UNTRACEABLE

I'd only once tried to return the text. Mine came back 'undeliverable'. It was always from a differing cell number. Anonymous. Untraceable. But I had an idea.

"Tricia". A one-word text.

This one had not been Gilead. That was not their style.

Nor was it Serena Joy. She'd have texted about Nichole or the baby. Even if Mrs Waterford was out of the ITWC, or had known about my past, her style was never coy. She was always outright manipulative. With the exception of lately. It's hard to know what had shaken her the most - the Commander's death at June's and Emily's hands, or the childbirth (which I now held in my arms).

Me, I'd just finished two days of orientation at the Consulate with Rachel Tapping. Not much was surprising, save perhaps how good the baby had been strapped to my front. Not sure what I actually learned from her, except all the penalties I would be subject to.

I mean, there were two subsequent rescues across that bridge, for a total of sixty more marthas, plus two handmaids, an econowife, a Commander's Wife, as well as an Aunt. The latter two were missing limbs, one missing an eye and an ear. All amputations. Gilead was shipping their medical care north.

I had accompanied them all by schoolbus from the bridge to Montreal. The less I said to the women, the more accolades I got. I was not in it for the accolades, all I'd done was refer to each by their names.

The Consulate was arranging new identities for the Wife and the Aunt, even in (especially in?) Canada. As such I was kept out of that.

The fourth time that the text "Tricia" came, I erased them all, panicking that someone had seen it over my shoulder. I then packed up the baby, packed a couple of days' supplies for me and she, took a cab to Mark's place ('my' Mark, that is) and said, "It's time for us to go to the train station."

I'd not told him about the texts. Neither the sole word which had comprised them. But he did figure out what that something was eating me, he'd always known. Without a word he came.

Mark said, "June, eh. She's going after the baby?" I told him that we'd have plenty of time to talk about it on the All Canadian.

THE ALL CANADIAN

Third day on this train. The RCMP had boarded at Sudbury, had said that the Consulate in Toronto had found us, then had requested protection for us. Mark and I had an upper berth. Just enough room for us cuddled up, with the baby in a hammock immediately above us.

When the bed folded up, there was room for two to sit with a little table, with a baby-chair attached. We never sat there. We were either in the dining room or the dome car. The train still had porters, we had to be somewhere else by 9:30 pm, because by 11 pm our bed was all made up. Having done this kind of work before, I was fascinated: when did those people sleep? Channeling my inner-Martha, I guessed that they did not. Seeing them, I couldn't break the habit of scheduling their day. Of feeling Serena's sting for doing it wrong.

Ok, I have not been honest in these pages. I've not written about my sister, not at all. What's to write about? I have my name in with all the agencies to be contacted if she or my nephew ever got out. I made a note to myself, that fleeing west required that that info be updated. Then again, by now both Tapping and Mark Tuello would know I was not in Toronto any more.

It had been June who'd been 'in my face' about being more proactive about my sister. Impatient June. 'Never let sleeping dogs lie' June. I thought she would leave me alone if I accommodated her, but no.

June had changed. She had once ever so coyly threatened the baby. Right in front of everyone. Even Luke had barked at her, "June for mercy's sake, would you stop!?" She concluded by inducing panic in me. The buttons to push, she always knew.

She'd said to Luke, "The baby is in no danger. Serena's not here to see it!" It was at that point that Sylvia had asked her to leave.

When leaving, she looked back at Sylvia and said, "Why don't you ask Rita who 'Tricia' is?" At that Sylvia said sternly, "Get out."

So. Guess who was sending me those texts?

CATHOLICS

The train was taking forever to traverse the north shore of Lake Superior heading west.

The Catholic church in Canada bent over backwards for Gilead refugees. As far as I knew, down south the church was now gone. It was a crime to be a priest. On the wall. My first marriage had been a civil one, and that's when there had been priests. My sister admired me standing up to mom, having a civil wedding. I caved in about my son's baptism. I was glad I did. And now there was nothing left from those days, not my son, not my mom, not my sister, not my nephew.

