The consulate had insisted. Mark Tuello said he'd revoke permission if I had not allowed it, causing Rachel Tapping to, 'Ahem', at him. Outside of the Ambassador in Ottawa, Tapping was the ranking American in Toronto. Tapping had covered that when I'd been 'read in' on stuff I wish I now did not know.

So Tuello added, "With Ms. Tapping's permission, of course." If I was going, it was going to be with armed support.

My way of coping these days? Church. The sacraments. Yes, throwing my lot in with Catholics in Canada who were also just now dealing with clergy abusing parishioners. Residential Schools.

Ok, what had Tuello insisted upon? That I'd be accompanied into the Disputed Area by American Marines. Not Canadian forces, but American. Besides, Canada had made sport in offloading Gilead-stuff to the American consulate in Toronto. What I learned from Tapping was that with regard to Gilead, Canada enjoyed being on the sidelines. Watching American bureaucrats squirm. The Canada/USA relationship during those Gilead years was a strange one. Why would Canada commit something when they could maneuvre the Yankees to risk their own personnel?

Also, while I was gone the baby would be minded at the Consulate itself. Where security for the wee one could be seen to. But also, so that Canada could be at arms'-length if something happened.

I was a quick study.

HE WASN'T ALONE

Waiting at the abandoned school, I was quite glad to have those four strapping Marines, to my eye armed to the teeth. The young men had been all bravado in the armoured car on the way to the Rock River Bridge, but all that ceased once we had crossed. Their silence increased my anxiety. The last word the commander had said once the front tires landed on the bridge was, 'Let's go get some.' Now in the Disputed Area, they were all eyes, all business.

Two men on me most times, the other two watching 'the perimeter'. The guy in charge had asked me to stay back from the upstairs window, he said that some trigger-happy Guardian might spy the 'architect of Angel's Flight', and try to get off a lucky shot. I told him that I was not 'the architect', to which he said, 'tell them that!'

Me, though, if I'd not been at that upper window, I'd have not seen who was coming. Seeing it for myself went a long way to calm the nerves - if you called that calm.

There they were, a posse of Gilead Guardians stopped about 200 yards south of this old abandoned school. From among them stepped two people who moved forward. As they got closer, one of the American Marines stepped forward stopping them. He frisked them, then turned to us to give the all clear.

There they were, the two of them. Old home week. Nick Blaine and June Osborne, striding into the school up the stairs and into the main door on the floor below.

DENOUEMENT

I had hoped that meeting with Emily, Sylvia, Moira and the rest would turn the page. It hadn't. It had been a bad idea.

"What troubles me," Sylvia had said, "is that you felt a need to tell us. That you felt a need to vocalize how much you're glad you did it. 'Silent, docile' Rita, goes all microagression on us, all at once."

It had been Moira and Emily who had come to my defence. Moira said, "It's not like that, Syl. In Gilead, you did what you had to do." Emily said, "Me, I'm with Rita on that. I'm glad I did a lot of things." To which Sylvia added, "Ya, but you never went out of your way to throw it at us. You never killed a lesbian, someone who there had a short lifespan to begin with."

Sylvia added, "Look, I get it. All of you did some horrible things. But this lady here," she pointed to Emily, "at least there was a rhyme and reason. I don't judge her for revenge. Legitimate payback."

At that Emily said the final thing she was ever to say to me. "First of all, I agree with Rita. But I need her to leave. Right now." That caught everyone by surprise. "I need her out of here." She went to get my coat, but before giving it to me she added, "Aunt Lydia used to do shit like that. So I get it."

Moira piped up, "Emily, no! We've all got our nightmares."

Emily lifted her pant-leg, exposing the ankle monitor. Turning to Moira she said, "fuck you, Moira. Me, I'm glad I'm wearing this. It's a badge of honour." Turning to me Emily finished, addressed me in the third-person, "Rita's made her choice. It's not just that she's glad she got a dyke killed, she's thrown her lot in with Serena Joy."

Moira piped up again, "she's raising an innocent! That's not fair!" Emily accused me (to Moira) that I had excused all sorts of behaviour from Mrs. Waterford, 'because of Nichole'. Now I was, acc. to her, caving in to Serena's whims yet again. They had no idea.

This whole 'Tricia' thing, it had destroyed us - in a manner I'd not dreamed.

When I took my coat from her, Sylvia added, "Maybe you should go, too, Moira." She paused then added, "You can take the girl out of Gilead, but….."

So. My nightmare was now hard baked. Concrete. Emily and Sylvia, they could not abide what was a tragic and irredeemable part of my past. The big question now was, could I?

I should have shut up. As Moira observed, there's no happily-ever-after, there's only after.

