You can wet the rim of a glass and run your finger around the rim and it will make a sound. This is what I feel like: this sound of glass. I feel like the word shatter.
-The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood
It's a bitterly cold day as Nick steps inside the house, dropping his gloves on the table and walking inside the kitchen.
He moves to make himself a cup of coffee when Rita bustles into the room, the hem of her dull green dress damp. Nick can still see the bruises on her face and feels a flicker of guilt. He hadn't anticipated that helping June flee would have such a negative impact on Rita.
"We're all out of coffee," she snaps. "I haven't had time to go buy more."
Nick nods mutely and puts the kettle on to make tea. "Want a cup?" he asks lowly, trying to make up for taking all of her good coffee.
Rita looks surprised and her expression softens. "Thank you, Nick."
She looks exhausted. Nick knows that Mrs. Waterford has been particularly brutal to Rita these last two months, forcing her to work harder than ever and snapping physically at any mistake.
Marthas were disposable, and no one knew that better than Rita herself. She has no recourse against the violence she suffers, knowing that if she spoke up she'd be hung on the wall in an instant. There was nothing Nick could do to help her other than being a little kinder than normal. He's not sure it makes much difference.
The atmosphere of the house has been extremely tense ever since June hadn't returned from the Red Centre after her ultrasound. Mrs. Waterford has been particularly volatile and Nick finds himself avoiding the house at all costs, only going in late at night to pick up his cold plate of dinner or to get some coffee to take to June. He has never enjoyed spending time with the Commander, but he is downright enjoyable in comparison at the moment.
Nick now spends most of his days tinkering with the car in the garage, trying to stay out of sight. He knows that he is under suspicion, especially from Mrs. Waterford due to the moment he had shared with June in the kitchen. It had been a risky thing to do, but June had needed him in that moment and he had needed to show he that that he would be there.
He hands Rita her cup of tea and settles into the chair across from her. Things were quiet between them, the house peaceful for once. They were the only people there as the Commander and Mrs. Waterford are off at some office, demanding information on how the search for Offred is going.
Nick has to bite back a smirk. June should be in Canada by now, far from the horrors of Gilead. He can't wait to see their faces when the announcement goes up. Handmaids almost never managed to escape, and a pregnant one had never accomplished it. The fallout is sure to be glorious.
Once Nick gets confirmation that June is safely in Canada, he'll start planning on how to get Hannah out. He is close to figuring out where she is, and soon he will take action. His best source for that had surprisingly been Commander Pryce rather than Mayday like he'd anticipated.
The man loved to talk about how he'd saved children from a hellish existence by taking them away from their sinful families and placing them into proper Godly ones. How he was sure he'd won the favour of God and that the plague of infertility would end because children were being raised the way God intended them to be.
It had taken everything he had for Nick to not roll his eyes or say something stupid like how none of this stuff was in the Bible. Pryce likes and trusts him, and so Nick needs to hold onto that in order to take full advantage of the information he has to offer. Pryce is a true believer and so Nick pretends to be one too. It is surprisingly easy- Nick will do anything for June, and besides, Hannah also deserves to raised in a good place where she has the opportunity to become the doctor June had told him that she used to dream of being.
Once he knew Hannah was safe, Nick would then chose to report the abuses that Fred and Serena had both levelled at June and the woman here before her. Pryce, a true believer, would surely make efforts to prevent the Waterfords from getting another handmaid. Nick doesn't like that they'll be able to adopt a child into this mess, but there would be little he could do to stop that. He supposes he could accuse them of being in the resistance, but the risk out blowback on himself and Rita would probably be too great.
Nick's first major strike of information to find Hannah had been when Pryce had told him about the two children he and his wife had adopted. Most Commanders wanted their own biological children and so they were assigned handmaids, but Pryce had mentioned that some of the older members had wanted to skip the baby phase and so they'd adopted children despite the fact that the sins of their parents had to be corrected out of them. It was a worthy sacrifice Pryce had said grandly. The words had nearly made Nick sick. These children have all been stolen, plucked from the arms of helpless parents.
