Dear Sylvia and Oliver

If you get this, then the mail service at Sweet Grass (the border crossing) is working. Canada has closed the crossing into Coutts, Alberta, but the Sweet Grass USPS is still working. So send anything there General Delivery, there's no guarantee for delivery, and we're only 40 minutes straight south. Our town is now in a 'no man's land', thanks to the Indians around here. Gilead only controls Montana as far north as Great Falls. Helena, Butte, Missoula, Bozeman and Billings are all under Gilead's control. Montana is no more.

Where the hell is the US military? We've been told that most of the military went to Gilead. They all should be taken out and shot.

There's an American Consulate in Calgary, but we can't get there. So we cannot ask about Emily. Not directly, anyway. Occasionally, someone we know is allowed across the border - a neighbor of ours got to the consulate, but there was way too much of a crowd, and not very many staff. So we need you, Sylvia, to tell us. We're worried sick. The rumors about Gilead are horrifying. I now know what a 'gender traitor' is. You and I, we've had our differences, but please know that we abhor Gilead's treatment of gay people.

The consulate has arranged for supplies to be stockpiled at the border at Coutts. Fuel and food. We're on our own as far as getting those supplies to our town. Fuel is now everything. Electricity is spotty.

The Indians are our salvation. Even with Missoula gone, the nearby Flathead Reservation is still in the Indian's hands. The Blackfeet near us are constantly patrolling. In the 1880s it was on horses. Now it's guys (and gals!) in the back of pick-ups with rifles. I grew up with a lot of those boys, and I am glad they're on our side. Fort Belknap and Fort Peck Reservations must be being supplied with weapons from somewhere. The Crows in the south have almost been wiped out.

Please send more pictures of Oliver. I guess it goes without saying that if you hear anything about Emily, please pass it on. Phones are not working. They are working in Canada. We're back to coal-oil lamps. Ham radio operators are backed up with message traffic, so I guess it's the mail.

Emily's mom is worried sick. She's not ready to enclose anything here, but she'll come around.

Ollie (grandpa)

Dear Grandma and Grandpa

There's no news about Emily. Last trip to the American consulate here in Toronto, I couldn't even get in. There's no point in making a big deal about how desperate you are, that describes everyone. This new Gilead reality is a black-hole. Then again, I am a Canadian and have no proof - nothing - that Emily and I are together. Married. No such thing any more as State of Maryland on-line searches for vital statistics. This is a nightmare.

OHIP (the Ontario medical plan) has a record of the in vitro procedure, but nowhere is a spouse mentioned.

I won't pass on rumours to you. There are too many, and it's frightening. If even half of them are even remotely true, I don't bear to think about it. They call women, 'unpeople'. I'm afraid that my mood is being picked up by Oliver. I wish there was a way to spare him all of this. I leave the radio news on most of the day and he hears it. Half their coverage is Gilead stuff.

The rumours are fueled by the trickle of refugees who somehow make it out. I've got to believe that they are embellishing their stories, but why would they?

I met a guy named Luke from Boston, who says his wife and kid are still back there. He said he barely got out himself, feels guilty about abandoning his family. Yet he'd been shot. He knows all the areas me and Emily hung out in, back in Boston. We have no idea if those little neighbourhoods still exist. He's in the same boat as me (as us). He heard a story about sexual servitude for elite families, as a way that they combat the fertility crisis. Forced surrogacy. It's disgusting. He said he'd been told by the Consulate that that rates as a war crime. I asked him to stop talking about that, because Emily is fertile. But we traded numbers. I now have about 20 such people who I check in with once a week each.

Of all the clubs I never wanted to be a member of, this definitely rates.

I apologize, I've not yet asked about you. It sounds desperate out there. I have a few pictures enclosed of me and Oliver. I think he looks like you, Ollie. He's got Emily's smarts. You folks out there in northern Montana are bearing a bigger brunt of this than we are in Toronto.

Just imagine, I thought that the Gilead crisis would be over in weeks. I thought we'd have Emily back, no worse for wear. In just a few weeks. It's now almost a year.

What can I send you? What will make it through the mail? I could probably manage a trip in the summer with Oliver to Calgary, but it doesn't sound like we'd be able to meet. Unless these restrictions ease. Can we shout at each other across the 49th Parallel?

I'm not a religious person, Ollie. But I guess I don't even need to ask that you remember Emily when you're at church. Please put a good word in for me and Oliver.

Sylvia

Dear Sylvia and Oliver

I've now seen everything. There were some armored Gilead vehicles which drove through town. The townsfolk and nearby farmers and ranchers called for help, the Blackfeet responded, then the Chippawe and Cree from Rocky Boy Reservation showed up. Thank God for CB radio. I got off a few shots myself. No casualties, but we chased them from town. When it was over, I asked one of the Baker's (chief's family) where the Indians were getting all their weapons and ammunition. All he said was, "Don't ask."