DENOUEMENT PART 2

The Marine commander simply would not give the three of us privacy. I had a million questions for June, all of which I did not want prying ears to hear.

Me, I was distracted by June's trademark look. The look that voicelessly asked, "What!?" The demanding look. The 'spill it' look.

Before I could even respond, June said, "I guess you're surprised it's me, with Nick. Well, maybe not surprised to be with Nick, but from the south of the border." June smiled, looking at him. She interlinked her arm with his, and said, "I needed a weekend with Nick to cheer me up and calm me down."

Nick said, pulling away from her, "June, would you be serious!" I knew Nick well enough to interpret his look; June had just recently organized the first particicution outside of Gilead authority, and she only needed 'cheering up'? That's what Nick had been thinking.

He then looked at me, said, "June's going back with you. She's turning herself in."

At that, the Marine said to me, "Ma'am, our orders are just you. No one else."

June said to him loudly, "What are you guys going to do, arrest me? Sheesh, that's what I want!" At that the Marine got on his radio, asked for his ROE (rules of engagement).

I looked back to June and Nick, people who had been my sanity at the Waterfords. Now they were quite insane, were people I did not now know, not at all. Especially Nick. He had saved my life in Gilead countless times, now I had no sense, none at all, as to what he was doing. He was a Commander of New Gilead, running loose with June Osborne.

I'd asked to meet with them to get guarantees about Serena's baby, a we one now big in my life. I'd wanted the meeting in neutral ground, obviously without the baby.

I asked, "Why, June, why?"

June looked confused, "Why, 'what', Rita?"

Being on disputed Gilead soil was also starting to get to me. Here, nothing was certain. All of this had been a very bad idea. I'm not sure what I had accomplished, except that later Mark Tuello was to say that the whole scenario spoke buckets, as it had played out.

What Tuello had missed he actually hadn't. He'd stored away June's words, the words I had reported to him upon my return.

June said, "I'm only 1/3 done. I need to be in Canada to accomplish what's next." Once again, she interlinked her arm with Nick's. Looking at him she said, "The Commander here is looking after #3. You have looked after it, Nick? Haven't you!"

Nick gave no response. All he said was, "Please for mercy's sake, June. Be serious."

MEDIA STORM

"Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, a proof of things not seen." That's how the monseigneur had put it in his weekly homily.

With June's public return to Canada, the requisite media frenzy caused me to return to the sanctuary. To church. Not so much for the sermon's words - listening to them was always hit and miss. Ok, not for the one priest who himself had got out of Gilead. His colleagues and even the bishop said that while his experiences needed to be heard, he had seldom, 'put those experiences into the context of the sacrifices our faith speaks of.' Wow. What did the bishop know? Maybe you actually had to have been in Gilead!

It had not been me, but that was when a group of lay people, Gilead escapees all, interceded. Strictly speaking, the man's licence-to-preach had never been withdrawn, but the priest's parishioners (Gilead escapees) vouched that his every word was buttressed on sacrifice. 'For those with the ears to hear', was how they had put it, even to the bishop.

Ok, I was about to write that I had not followed either him or the 'controversy' that closely, but then again I seem to know a lot about it!

What I was going to write was that my attraction to returning to church had been the sacraments, but more important the quiet of sanctuary. The escape 'from the profane' as the priest had said, sitting in the sanctuary while just being.

Which is the long way around to dealing with June. June Osborne 2.0. The lady generating the social media blitz, complete with hashtags and trolls. Not that I understood most of it.

There she was, at Luke's and Moira's, Nichole still in the house, June sporting her own ankle bracelet. Unlike Emily, the Bankole/Strand house had 24/7 RCMP protection. 'Protection' that both Moira and Luke bitterly complained about, they'd both said, 'send June somewhere that doesn't interfere with us!'

THE HAZARD OF KNOWING

Serena Joy. Bitch, political football, radioactive. Mark Tuello said, "And those are the easier things about her to deal with."

I sat listening as Tuello was briefing Rachel Tapping and her staff. He'd begun by repeating that this was a 'closed' meeting, meaning that only people with basic clearances could be involved. Which meant me, as this was the highest clearance I had (yet) received.

"Here's the deal," Tuello said once we had surrendered our phones outside, and the door between had been closed. "Gilead wants her back. Will 'make it worth our while'," Tuello said with finger quotes. He continued, "Yet Canada does not deport people to places where they will be persecuted or harmed."

He said that knowing full well that the most direct threat against Serena now lived in Toronto, with an ankle bracelet. Like that was going to help.

I asked, "What about the baby?" Truth be told, if something was ever arranged to include the baby, I'd probably not be aware until the wee one had been spirited south. Then again, I was not telling the truth to begin with.

What I'd wanted to ask was how the baby was going to be protected.

Against June.