Nick has to be so very careful when pressing for information, and so he hadn't asked Pryce anything else. It was fortunate enough that Pryce had presumed he was asking because he soon wanted to have children of his own to bring up to be Godly. Nick had simply nodded and smiled in response. It wasn't really a lie- he did want children and to raise them with faith, but he didn't want to raise them here or in the bastardized version of faith that Gilead has.
Nick is now slowly gathering information on older commander families and trying to divulge that status they had. June had told him that Hannah was mixed race, and Nick presumes that that means Hannah is in a lower status commander family. He knows that blonde children are the most desired. Commander Pryce had shown him photos of his adopted children- blonde, blue-eyed, and pale.
Children were a limited resource, and as such the so-called best ones went to the highest status families. Hannah would probably be considered too dark for any of those families. The thought disgusts Nick, but the knowledge it brings is useful. The fewer families he has to poke about, the better.
He finishes his tea, and takes his and Rita's empty cups to the sink to wash them and put them on the drying board.
"Thanks again, Nick," Rita tells him, her voice low and raspy. She glances around furtively before whispering, "Be careful when it comes to the good coffee. They've picked up on the stores dropping."
She gives him a knowing look that reminds him of the ones his father used to level at him and Nick freezes. He'd hoped that he had been discrete.
"I told her that I spilled some. She gave me this in response," Rita murmurs, pointing at the black eye and nail-like scraps around her left eye. "You owe me."
Nick knows she's not entirely serious, but he nods anyway. He'll figure out how to make it up somehow.
He heads outside after that, working on clearing the ice from out of the storm drains. He wonders what June is doing in Canada right now. He knows she'd left sometime after he last saw her on Tuesday. It's Friday now. Maybe she was seeing a movie? Or binging more episodes of Friends? He likes thinking of June seeing something funny and laughing.
Lost in thought, he barely hears the car pull up in front of the gates and the loud footsteps that scramble up the stairs. Nick doesn't dare look up, instead slowly and methodically continuing with his work.
After a couple more hours of dealing with ice and clogged gutters, Nick warily walks into the house to collect his dinner. He pauses in the kitchen, running his hands under hot water to warm up his freezing fingers. There was something about the energy of the house that unsettles him. Gone was the tense air, now replaced with a nervous thrumming energy.
Dread floods his entire body. Something was very wrong. If he had been caught for helping June, surely he'd have been taken away in a black van by now. It must be something else entirely.
Nick decides to take his meal in the kitchen tonight instead of eating it in his dank apartment like usual. It feels imperative that he remains here to keep an eye on things.
"Rita," he hears Mrs. Waterford's voice ring out sharply, "Bring us our dinner now and make sure it's hot."
"Yes, ma'am," he can hear Rita reply.
Nick frowns a little. The stress and the fury in her voice has dissipated. She sounds more like the Serena Joy Waterford from 3 months ago than the one he'd tried to get used to recently. Whatever is going on, Nick knows it isn't good. It is Gilead after all.
Rita speeds into the kitchen and grabs the plates from the warmer, quickly walking back out again. She was smiling a little, not one of the forced smiles that she used around them, but a normal one. Did they finally receive the news that June was in Canada? Had the Commander and Mrs. Waterford lost all hope and the knowledge pleased Rita? Why else would she be smiling?
He eats his roast dinner slowly and methodically, trying to stall for more information but not getting any. Once dinner was over, Nick wasn't usually welcome in the Waterford house anymore, especially if Mrs. Waterford was there or awake. He needs to know what was going on, but there were only so many risks he could keep on taking. He has Hannah and himself to think of. He's determined to make it Canada and play a role in his child's life. He refuses to think otherwise.
Just as he has finished, Rita walks back in, carrying the plates from the dining room.
"All done?" Rita asks, taking his plate to the sink before he can answer.
"Uh, yeah," he replies, "I can wash those for you?"
