Dot continues the letter she started yesterday, saying she hopes she’ll have it finished by the time he gets home. Today brought another letter from Dart, written just one week ago! She says he was right – she was thinking about him that day.  (What are the odds?)

She tells Dart about another dream she had where she was in the store room at work and someone came up behind her and covered her eyes. She guessed everyone she works with, but eventually she turned around and there was Dart, “big as life.” He began to get hazy and far away, so she reached out and woke herself up, only to discover she had grabbed his picture off her bed side table.

The thought of him surprising her at work thrills her to the bone. Again, she begs him to remember her daily schedule and seek her out as soon as he gets to Greenwich, without telling her he’s coming.  Then she chides herself for talking as though his surprise visit was imminent. “You must allow me my little dreams once in a while. I thrive on them.”

Yesterday, she “went off the deep end,” and bought herself a new hat and a suit. Her dad, who has said he’s never seen a lady’s hat he liked, actually likes this one. It’s been four years since she was home for Easter and even longer than that since she bought anything new for the occasion, so she thought it was time. “If I can find some film, I’ll spoil it and have my picture taken in my new Easter finery.”

She recalls that her last Easter at home, she was 14 and her brother Gordon bought her the first corsage she’d ever had. It was six roses, and it lasted three weeks. She can’t believe Gordon and Betty’s second anniversary is the week after Easter.

She interrupts her chatty letter to declare that she’s so glad he loves her, because she loves him, and a one-sided affair can be so awkward.

Tonight, she served and washed dishes for another dinner party. (Was it just Greenwich that was into having dinner parties all the time, or did everyone do more of that in 1945?) She was dead tired before the party started, but she’s trying not to complain of fatigue to such a hard-working sailor as Dart.

Her mother’s birthday is this week and Harriet is taking Ruth into NYC for lunch and a play. Aside from baking the cake and preparing her birthday dinner, Dot’s not sure what she’ll do to help her mother celebrate the occasion.

She writes that the war will no doubt have its effects on Dart, but one thing she knows for sure is that he won’t be coming home to her every night drunk and smelling of cigarettes. His deeply held opinions on those habits are too ingrained for them to change at this point. She’s quite happy about that and counts herself especially lucky to be in love with such a fine man. She regrets that she can’t say it in words that give him goose pimples like his letters do to her, but she tries her hand at a love poem:

When your hair has turned to silver and your teeth start to decay,      I’ll love you just as much, my Darling, as I love you today.

As she promises to write again tomorrow, she begs his forgiveness. She’s so tired all the time and she looks like a T.B. patient.