May 18, 2017

Dear Dolley,

I write in hopes that this will reach you in time to soothe your fears, my dear sister. I wrote to you a week ago, and sent my letter part of the way, but like a bad penny it returned to me. I am still so vexed by stamps!

Please do not question for a moment your embrace of the freedoms that we women now enjoy. If we do not indulge in them, I fear it will be ever easier to take them away. So, while I have more than once chided you for it, I confess an envy of your popularity amongst the rival sex. When John wears his woolen banyan in the bedroom, I confess too that at times I can envy the young and vigorous company you keep.

You will be fine, my dear. You should not be frightened. Have you as of yet, determined who might be responsible for sharing this burden? I understand you and Mr. Madison have not cohabitated in a long while, but in my experience, once a path of consummation has been carved, it is ever easy to pass the same trodden path again. Whoever the gentleman, surely if the afflictions of the righteous are many, we should trust that the Lord shall deliver you from them. But if not, there is a Planned Parenthood in Brookline.

Would you like therefore to come north with due haste? It would so gladden my heart to see you again. You could find a home here. We are still revolutionaries in the Commonwealth, best positioned to meet whatever darkness is cast across our land from Washington City and for your care we have the Massachusetts Health Connector! It is perhaps the finest season to visit, the daffodils and Andrew Benintendi in full bloom, though I am afraid it is a particularly terrible year for ticks and gypsy moths, and the cold brew is an ever worse epidemic. Why do they not simply put the coffee in an ice box to cool? I have half a mind to again toss beverages in the Harbor!

My dear, if you instead choose to stay in Virginia and face this challenge alone, I will understand. But know that you are not alone in your loneliness. We are so evidently in an age of isolation, so much time devoted to connection, but so little time devoted to devotion. And what can truly remedy loneliness but the language of the heart? If it is true that the seas are rising and the American Health Care Act is passing, let us ally and gather our freedoms up two a piece as though boarding an ark and weather this storm together. Let us carry twice the love, twice the commitment and twice the courage and surely we will survive. If we do so together, we shall too have twice the fun! I am sure of it. And then let us be sure to have three scoops of ice cream.

I so eagerly await your reply as I am your affectionate sister,

Abigail Adams