"No. Don't you have something to be doing?" Her tone is hard, but Nick can recognize her sarcasm as well.
"No."
"Humph," Rita tuts, placing the clean dishes onto the drying rack and wiping her hands on her apron as she turns.
It's the first good look at her that Nick's gotten since early this morning. He's surprised in the change in her expression. Earlier she had looked forlorn and exhausted, now she seemed sad with an excited undertone. It concerns him further.
Before Nick can ask her what's going on, he can hear the sharp clack of Mrs. Waterford's heels.
"Rita," she calls out, stepping onto the threshold of the kitchen, "make sure Offred's room is dusted and ready for her return. And change those linens and sterilize everything, we need it all as clean as possible. I'm not taking chances with my baby."
"Yes, ma'am," Rita says perfunctorily. "Praised be that God has returned her to us."
"Praised be," Mrs. Waterford replies pointedly. "You'll start tomorrow. Offred will be back soon, and things must be ready."
Rita nods and hustles away, glancing back at Nick once, her face worried.
Nick grips the nearly-empty cup of tea in his hands tightly in order to keep them from shaking. He can't have heard right. Surely not? June should have left her last safehouse for Canada yesterday or the day before. She should be safe by now, free and happy.
"Haven't you heard the good news, Nick? They found Offred on an abandoned airstrip, attempting to escape. She's at the Red Centre now. We're trying to make sure she won't hurt the baby before she comes home."
"God has graced us with His glory," Nick says monotonously. He feels sick. This is all his fault. He's made everything worse.
"I want you to install a lock on the door in Offred's room. We aren't taking any chances when it comes to my baby," Mrs. Waterford says quickly.
"Yes, Mrs. Waterford," he says, forcing a smile on his face.
"Good." With that she leaves the room.
Nick thinks she looks deranged, drunk on the knowledge that her walking womb has returned. He can't tell whether or not she suspects him of anything. For his sake he surely hopes not.
More than the Commander, Mrs. Waterford scares him. The Commander could be reasoned with, played easily. The man trusted without thought, thinking Nick was just like him. He wasn't anything close. He didn't realize that Nick had months of information on him, waiting to be used at the best possible moment to ensure his execution. Mrs. Waterford was shrewd; cold and calculating, sometimes Nick thinks that she sees right through him.
The moment with June in the kitchen was her gun on him. His gun on her was that she'd forced him to have sex with the handmaid. Both offenses could get the other hung on the wall. Nick's advantage is that as a man, his word is taken more seriously, even with having less status that her, and Mrs. Waterford knows it. It's the first time that he's been grateful that Gilead is structured the way it is.
The unknown knowledge that he was an Eye protects him greatly. The knowledge he holds could very well save his life one day. As much as he detests all these people, it is to his advantage to remain close to Commander Pryce. For his life, for Hannah's, and now again for June and their child's.
In the quiet and relative privacy of his room, Nick feels himself break. He is suffocated by guilt and sorrow.
He should have waited, made a better plan. He should have tried to save Hannah first, before working on saving June by himself. He shouldn't have tried to get June out until he was certain that it would work. He'd had a few months until the pregnancy became cumbersome. Surely a better plan could have been created in that time.
So many mistakes. There would never be enough apologies, no way he could come close to making it right. The best thing he can do now is to focus on finding Hannah and figuring a way to get her out. Perhaps then June could trust him again, and maybe she could regain some of her lost hope.
He's terrified for her state of mind. The two months away from the Waterford house had done her a lot of good. She'd been as close to happy as a person could get in Gilead, and was filled with tentative optimism when he had last seen her. As strong as Nick knows June is, he's certain that all of that is gone now. A person can only go through so much before breaking completely.
Nick swears to never fail her again. He knows that Mayday will give up on saving June. He'll just do it himself. He will find Hannah and get her out, and then flee with June and their baby. He'll die for her if it means she gets to Canada safe. There is no other acceptable option. June can't stay here, and now neither can he.