Seven months into my pregnancy and two months into my marriage I have finally begun to adjust to the prison life of the Republic of Gilead as a Wife. I go into town on errands to stretch my legs and keep the little monster "active", each venture bringing more and more Wives closer to accepting me as one of their own. More of them begin to greet me on the streets and ask me how my house is fairing and how often the little monster kicks.

I am still a prisoner, no question about that, but my promotion to a woman in blue gave me the social standing of an older, hardened criminal. I have respect, no one will fuck with me lest they suffer the consequences-but I am still a prisoner and I am still monitored constantly by guards who touch their guns more often than they touch their own dicks. After running at least three hundred different scenarios through my head, there was no way of a prison break for me where I lived. Even if I did, I wouldn't know how to go back to living on the outside. I'd have to hide constantly and hope to God that food and clean water dropped out of the sky before eventually I realized that Gilead was the only safety and survival I could depend on, and I would come running back to imprison myself again.

Jane's husband is sent away to fight for the glory of Gilead, leaving her as a frequent guest in the Tarleton house. Daniel is gone more. Rehearsals are ending and he's under more pressure than ever. He doesn't mind Jane, by which I mean that he doesn't really notice her presence. He is not cruel or cold to her, but he behaves as if he forgets that she is sitting at our table or singing in our front room.

Jane gushes about her love of music each moment she can, and how she grew up singing in the choir at her church. Her mind is a wealth of music that she has memorized, not even needing sheet music when she plays the piano. "As long as there's no words," she explains to me one afternoon, "I can have sheet music since the notes are all symbols." One moment, she has the energy of a hummingbird, the next she is crooning calmly like a dove.

I remember when the city used to be an epicenter for music. Experimental alternative music, music that didn't even make sense unless you were on two different types of stimulants were popular here. Each summer there was a mega-concert in the park that people from outside of the state would fly in to experience. The Republic targeted that first. It was an all-ages event, and so many underaged kids were getting their hands on alcohol and drugs that were known by numbers instead of names. There were three deaths the year before the Republic had enough headway in the city government to put a stop on the concert altogether.

The amount of activity in the city started to decrease rapidly. Thousands of musicians who depended on their ability to play in bars or clubs were left homeless as the Republic started conducting raids, beginning another era of prohibition in the city. Unless your music or your art were Christian-Gileadean Christian-you were arrested or exiled. Those who had the money and the good-thinking left the city and then the state. Laggies were either too poor or too proud to leave. They wanted to fight back against the Republic's growing numbers and it's hold on the city. Everyone knew that if the city went, then the rest of the state would go with it. There were nearly three million people zoned within the city before the Republic started to mark its territory as Gilead. There were riots and battles everywhere-the city was an even larger warzone than it had been before. Weapons had been completely outlawed but there was no way to walk down the street without one. Within a year the population of the city dropped to a quarter of a million. I'd like to think that more people just ran than were sent to the Colonies or killed in the name of God and Gilead, but I know it's not true. Unless you saw a familiar face walking down the street, it was wise to assume and accept that you would never see that person living again.

"Can you play any songs that I would know?" I ask, nibbling on a grape. Do you know how to play any songs from the Time Before?

She smiles at me and I see a spark of rebellion in her eye. She raises and eyebrow coyly and turns back to the ivory keys and begins to play passionately before she pauses and changes the tune slightly. It is slower and feels more intimate. "Tonight, you're mine, completely. You give your love so sweetly. Tonight, the light of love is in your eyes," her voice is more forward when she sings-it's so different from her natural way of speaking that I feel goosebumps form on my body.

I recognize this song. It is old, from the age of happy-go-lucky songs about love that you could dance to late at night while it rolls on your record player.

"But will you love me tomorrow?" I sing, cutting in without realizing it. I couldn't help but sing along in the moment. The way Jane plays it so expertly on the piano could make even the most stoic observer join in.

I hear footsteps approach quickly and Jane instinctively stops playing. Peggy rounds the corner and stops. I wait for her to scold us for singing a secular song and thank the Lord that it's not Lena. "Was that you playing that song?" She asks, staring at the piano, expecting to find sheet music poised above the keys.

Jane gulps and I see her ears go red. "Yes ma'am."

"Blessed be." Peggy mutters. "You know that song?"

A smile starts to form at the corners of Jane's mouth. "It's one of my favorites."

