HANDLING A RISING BLOOD PRESSURE

"Q Appelle says she knows where Angela is. But she won't post the location. She said that she'll only reveal it to you, in person."

The daughter of the house had just rapped on my door. When I said, 'Come in', she opened it and quickly started talking about Q Appelle, but only stood in the doorway - quite excited.

She said, "No one has ever met Q Appelle before. Mom says it's probably more than one person. Who knows. I guess you being an actual Wife and all, you merit attention." She put a hand to her chest, "it is such an honour to meet you. I can't believe we're actually taking."

I sat up in bed and straightened myself. I made it a question, "No one knows who she is?" I paused, "Is she even a woman?" I wondered why someone even remotely familiar with Gilead, its culture and norms, would even listen to a woman. Even Serena Joy had been brought to heel after Gilead was formed. Warren kept saying, "We promised them too much."

"Dad thinks so," the daughter said. "Me, I don't know how you would even tell." The daughter said that friends of hers call her home, the ranch at the Martyrs of Jacob, a 'Q Appelle 'Community'', that her parents are Q Appelle 'Influencers'. "Although I don't see it," she added.

"It's not our fault that when people do their own research, they gravitate to us."

I needed to know more. Far, far more. I was still reeling from their love affair with Warren - so much so that his portraiture downstairs had an arm reattached. That irked me no end. They'd admitted to 'photoshopping' it, given the views of this shadowy Q Appelle.

What did that name even mean? It sounded French.

"Ok," I finally clued in. "Please tell your Mother I will be down for breakfast shortly. I'd want to know more about this Q Appelle before agreeing to anything."

REMEMBERING CLEARLY

I remember clearly Serena Joy, no less, being with me and Angela the day Warren had been taken by Guardians. Serena Joy was supposed to have been giving me succor, she gave anything but. She should have taken care of her own Husband, rather than try to humiliate me about Angela.

That woman. She had stared at me with daggers in her ITWC cell, when I graciously offered to take her baby, raise it as our own in Gilead (where it belonged). Maybe it was just as well. Fred now dead, Warren on the Wall, Angela taken, me to the Colonies, the humiliation of being rescued by Ofwarren. Having to endure Americans-in-exile in both Calgary as well as Toronto.

Then there were these 'know-nothings' in Alberta, on a huge ranch in the shadow of the Rocky Mountains. Wannabee Gileadens, who knew nothing about Gilead. A Q Community, an Influencer!

I'll say one thing about Serena Joy, she would have known what to do with these impostors - she would have long since figured out who this looney-tunes Q Appelle was.

I make no apologies for who I am. I'd gone to university for the sorority. So that when Warren and I met, I knew I was on track to get my M.R.S.-degree. At the time, the only friction between us, as infrequent as it was, was Warren's dabbling in the Sons of Jacob. He'd been in Commerce at college - my girlfriends had joked that he was the extroverted accountant of his group, because when he talked to you, he looked at your shoes!

It had been the same day, the same day that Warren had excitedly said that Andrew Pryce wanted him as his 'right hand man', even when the Sons of Jacob had been unknown…

That was the same day that my best friend had come to me in tears. She and Warren were having an affair. She wanted me to know, she also wanted to tell me that she had 'broken-it-off'. Why?

Because she said that Warren had been the randiest at his frat-parties when they'd got hookers in. Shy Warren, she'd said, he preferred the parties when two or three hookers had shown up.

There were so many times that I almost ended it. One was the day of the insurrection at the old US Capitol building. Me, I was packing to leave - but when the vice-president had buckled and 'sent the election back to the State-houses', Warren had called to say that the two of us, me and him, we were headed for some really big things.

Stupid me - I caved in. I knew what was next. Next was that Warren had accumulated 'staff', people to coordinate his responsibilities as a newly-minted Commander of New Gilead. I swear, half of his staff had had the sole purpose of supplying women - plural - to Warren.

Yet these wannabee-Gileadens have whitewashed him. Q Appelle had whitewashed him. These people on this ranch were going to hear different. Believe you me.

THE TWEET

At breakfast, the wife was holding court - telling me about this land nestled into the rising and majestic Rockies. Her great-great-grandfather had secured this large parcel from the Blackfeet Confederacy, who in turn had been displaced in the 1870s by the Canadian Pacific Railway when it had gone through.

When Alberta had become a Province in 1905, her great-grandfather had secured a special arrangement for mineral rights. "The rest is history," she finished. "We've been fighting Ottawa, immigrants and Easterners ever since."

Just as she was recounting her family's participation in the "Truck Convoy/Freedom Convoy", which had paralysed Ottawa, her daughter came into the room. She showed her mother her smartphone. (I never delivered on my mental note of the time, that women were not supposed to be reading, writing or tweeting!)

"Oh shit," said the Mrs., as she stood. "They're coming."

"Who's coming," I asked?

