make your apology ring true.”
I knew she was right. And rarely in my life did knowledge of the truth cut so deeply.
All my marriage, I imagined myself to be in love.
Now I believed that what passed between John and me must be something less than love—that it had always been something less than love.
Because true love can only exist between equals. And we had never been that.
John had always indulged me. He’d made me feel as if my opinions mattered. He’d flattered me with his trust. He’d refrained
from using the powers the law granted him to oppress me. And in so doing, he’d given me the illusion that we were a union
of hearts and souls.
Now that illusion was shattered, revealing the cruel reality that a union of hearts and souls was not possible so long as
his sex tyrannized mine. And if I wanted any measure of freedom or dignity, I couldn’t write to him in anger, asking for reassurance
or explanation or justification. I couldn’t even plead with him to treat my heart more gently and help me mend it. I’d have
to mend my own heart with the glue of self-regard and a determination to be independent from this day forth.
Henceforth I’d remember the painful truth that John Adams was merely the father of my children and the man to whom I was pledged
by a marriage contract. No matter how much it hurt, from that legalistic point of view, his regard and affection for me was
entirely unchanged, leaving me in the wrong for expecting more.
So I took up my pen and wrote to John, “You chide me for my complaints, when I had so little occasion for them. I entreat
you, my dear sir, to forgive it as an anxious solicitude to hear of your welfare. Bury in oblivion every expression of complaint—erase
them from the letters as I have erased from my mind any idea contrary to the regard and affection you’ve always manifested
towards me.”
There. That was apologetic. Now for gratitude.
“Accept my thanks for so kindly providing for me. The articles you sent will be a great assistance.”
I encouraged him to send more—for even if two out of every three shipments sank to the bottom of the sea, I could still profit.
And I aimed to profit. I aimed to study every possible method of economy in my power, all with an intention to add to my pin
money.
About which I had told John nothing.
I doubted I ever would. Why should he feel entitled to the details of my life if he was unwilling to share the details of his?
I finished the letter with a customary closing that now held a much darker, cold, and legalistic meaning.
I am wholly yours.
Then I folded that letter so carefully that the edges were sharp enough to cut. I melted the wax, pouring a perfect bloodred
puddle on the page, before pressing a seal and watching it harden along with my heart.