"Do you mind," Peggy says, ringing her hands and glancing towards me "Could I listen for just a minute?"

I smile and nod at Peggy, gesturing her to come closer. "Of course you can."

Jane starts playing again, and I start to vocalize as Peggy hums and taps her hands against her legs. I feel particularly moved when the instrumental section comes in as Jane taps her fingers wildly against the keys, and I reach out my hand for Peggy. I see her laugh and look away before she takes my hand and we start to sway together. Jane is laughing, and Peggy is smiling. It feels like I'm at a sleepover in middle school, just messing around with friends and dancing like no one is watching.

That's when my husband walks in.

Jane stops playing at the sound of the door shutting behind my husband and Peggy jumps back at the sight of her Commander. He is home early. That's not a good sign.

"What's going on?" He asks firmly. By the tone of his voice, I can tell that he wasn't having a good day. His mood is unpredictable at this point. There is a tense silence as he waits for a response.

"We were just singing." I say, smoothing my hands over my belly. "The baby wanted to hear some music."

Daniel is silent. Either he is unhappy with my answer and doesn't have the energy to scold me, or he is waiting until we are alone to scold me. Peggy drops her head and quickly scurries out of the room. Jane is frozen, eyes wide as a doe in headlights waiting to be hit. Without another word, Daniel stomps up the stairs and into his bedroom.

"I-I'm so sorry." Jane stutters. The richness and jovial tone are gone from her voice, now replaced with fear and shame. "I didn't…I don't know what I was thinking…"

"Don't apologize." I say, placing a hand on her shoulder. "I didn't think about what my husband would say. If there's any fault to be had, it's mine." Jane nods and takes in a shaky breath. "God gifted you with your voice and your playing ability for a reason." I say reassuringly.

Daniel comes back downstairs having changed out of his rehearsal clothes. At the foot of the stairs, he focuses his eyes on Jane. With a hint of impatience, he orders, "You should go and attend to matters at your home, Jane." He calls her by her first name and not her married name on purpose, to make her feel inferior and to remind her that she is unqualified to be respected as an adult in his eyes and unwanted as a guest.

Jane exits our house without another word, but I know that she is crying the moment she closes the door.

"Daniel." I say severely, giving him a disapproving look.

"Don't." He shoots back bitterly. "Don't you dare try to tell me how to speak to that child in my house."

"Jane is not a child." I counter, gritting my teeth.

He scoffs. "She goes through life like a child playing dress up and make believe, and you let her."

"She has nothing, Daniel. Her husband barely interacts with her when he's around and now that he's gone she has no one else. She's not allowed to see her family and the other Wives don't even interact with her." I say, pleading with him to understand or have a little sympathy for the girl.

Daniel laughs and narrows his eyes at me. "Why do you think that is, huh?"

I clench my jaw and glare back at him. "How can you be so cruel?" I ask quietly so the Marthas can't hear. My eyes begin to burn as hot angry tears start to pool behind the edge of my eyes.

"You don't get to judge me here. I hate to break it to you, but this is my house. You are my wife. I make the decisions, not you. Or have you forgotten?" He's coming closer to me now, closing in on me. I feel trapped and I start to back away, but he still comes closer. "Do I need to remind you of your place?" He threatens, venom pouring from his mouth with every word.

I stare at him defiantly before I force out a response, trying to control my disgust and anger from coming to the surface. "No."

"Good." He spits back, his eyes challenging me to say something, anything to undermine him. "Take dinner in your room," He orders, "I don't want to look at you." He hisses before storming away.

I stand there for a couple of minutes, my eyes burning as I dig my fingernails into my palms, before I compose myself enough to move a muscle without crying or screaming.

One step forward, two steps back.

Knock knock

"Go away." I order to whomever is on the other side of the door. I listen for the sound of footsteps retreating but I only hear my doorknob turning. I roll my eyes and burrow deeper into my bed.

Without turning my head, I know that it's Daniel. He stands there for a moment watching me silently but doesn't move. "I went to Jane's house after dinner to apologize. You were right, it was wrong of me to treat her that way. I had no right." I say nothing. He is silent, waiting for me to say or do something. "I'm sorry." I hear the defeat in his voice, but I don't care. "I had a bad day at work and I took it out on you and Jane. That's no excuse or a reasonable explanation for my behavior, I know that, but…" he trails off and goes silent again. He watches me so quietly that I can hardly hear him breathe.