She looked at me and said, "That was a Q Appelle tweet. Do you know how seldom Q Appelle tweets!?" The Mrs explained that usually the family gathered after dinner to go through Q Appelle's dark-web, 4chan-linked webpage - and fight among themselves as to the meaning hidden in her information. Then one of the boys would post their conclusions on-line for the rest of the world to read.

I could only repeat, "Who's coming?"

"RCMP, redcoats, border security, the works….." she answered. "Probably Americans, too."

At that, her smartphone rang. She looked at it and mumbled, 'that was quick, it's the main gate'. She answered and said, "Uh-huh, uh-huh," a few times. She said, "Obviously, let them cross. We'll deal with them down here at the house, where they'll be penned in."

The Mr of the house joined us out on the veranda, with the Mrs and her sons, and about a dozen ranch-hands. An equal number of hands were in the parking area in front.

All of whom were armed. Rifles mainly.

Eventually the convoy of police cleared the rise in the distance, and ten minutes later were parked, surrounding the house. Most police stayed in their vehicles, but six or seven joined a Mountie (himself in that beautiful red serge) who walked to the base of the stairs up to the house. The Mr. of the house nodded to me to take a seat on one of the veranda's swinging chairs.

The Mrs. at the top of the stairs handled the pleasantries. "Welcome, Sergeant. To what do we owe this pleasure?"

The Sergeant said, "I trust that all these boys are licensed for all the metal they're toting." The Mrs. offered to take the cop inside to inspect the Authorized Firearm Possession and Acquisition Licenses. "But then you know that, don't you," she added, "you signed off on them. Yet that doesn't stop this continual harassment of law-abiding taxpayers, does it?"

"No matter," the Sergeant said, "we're here only for one person."

"And who would that be," she replied. "Of course, you'll show me your warrant to search, or an arrest warrant?" She paused, "I thought not."

He said, "I don't think we need one."

She interrupted, "Well you think wrong. You and your Gestapo have exactly 30 seconds to get back into your vehicles and head off of our land."

The Sergeant looked around, he then called out, "is Mrs. Naomi Putnam here?"

"Ha!" laughed the Mrs. "Mrs. Putnam happens to be our guest. She's not going anywhere."

I got off the swinging chair on the veranda. Going to the rail and leaning over, I said, "I'm Mrs. Putnam. How can I help you?"

The Sergeant turned to me and said, "Ma'am, are you here against your will?"

I looked at the Mrs and she looked at me. I returned my gaze to the RCMP and said, "No, I am a guest here. These people have treated me extraordinarily well." I tittered a classic Wife's titter, "the way they're feeding me, I'll soon not fit into these clothes."

The Sergeant paused. "Ok, then."

The Mrs added, "Ok, then." She then made a motion for him to scoot, to get off of her land.

Me, I then said, "But if you're going back to Calgary, I'd very much appreciate a ride."

BREAK DOWN

I'd not broken down like that, not even when I'd realized that Angela had been taken and I was on my way to the Colonies.

I'd certainly not cried when Warren had been righteously disciplined by his Chancery. That had served him right.

I'd not cried when my first finger was taken, for reading Treasure Island to Angela. I'd not even cried when Warren and I had driven Angela to the hospital for her own amputation.

I was crying so hard in the RCMP vehicle that the Sergeant stopped, halting the whole convoy. He started asking questions, but honestly, I was too upset even to make out his words. I vaguely remember him being on a cellphone using my name.

I also vaguely remember the Hilton Garden Inn hotel. Again. Although this time, I was escorted in by RCMP, and taken up to the 2nd floor to a room. One far more spartan than up on the 12th.

The two female Mounties stayed with me in the room, me I must have been quite a sight. I was too upset to actually be embarrassed - imagine, a Wife of Gilead losing it like that.

The two Mounties then left, and I heard a young remaining civilian woman's voice. By that time I was not sobbing to the point of gasping for air, as I had been. The woman said that she was going to stay the night with me, and that RCMP would be right outside the door.

I don't know why I asked the next question - they were the first coherent words I'd used since leaving the Q Appelle ranch.

"Who's paying for all this?" I managed.

The young woman said, "The Calgary American Consulate is signing off on it. For the duration."

I asked, "For the duration of what?"

The young woman did not know.

THE BEDSIDE PHONE

I still was in no condition to even answer it. It was clearly audible, the perky young consulate-lady wouldn't let me close the door to the bathroom.

I made no reply to her question: "Do you want me to get it?" No reply, apparently, meant that she would answer it.

After a brief conversation she hung up and asked if I was all right.

Which I was. I shuffled back into the room, made it to my bed and lay there hoping to close my eyes.

"Do you want to know who it was?" the young woman asked. I must have made a grunt that signaled assent.

"It was Hawai'i, your friend Janine Lindo. She left a number. She needs to talk, as she said 'tout suite'."

I looked at the young woman lying on her bed, propped up by pillows reading a magazine and checking her smartphone.

The first words I'd said in days - "You shouldn't be doing that. Serena Joy, she back-slid and God looked ill on her."

"Do what?" the young woman asked.

"Read."