Em's mom wants me to tell you what had happened at Emily's prom. Apparently she was this way even back then. We'd not known that. But this is a small, rural town, Sylvia. The pastors still have a lot of say. We're not used to city ways. We are a conservative town. It's the way we were raised. Emily didn't even want to go to prom, but she was asked by a guy from the football team. Even though they had chaperones, in his car late that night he'd got a little rough with her. The police got involved, not the least of which was that I got a visit. Truth be told, I'd gone looking for the boy and had an altercation with his father. The police were involved in that, too.

Everything got swept under the rug. We never really talked about it. My big regret is that I didn't go back and teach the boy a lesson. I felt that I let Emily down on that.

Then the bullying at the school happened. At least it became apparent to us. Apparently, it was not new, I always thought it had started with the incident at the prom, but a friend of Emily's said it had started when she was a sophomore. It was all about lesbianism. Some girls and a few guys tried to humiliate her. This was not something that she could bring home.

After the senior prom, Emily got into a fight. Yes, our Emily. Even though the other girl was bigger and more athletic, Emily gave her a beating.

I can't believe I am writing this. When we asked her to go and apologize, she refused. She said she was glad that the other girl had suffered. Our Emily said that.

Em's mom and I only now appreciate all the reasons she went east to study. If we'd been more understanding, she'd still be here in Montana. Here in one of the few pieces of real estate that still calls itself America. Em's mom is now saying that it is her fault that Emily has been swallowed by Gilead. If Emily can survive what we think is happening out there, it'll be that vicious streak that we were so surprised to see.

Not knowing is killing us. I'll say this to you, Sylvia, not to my wife - but I sense that not knowing is killing you, too. I may still have problems with your lifestyle, but right now that seems so unimportant.

Let's get Emily back, then maybe we can argue about it. But first, I promise you, we need to get Emily back. Please let us know - anything, anything at all from the consulate in Toronto. We're still getting nothing here.

It means so much to me to have Oliver named for me. He's our only link to Emily.

Ollie (grandpa)

Dear Grandma and Grandpa

Ok, a first - a glimmer of news about Emily. It's not much. But I do make an 'ask'. When you talk about Oliver being a link to Emily, please include me in that. I'm her wife. I'm his mother. You've spoken plainly to me, now I speak plainly to you. I'm her kin. I'm your kin. There, I said it.

Ok, I got that off of my chest. Remember Luke? The guy on my consulate contact list, the guy who is from Boston who has a wife and kids in Gilead?

A friend of his named Moira got out, and is now an American refugee here in Toronto. Luke has taken her into his apartment in what they call 'Little America'. My mom took care of Oliver while I went over. I met Moira, ready to pump her for any information - but she was a little shell shocked. She'd just finished a session at the consulate herself, briefing the American mucky-mucks there on what Gilead was like. It was just me and Luke at Luke's place, as well as a mute woman named Erin. Apparently Erin had got out the same time as Luke.

But Moira, she wanted to push through. I hope I did not take advantage. She looked like she could fall apart any minute. The other girl, Erin, was the one who looked the most anxious about the questions we put to Moira.

In any event, Moira was full of information about Luke's wife, June. I don't know her. June, Luke, and Moira knew each other back when Massachusetts was still a State. Moira had been 'trained' in that surrogate pregnancy service, called The Red Centre. When trained they were called Handmaids and sent to elite families to be impregnated. I almost disbelieved Moira, it was so bizarre. Moira, apparently, never was posted, but ended up in what she called a whorehouse. Her exact word.

I asked about Emily. She'd not known a woman by that name, not at their Red Centre nor at the whorehouse. But June had mentioned a 'shopping partner' to Moira, someone who might be part of the underground resistance, also a Handmaid. 'Ofglen' had been the name June had used. That woman had been caught in a 'gender traitor' relationship with a maid (real or imagined), and had been 'mutilated' as a result. I don't know what that meant. The maid had been 'salvaged', which is Gilead-speak for executed. But if 'Ofglen' was gay, then that's a good clue.

It's taken me 1/2 an hour to write that past paragraph, Ollie. It's way too much to fathom. Dear God, I hope Emily is spared all that. I'm not sure what I think about Emily having other relationships. I need to put this away and see to Oliver. My mom has been an angel with him. I truly wish you were here, or even in Alberta somewhere that would be relatively easy to get to. I have to stop thinking about Gilead.

Please remember, we are kin.

Sylvia and Oliver.