May His light guide their souls.

Just before getting into Winnipeg, we had our first 'sit-down' with the RCMP escort. They gave us the option to spend a night or two at the Ft. Garry Hotel if we wanted. They were holding three rooms adjacent to each other - Mark, me and the baby got the middle one.

Those RCMP were plain-clothes, two women, two men. Our entourage was not supposed to attract attention. Ya, right. Jeezuz, those four even looked like cops! Cops pushing an empty stroller through the hotel halls to deliver to us!

When out, Mark and I saw the local Catholic church. It was a wonderful sight in a pretty little city. In Winnipeg, we got walked-out. The warning we got about Winnipeg was that it was hot, and that there were mosquitoes. No June, no Gilead.

The three of us, spent time in silence in that church. The holy quiet calmed me. One Mountie came in, and whispered church-style, "If we continue West, you are going to where no one will find you. Believe me."

MARK'S TALE

Mark had not pressured me on anything. Not before this trip, not since. Knew about the pressure June was in my life, but never quizzed me about it. Never questioned me about Serena. Was patient with the baby, especially when she arrived out of the blue. He kept saying that he was so happy that we were together.

But I needed time for things. Things to sit and pray about. There were things he did not know. There were things I did not know, so my therapist told me. Things, it seemed, that June and Serena knew.

Mark's first wife and daughter had been killed years ago at a Sons-of-Jacob rally in Montreal. The city had allowed their demonstration, but Mark's wife was going to join the counter-protest against it. She had read Serena Joy Waterford's book, he'd said. Their daughter, she'd said, was not going to grow up in that kind of world. Short story - rally got out of hand. Sons of Jacob had brought weapons. Twenty killed, one hundred injured. Mark's family were two of the former.

Mark said he was so grateful I don't try to get him to talk about it. That I don't rush him! "Don't take this the wrong way. You'll never replace her. And no one will replace our wee boo boo." She'd been 6 years old that day, and for her birthday his wife wanted her to see what was what, right from the get-go. "Now they're both gone." Then, as always, he'd shift into something else. He always let me speak, but he never pushed or demanded.

I have not told him everything.

Moira and Luke were not to know. Emily and Sylvia were not to know. After all this time, just before me and Mark left, Emily had agreed to move back in with Sylvia and Oliver. Sylvia still scared me. As for me, coming west and leaving them behind, I felt the pressure only building. Those three ladies were now never going to know. Good. Not even Mark knew. If June blabbed, I was far enough away.

But the pressure still built.

The last night in Winnipeg, after he'd settled the baby, Mark confessed something. He said he'd been hiding things. Actually he said he didn't want to talk about what was hidden, but why he had been hiding it since his wife and daughter had been killed.

He confessed to being overwhelmed with grief. Still was. The only time he'd ever got angry was at those who described "normal" reactions to grief, that it was a "normal journey to be worked through". The man who had never used profanity in my presence assessed the normalcy of that process as, "Bull fucking shit. It's not a journey. It is a pit which swallows you."

He said meeting me that night at the lawyer's, was the first night he'd recognized it in someone else. The cancer of abnormal. The wall one builds inside oneself to normalize the shit. To contain the explosion before it explodes. But not before it distorts all that's life-giving and holy within you. Even the holy, even new-found love has to grow around that shit - and you began to get addicted to the wall, fearing that you actually needed it to protect what little of the real you remained. The part of the 'real you' trapped behind the wall.

I had never violated him on that. But I was just as addicted. Dead soldiers named Zoe knew that.

SPEAKING OF THE DARK

So the next morning, I left the hotel alone with the baby, and walked the short distance from the hotel to the Catholic Church.

The front door was open, I went in and sat, listened to the silence of the sanctuary and started to feed the baby. Ten minutes later, Mark arrived. He'd known where I'd be. Still, he was stifling a panic when he found me in the pew.

