FREEDOM DOES THAT TO YOU

June's view of Nick deteriorated quickly after that phone call. "The Mackenzie's? They love Hannah so much that they're sending a 12-year old to Wives School!?" That's what she'd said to him, following his rather calm declaration that Hannah would be 'safe', because 'the Mackenzie's loved her'. Right.

Nick had no answer.

Relating to Nick while within the Waterford house, that had been like reaching out to a kindly guard at a prison camp. Reaching out for some sliver of tenderness in a land of cactus and thirst, that had been a lifeline.

Now, Nick had said that he was sorry he couldn't do more. This was the man who had cooperated with June in delivering Fred Waterford to her, this was the man who had shot his colleague, Warren Putnam, in front of New Gilead's leadership - including their Wives. Now he could not do anything. Was Hannah destined to witness executions like that? Would not a loving family want to spare her from that?

Nick!? You can do better! You HAVE done better! What the actual fuck!?

If Nick was madly in love with June as both once claimed, would Nick now walk the high-wire he was walking, by marrying - again? What was THAT about? It had meant that whatever Gilead had been about with him, that the two of them, they were over.

He'd given his marriage as the reason why he could not transfer - to Hannah's District. But not in so many words. Bottom line? He would not watch out for her.

What had Nick called them? 'Obligations'? June used to think of Nick as having had obligations towards Nichole. Now, those obligations sounded like survival mechanisms.

Nick had told June that he'd told Rose about her. About how tough June was and had been. That Rose and June would probably like each other. June wondered - 'is Nick now making all this up to appease me?' What was he really telling Rose?

What freedom in Canada had done for June, was to allow her to entertain doubts about Nick. When in the Waterford house, his hedging was immaterial. He had been the only game in town, and had actually never delivered on her real fear - that he'd been an Eye of God, and had simply been 'working her'.

The urge to give Nick leeway was now gone, now she was in Canada - she could now only hear her mother's voice. It hadn't even been Luke's obvious sourness towards Nichole's father, it was Holly's voice. There she had been with other women, throwing slips of paper into a bonfire. It was now Holly wondering about Nick.

Instead of completing the list of his 'obligations', Nick steered the conversation away. "June, you gotta be safe." What a weird way to put it. "Mackenzie, he's powerful. Keep Nichole safe, promise me."

June thought that even Nick either would not, or could not fake concern for Nichole that way.

While enslaved at the Waterford's, June paid no attention to Nick's absences. Why would she? Her life there was the drone of horror which overshadowed everything. Nick had been more than a salvation, he had been a link to intimacy which June herself controlled. The one thing.

So his asking that Nichole be kept safe, that's something a father would ask.

"Hey, Nick?" she had said. "Try to be happy, okay?" Not much of a Dear John letter, but she immediately found herself wishing for his embrace, if only one last time.

Freedom does that to you.

June's feelings for Nick deteriorated quickly following that call.

Luke, he was a big part of that. June thought of it as she and Luke renewed their wedding vows. Not with what they would promise to do, but with what they would promise not to do.

Fresh from not shooting Serena Joy Waterford outside of the besieged Gilead Information Centre in Toronto, June had vowed to Luke, "I cannot promise that I won't kill her."

From this new, post-Noah point of view, though, Luke's similar vow had been tragic. He'd vowed the same to her, "I cannot promise not to kill her."

The sands below Nick and June's feet had eroded - mostly of Nick's making. All June had done, was accept asylum in Canada - and now she and Nick were at odds. 'Ships passing in the night', that was so not it.

The sands below Luke and June's feet, they had firmed up. They'd been rescued. He had vowed the same thing to her as she had to him. It had been Luke who had renewed his vow!

This time, with Luke? It had been June shifting. Beyond Gilead.

She was now angry with him, for calling the cops on Serena. For having Noah taken from her, less than 24 hours following the birth. How could Luke have done that?

Easy, thought June. Forty-eight hours before that, June would have done the same.

"Outside the Information Centre, you could have killed me." Serena Joy had said, holding the minutes-old Noah. "You had a gun. But you didn't? Why?" Those had been Serena Joy's questions.

June was starting to put it together, that her violation of the vow with Luke, it had predated even Noah's birth.

Once again, June was the outlier. This time to Luke, Moira, Rita, Sylvia, Erin, and perhaps all of Little America.

"Only Nixon could go to China." For some reason that historical, trivia tidbit was rolling around in her head. That phrase had sped by her eyes in her proofreading days, one of 100s that she simply digested for spelling, grammar, context and syntax. Like those 100s, she had to quickly process them, to see if they made idiomatic sense to the larger context of the manuscript. Quickly assess them, then move on.

What was it that only Osborne could do?

WELL, I'LL BE HORNSWOGGLED!

June Osborne was at the front desk of the US Consulate in Toronto, asking to see Mark Tuello. This was the first time she'd not been immediately ushered in. The famous 'June Osborne', she was told to wait.

She knew the clerk, June had been there enough to know how the support staff at the Consulate rolled. The young woman in front of her, she was from Seattle. Had made it north to Vancouver during the Sons of Jacob revolution, her intent had been either Alaska or Hawaii. She'd said to June some weeks' ago, "I was secretly hoping for Hawaii!"

In Vancouver, though, the woman had been recruited at its American Consulate. She'd been a middle manager at Amazon in Seattle - going into America's civil service after Amazon, she had thought, would be a breeze.

It would have the added advantage of doing battle with Gilead. She had long since lost track of her family out west. The woman's definition of 'pay-back' was not as elaborate as Osborne's, but it was still what she could do.

She had been the first one to fawn over June Osborne, on June's first trip to the Toronto Consulate. She'd been the first with the meme, "I thought you'd be taller!"