"I meant it when I told you that I love you. I know it doesn't seem that way now, but I do. I must be better…the world we live in now makes that hard. The way things are now makes it seem to you and everyone else that I have total control over everything, but I don't. If it were up to me, we wouldn't be living like this. I wouldn't have to yell at you like I did so that anyone in earshot wouldn't question my allegiances to Gilead. This house isn't an impenetrable fortress where I can ignore the rules Gilead has made on how I am forced to treat the Marthas and you and Jane. You mustrealize that. You can hate me and talk back to me as much as you want in your head but the moment you verbalize it or act on it, all eyes are on me to control that so that no one else tries to go against Gilead's laws. If I had my way, you wouldn't be here."

At that I let out a small noise and tighten my grip on the sheets.

"No no no, Esther, I didn't mean it like that-" he exclaims, rushing forward to the edge of my bed.

My voice finds me, and I bark "Stop."

I hear Daniel let out a sigh and the bed groans as he sits on the edge of it, making my body tense up further.

"I meant that you wouldn't be here in this position. You never wanted to be here. I would be stupid to even think otherwise. I never wanted to be subjected to an arranged marriage to someone I barely knew. Much less under these circumstances. Who knows if I would have met you if we weren't here? If I had, I would have gotten to know you. I would have taken you out on dates that you couldn't even imagine. I would have proposed to you in the most garishly obnoxious way possible so that everyone knew how much you mean to me."

"None of what you said changes anything." I reply bitterly. "We've been married for two months and I still know next to nothing about you besides what I read in magazines in the Time Before."

"You're right. That's not fair." He agrees softly, "I want to make this work, Esther, I do. I can't change anything that's happened in the past, but I want to make this marriage…I want it to feel like we chose this relationship. You deserve to have a normal relationship. We can't change how we got here or how we have to present our relationship to everyone else, but we can change how we treat one another. I want to try, not just for us, but for our little fruit you're carrying." He says lovingly, "We owe it to the baby, too."

"I've been trying." I loosen my hold on the sheets and relax my body. My anger is slowly simmering down, but I still can't bring myself to look at him.

"Yes, you have. You've been trying so hard, and not even because you want to, and I haven't shown you any appreciation for that." Daniel places his hand on my calf gently and I feel a slight urge to kick him. "Can we try again? Truly? Can we call it a truce?"

"I need more from you." I say, turning my head just slightly. "If you're serious about what you're saying, I need you to prove it."

"I'll do whatever it takes to prove my sincerity, Esther."

I finally flip over awkwardly onto my back and slide upwards to sit facing him. I gaze into his brown eyes unrelentingly as I say, "I'm going to ask you a question and you have to answer me honestly."

"I promise." He replies, scooting closer to me on the bed.

"Your wife. Did you love her?"

Daniel is taken off-guard by my question. Ever since her passing, he's acted like he'd forgotten her or that she'd never existed. Even though we are sitting in the room she used to inhabit, on the same place she used to sleep, there is so much distance between him and his memory of her. His eyes turn away from me and stare blankly at the wall next to the bed at nothing, but his eyes are certainly somewhere else in the distance.

"You never stop loving someone. That's what makes it harder." He explains solemnly. Whatever "it" is, I can't guess, but he says it in such a profound way that he sounds like he's reliving every moment of his marriage.

"We got married when she was young. I was new to the acting scene and she worked in a mall. We were really poor, and it was trying, but we always said that we wouldn't have changed a thing because those times are what made our relationship stronger. When I finally made my big break, she was over the moon. We both agreed that we wanted to keep our lives as private as possible, especially for her. She didn't ever go to parties or premieres with me because she was content with a life outside of the public eye. We always made time for each other and she was really good at understanding all the things that came with my work, even when it meant that we couldn't see each other for long periods of time because I'd be on set so much that by the time I got home she was already dead asleep and I would have to leave again before she even woke up. Still, no matter what happened, she did her best to keep up with all the crazy shit that Hollywood put us through. But after so many years of that shit and getting more and more jobs that required more time-the money didn't matter. I wasn't able to be there enough for her to remind her that she mattered. That we mattered. We kept it quiet enough to be out of the papers but the years leading up to the formation of Gilead we were separated, practically estranged. All of us."

All of us? I wanted to ask who "all of us" was, but I didn't want to distract him and never get to the end of the story.

