Seven: Home?

It's the same old thing. England's green hills and Dover's white cliffs reach out to welcome me back. In

better times before, I'd be happy to the point of tears. I'm not.

I'm freed out of my scarlet and white prison garb. I wear the latest fashions. But I still feel the same.

The Republic of Gilead's nightmare follows me with its hideous flashbacks. The Baby bleats and bleats her

pathetic song. Her cries haunt me in every sound I hear. It's not her fault she's a shredder.

Suffer the little children to come unto me, Jesus said.

Jesus loves the little children/ All the children of the world.

Red, yellow, black or white/ they are precious in His sight

Jesus loves all the little children of the world.

Euro-Air flight number 630 slowly inches downward onto the runway at Heathrow. The flight

attendant, a man, speaks into his Phone.

"Fasten your seat belts. Put all your overhead luggage down. Flip up your trays and lock them,"

his musical voice instructs us.

If this were the Republic of Pennsylvania, he'd be hanging from his neck for being a gender traitor.

I'd be in the back of the plane, covered behind a curtain, manacled like a prisoner. My crime: giving birth

to a shredder. My sentence: declared an Unwoman and sent to the colonies in the Republic of Alaska.

Wouldn't the late Sarah Palin like that? How they changed America's last frontier into a prison colony.

In London, I don't have to hide the golden waterfall of my hair behind a concealing white

headdress. Looking down at my fingers, I stare at my rings. They're new because when I was abducted

from my Northwestern dorm seven years ago, the Guardians pulled them off.

They threw a pillow case over my head and pinned my arms at my sides. It came as a shock to

me as I stood in the laundromat, folding up my laundry. I screamed but they jammed a sponge in my

mouth to shut me up.

"You sure there's no cameras around, Chuck?" the son of Ham brayed in his thick accent.

"The old man told us to sneak up on her, Fred!" the other son of Ham hissed.

I started kicking and kicking. Someone wrapped his arms around my ankles.

"Give me the rope!" he shouted.

They bundled me up like a sack of potatoes and the old woman directed them with terse

whispers to the laundromat's door.

"Are you sure we got the right English bitch?" the one named Fred asked the old woman.

"Her daddy gave me a picture on his fancy ass phone! No one can miss this hottie!" she

whispered. She seemed like such a sweet lady, stooped over but still feisty at her advanced age of 90

odd years. Regret still tears me up inside that I was too damn naive not to sense something was wrong

that Sunday in March eight years ago.

I find myself in the present, sitting stock still in my seat. After a moment, a small voice inside of

me says:

Forgive your Father because he didn't know what he was doing at the time.

Anger boils up from the pit of my stomach. The small voice is that of my Mother's.

Why should I forgive a man who used me to save face with a group of religious fanatics?