Now she was making excuses for Mark Tuello. She felt uncomfortable in her gatekeeping role, not in general but specifically with June Osborne in front of her.

As for June, she knew how to massage her status here in this little piece of actual United States. Actual American soil, if more theoretical than anything. It had helped Osborne immeasurably that Tuello had said right there in that same packed lobby, "Ms. Osborne, well done!" in reference to Fred Waterford's death. June had done extra-judicially what no colleague of Tuello's could do judicially.

Everyone in the lobby that day had heard Tuello, him saying it with a rare beaming smile. Everyone heard it, especially the woman from Seattle.

Which is exactly what Osborne massaged when she got up, approached the US Marine guarding the entrance to the back offices, pushed past him, and said, "I have an appointment."

No one moved as Osborne moved through the door and it closed after she'd gone through.

Now on her own in the inner sanctum of America in Toronto, Osborne got temporarily lost. From here, was it a left turn or straight ahead?

Her quandary was quickly solved. Five doors down the hallway in front of her, a door quickly opened, Mark Tuello stuck his head out. He spied her just as another US Marine with weapon drawn entered the hall from the far end and started pacing towards them.

Tuello said, "Ms. Osborne, you can't be here." All that that did was stiffen her resolve. June quickly discerned that she could beat the Marine to Tuello's door. She was going to march into Tuello's office, and not leave until Serena Joy's disposition was resolved.

Having done her fair share of pushing past people, she strode towards him and pushed him aside, turned to enter his office, escaping the Marine's grasp.

At the sight in front of her, all she could manage was a step back into the hall, where the Marine corralled her. Then there was the phrase her uncle, her mom Holly's brother had always used.

"Well, I be hornswoggled!"

Sitting there in Agent Mark Tuello's US Consulate office, as fresh as day…

….. and why not? It was Aunt Lydia. There in Toronto. Lydia Clements of the Bilhah program in New Gilead. The Red Centre. Now, apparently, to be referred to as Ardua Hall.

THE SILENT REVOLUTION

The following is Agent Mark Tuello's report to Consult General Rachel Tapping. For Eyes only.

I told the Marine to station herself outside of my door, I called the front desk and said that all was secure. I was going to give the two of them, Ms. Lydia Clements and Ms. June Osborne, ten minutes. I discerned that although not part of any plan I'd had for the visit, that simply observing them would elicit valuable intel and insight.

As you know, 'Aunt' Lydia Clement was traveling in Canada on a special diplomatic warrant approved by the Prime minister's Office, and signed off on by Canada's Minister of Foreign Affairs. She traveled with a dedicated RCMP team, which was not permitted inside of the US Consulate.

Ostensibly, Lydia Clement had come representing Ardua Hall, but with the tacit permission of two Commanders of New Gilead. Our intel showed that other Commanders forcefully opposed Ms. Clements visit, an opposition which had died down after some mobilization of Guardian forces within Gilead.

She had come primarily to arrange some sort of 'trade' of imprisoned Gilead citizens currently detained in Canada, for one Mrs. Esther Keyes, who is currently residing at Ardua Hall in their medical facility.

All that is known about Mrs. Keyes is that she is widowed, and that she is now pregnant with High Commander Putnam's (also deceased) baby. Putnam's disposition is contained in my previous report.

Mrs. Keyes is somewhere between 15 and 17 years old. Ms. Clement was not forthcoming as to the reason why it was Mrs. Keyes who was being offered in trade - indeed, the experience of negotiating such an international arrangement with a woman from Gilead was itself something which should be explored.

Watching June Osborne and Lydia Clement interact - combined with the above - offered valuable insight of the place the Bilhah program - as well as the female officers who administer it - how all of that represents a subtle, but influential power-bloc within Gilead.

To repeat - a female power-bloc. Granted only one such bloc entrenched within only one institution, in an otherwise stiflingly partriarchally-structured, theonomic State. But one nonetheless.

Ms. Osborne's intervention with Ms. Clement was with regard to her daughter, Hannah Bankole/Agnes Mackenzie, that my office knows all about. Osborne also asked about a 'Janine Lindo'. However, my notes with regard to the dynamics of Ms. Clement's 'authority' as an 'Aunt' with regard to Agnes Mackenzie, those notes rate detailed intelligence analysis. It is a gold-mine of discovering the extent that child-rearing and fertility shapes the internal power dynamics of Gilead.

"DON'T DEFEND YOURSELF. DON'T EXPLAIN. JUST APOLOGIZE. THEY LOVE TO BE FORGIVING."

Unfortunately, before I could intercede June Osborne uttered a security breach, one that could have serious consequences within New Gilead.

Whereas Ms. Clement had traveled to Canada to negotiate about Mrs. Esther Keyes, she was quite shaken when Ms. Osborne brought up the disposition of Dr. Emily Malek. Clement had not known that Malek was now 'underground' within Gilead.

Ms. Osborne had broached the subject in a manner which was confusing even to me.

She said to Ms. Clement, "Hey, Lydia, if you are free later, why don't you come over to the house, and we can introduce you to people. One of them is named, Sylvia. You know Sylvia, don't you? She is Emily's wife."

"Ofglen!?" Ms. Clements exclaimed with some shock. Clements then added, "Ofjoseph?" (As an aside, it was stark that Ms. Osborne and Ms. Clements were using those patronymics so effortlessly, without any thought.)

Then Ms. Osborne committed the security breach. She said to Ms. Clement, "You know where Emily is don't you? Of course you don't. How's the pain in your shoulder blade doing? When you're asleep at the Red Centre, Aunt Lydia, I'd suggest you keep your bedroom door locked."