"I found out that she had been unfaithful when she got sick. I knew that I didn't get her sick. Through the years I had been tempted to sleep with other people, I think that it's inevitable for a lot of couples after so long-but I didn't. She did. That's how she got sick. It's when everything fell apart for us."

How she got sick? From all the whispers I'd picked up on in my first few months at the house, she had been made out as a sickly woman doomed from birth. I realize then that this was Daniel's doing. He wanted to protect her privacy and whatever reputation she had before Gilead by giving the impression that she had always been sick.

I don't ask him what her sickness was, I have a strong feeling that she contracted HIV and that's why she never got better, and that's why she died after Gilead formed. Gilead wouldn't pay to provide for the medicine she needed to stop the progression of the disease, they wanted her and anyone else affected to die a slow death, regardless of how they contracted the disease. It didn't matter how she got the disease. She didn't deserve to die that way.

"When the Republic took over we had to start living together again. We didn't reconcile by any means, but if we didn't end our separation, she would have gone to the Colonies. I didn't want that for her. When you came, it was just too much for me to handle. That's why I never interacted with you unless I had to. It was for her, too. I didn't want her to think that I wanted to be with someone else, someone younger and healthier. I didn't want her to feel like I did, having to watch and live in the same house with that belief."

His voice is riddled with pain and loss. He's experiencing the heartbreak all over again in order to have my trust and my heart-something that she could no longer give him. Everything begins to make sense, the atmosphere in the house before she died and the hatred she had for me the moment I stepped into the house.

I watch him get lost in his thoughts and his memories until he moves again and straightens his posture. "I'm sorry that you had to go through that." I say, trying to maneuver my very pregnant body to allow me to reach out and place my hand on his. "It means a lot to me that you shared this with me."

He finally looks at me again but there's no light in his eyes. "There's something else." I rub my thumb over his hand, encouraging him to continue. He opens his mouth to speak, and I see a flicker of doubt in his eyes, changing his mind. I start to think that he's going to get up and leave when he opens his mouth again. "I-"

BRRP BRRP BRRP

Daniel leaps from the bed and runs to the window, pulling back the gauzy white drapes to peer outside onto the street. The siren gets louder before we see the lights. The overstimulation startles me and makes my head spin as I try to cover my ears to drown out the sound of the siren as it rips through the air. With a siren that loud I know that it's not an emergency-it's a siren that is made to be loud enough to wake up an entire block of a neighborhood so that they run to see what is going on. They want us to see whatever happens next.

"Daniel, what is it?" I ask, removing a hand from my ear to hold my stomach and get out of bed and join him at the window.

"I don't know, I can't see." From the concerned expression on his face and the warning look in his eyes I can tell instantly that whatever is going on outside has something that connects to me. Daniel lets go of the drapes and strides past me towards the door. "I'll go look. Stay here." He orders sternly, as if he truly believes that I'll obey. He lets out an exasperated groan when he hears me scurrying after him, but he doesn't do anything to physically stop me from following him out the door.

The Marthas and our driver are already outside and watching from the lawn. I see Peggy silently communicating with a Martha across the street who has a better view of what's going on, trying to get information before whispering it to Lena. We rush past them and I do everything I can in my state to keep up with Daniel.

There are three vans stationed outside of the gray-bricked house three doors down from us.

Three doors down.

Ofchris lives three doors down.

I stop dead in my tracks and my ears start to ring. I try to focus on my breathing and keep from keeling over at the thought of my old partner being in danger. She was the one I knew from the Red Center. She was the one who taught me how to stay calm and be obedient-how to survive.

"Daniel," I moan breathlessly, gazing ahead of me and seeing that he's almost ten feet away and being pushed back by a Guardian closing off the perimeter of the lot. "Daniel!" I shriek, nearly stumbling as I pick up my pace and try to reach him.

"Esther, you shouldn't see this." Daniel turns to me and places his hand on my shoulders to try and stop me from moving any closer. I can tell that he's trying to shield me from whatever is going on.

Anger rises in me again at his order. "Daniel!" I shrink away from his hold on me and scurry as quick as my wobbling body can past him before another Guardian stops me in my tracks.