I spewed everything. I told him I did not want him to do or say anything. As he settled the baby in the stroller, we were sitting silently looking at the altar way, way up at the front.

I started by asking him that at the end I wanted his advice. And. I. Told. Him. Everything. How I'd betrayed and murdered Tricia. Question: was I to share this with Moira, Emily and Sylvia?

"Mark, now that you've heard this, you may want to leave me. Even take the baby. But I'm hitting reset on my life. Right here in the sight of God." Just then, one of the female Mounties entered the church, but stood silently back at the door.

I told him about Tricia, back at the holding centre in Gilead. I told him about her multiple micro-kindnesses, not just for me but for the women imprisoned there. She hadn't made that hell bearable, but she was the only one trying. I told him how after the periodic salvagings, killings of women right in front of us, how we'd scramble after the possessions those dead women no longer needed.

Tricia had always managed to share, with everyone. She'd then get tasered for her effort. It was usually some new girl who couldn't manage, couldn't 'keep her shit together' as Moira and June would say. It often did no good, but Tricia would do it anyway.

Then the two of us were called into the boss's office, one after the other. There was one job available, one assignment that would mean food, water and something other than a gymnasium floor, a filthy blanket and a bullet. It meant being one more arm's length from a salvaging. The boss did not know which one of us to send off.

My excuse? The shots killing five women outside the boss's window, his annoyance - not outrage over cold-blooded murders - but annoyance that the noise was interfering with his afternoon's work.

And me - Jesus, Moira, Mary, Emily, Joseph and Sylvia please forgive me - I accused Tricia. Of being a gender traitor.

I didn't know what happened to her after that. What I did know was that that evening, I was eating properly at the domestics training centre, and I had slept in a bed. With sheets.

I looked at the high altar, then I looked at Mark. I said, "I'm not sorry." Not for Tricia, and not for the women we'd left behind in that gymnasium who had no Tricia any more, to level their playing field, even a little merciful bit.

"The worst of it? I am not sorry I killed her," I told Mark.

He sat in silence. Mark then said something he'd never said before.

"I understand."

Bull fucking shit. Like attacking Luke on that Toronto Trolley, I almost screamed, "no you fucking don't!" In church, I managed to scream it in my head.

He said no more. I could not hide behind this anger, for his lie. He actually knew he could never understand, but he'd said it anyway. Sweet Jesus, my anger at him was part of that wall, the wall keeping me from exploding. Whether or not he could 'understand', was none of my business, was it?

This wasn't working. I was wrong to try. It was not him who had brought on anger, it was me. Anger at him was part of my lingering cancerous wall.

"Would you come with me?" "Where?", he asked. I didn't know, I hadn't thought that far.

CONVERGENCE

I told Mark I needed to talk to the RCMP and get them to arrange it. "Arrange what?" Mark asked.

I collected the baby, was up from the pew before I could answer. The other thing I knew was that it had to be at a church, back in Toronto. I didn't know why. Sylvia had always wanted to know why the church played big in our lives, when religion, and the Christian religion in Gilead no less, had been the chief conspirator in our grief. "Geez," Sylvia had said, "Moira the dyke becomes fairy-godmother to not one, but two kids. What's that about?"

Moira had answered with the classic, "Who you want teaching those girls about God; me or some celebit guy?"

So it was going to be in a church. And Nichole needed to be there. June was optional. Back at the Winnipeg hotel, I asked the RCMP to turn us around, to take us back.

This had to be done at the back of a church, not the front, but the back. Far from all that was holy, but it needed to be in sight. If I was too near, I'd soil it. Sylvia, Moira, Emily and baby Nichole in front of me so that I could see the Holy behind them, but with the door to the street within reach for me and the baby I held.

I did not know what I was going to say to them. It was stupid. But I needed to say it. To those three. Just get your fucking shit together and say it. Emily, Sylvia and Moira need to know my sin.

I'd murdered Tricia, and I was not sorry.

June had meant her texts as blackmail. To get at Serena's offspring.

All June had managed was to blow a hole in my cancerous wall.