Ofchris's Commander is being rolled out of the house on a stretcher with blood pooling at his sides, pouring from his groin. He's in shock, eyes fixed on some distant star in the sky as he tries not to think about how cold he's become from the amount of blood he's lost. Another man dressed in all black with a stethoscope around his neck and gloves on his hands comes out carrying an abnormally large cooler that can only be used for preserving severed body parts on ice.

I see a flash of a red dress being rushed through the doorway at an alarming speed. You can smell the heavy scent of rust in the air as ribbons of blood drip out past thick bandages across Ofchris's abdomen.

"MELANIE!" I wail, uttering her true name at the sight of her bloodied face.

"Esther-"

"No, no, NO!" I sob, trying to push past the Guardian blocking my path as Daniel in the meanwhile has wrapped his arms around me like a steel trap. "That's my friend…" I blubber weakly as tears stream down my face, blurring my vision. "MELANIE!" I cry again, this time as Daniel tightens his hold so that I can't move my arms at all. "Please, please let me go with her, please!" I beg the Guardian blocking my way.

In a surprising act of empathy, the Guardian tilts his head to the side and says something into his radio that can't be heard over the violent ring of the sirens. "Sir, with your permission your wife has been granted access to accompany the Handmaid in the vehicle to St. Francis Hospital."

"Please," I moan, starting to taste the salt of my tears on my lips. "Please, Daniel-if you love me let me go." I plead, closing my eyes.

I feel Daniel's body tense before he surrenders his hold on me without an objection and tells the Guardian that he grants his permission to let me accompany Ofchris to the hospital. The Guardian cuffs his meaty fist around the top of my arm and practically drags me faster than I can move across the lawn and towards the van that Ofchris has just been loaded into. Behind us, the Commander's wife is thrashing violently with her arms behind her back and blood sprayed across her navy-blue dress and the wilds strands of hair that are sticking straight out, reinforced by dry blood.

Ofchris is on the brink of unconsciousness by the time I am seated at her side in the van. Paramedics clad in black are shouting complicated orders at each other and through the radio to dispatch. "Twenty-nine-year-old pregnant Handmaid with lacerations on her arms and stab wounds to her lower abdomen-blood type is O…"

"What happened?" I ask, my eyes trailing down her mutilated body until I hear the rip of fabric as a paramedic goes to re-bandage the crater-like wound near her bellybutton.

"Not sure what happened before we got to the scene, but the Wife went crazy on her husband and the Handmaid." The short and stocky paramedic says as he pulls up her medical information on a registry through his tablet. Pausing, he turns to look at me with accusing eyes. "What's a Wife like you doing with a Handmaid?"

I place my arms over my stomach protectively and explain, "I was her partner at the Red Center and here on the block before God blessed me with a husband."

The man scoffs as another paramedic momentarily stops what he's doing to look at me. "You were a Handmaid?"

I nod quietly and reach out to hold Ofchris's hand. Even in the safety of my own mind, I know better than to call her Melanie, lest she turns out to be telepathic and admonish me for breaking the rules and calling her by her true name a third time in a matter of minutes.

I squeeze her hand tight, hoping that she reflexively squeezes back. When I feel nothing besides her temperature lowering in my grasp, I begin to mumble prayers. That's what she would want me to do. Ofchris was a Christian, not a Gileadean-Christian, before the Republic took over, and she still had a deep-rooted faith in her higher power. She would want me to pray for her-with her. We lurch to a stop and I feel her hand twitch in my hold before I am ordered out of the van so the paramedics can unload her into the hospital.

Aunt Dorothy, the same Aunt who assigned me to the Tarleton house and led me down the aisle during my marriage ceremony is already waiting at the bay of the hospital doors. Her features are less stern and disagreeable now as she watches in horror as Ofchris is lowered from the van. Without taking her eyes away from Ofchris, Aunt Dorothy branches out a hand to me and I obediently follow into her arms.

"We can't go any further than the waiting area, my dear." She explains. She is not ready to use my real name yet. I wait for her to slip and call me Ofdaniel out of habit. "We must wait and pray and trust in the Lord that he will hold Ofchris in his hands and exert His will in whatever way He sees fit."

I nod, sniffling. The thick and uncomfortable fabric of Aunt Dorothy's dress is itchy against my nose. She had never been the type of Aunt to dote or intimately care for the Handmaids under her care, but she treated us like little girls precious and valuable as diamonds nonetheless and always offered us her hand to hold or her shoulder to cry on if the situation called for it.

"She was pregnant…"