SOURCES - THE 13th SYMPOSIUM, PASSAMAQUODDY

Professor Pieixoto reminded the gathering that the task of historical discourse was to stick to legitimate sources. He added, "in that word 'legitimate' lay the rub."

Turning to the line at the microphone in the aisle to the left of him, the woman at the microphone to the right was not yielding the floor.

"With all due respect, professor, you haven't answered the question."

At that point 'the room' took over. It wasn't Pieixoto, it was 'the room' which yielded to the woman. It started with the man on the left who'd been invited by Pieixoto to ask the next question. The man had taken a step back from the microphone, had waved his hand towards the other aisle, indicating that even he wanted the woman to continue.

It was something that Pieixoto, being from Cambridge in England, was quite unused to. Mutinies within the student body were not an English thing.

Pieixoto lifted his water glass from the lectern, took a sip, put it down and stifled a small cough.

Bowing to the inevitable, he grasped the lectern firmly with his now free hands. Making eye contact with the woman at the microphone, he said, "Okay, I thought I had. Could you repeat the question."

The woman paused, closed her binder and swung it under her arm. Leaning into the microphone she asked, "It's twofold, really. Is not Agnes's and Daisy's friend, Becka, is she not Serena Joy Waterford's biological daughter - born two decades' previous in the ITWC prison in Toronto…"

Now that that question had been asked in detail, the auditorium quieted - quite the feat, given that the 13th Gilead Symposium this morning was now 15 minutes into the afternoon, and late for lunch.

".…. and secondly," the woman said, "when Becka's statue was erected in the new Boston Common post-Gilead, did not Agnes's and Daisy's family have conflict over the inclusion of another name on the inscription?"

Pieixoto paused, then said, "Just for clarity, are you talking about the inscription at the bottom of Becka's statue which cited 'Agnes', 'Nichole', 'their mother' and 'two fathers', plus children and grandchildren?"

The woman leaned into the microphone and said, "I am." She added, "You were so taken with the inscription, that you cited it as 'convincing testament' to the authenticity of the two transcripts, to which you have interwoven through the Ardua Hall Holograph."

Pieixoto listened, then summarized, "So, you're also claiming that there is evidence, evidence from a legitimate source, that a differing inscription had been contemplated by the half-sisters, Agnes and Nichole?"

The woman repeated, "I am".

Pieixoto said with the full weight of academic authority he could muster, "Well, we're right back at discussing sources, aren't we?"

The woman said, "When the Handmaid's tapes were found, you raised all of that at the June 2195 Symposium, at Denay. I was there. Your comments about that were appended to The Handmaid's Tale, that you and Professor Knotly Wade compiled."

She said, "Indeed, we'd left Denay being told that the identity of the tapes author was unknown. Yet, it is now well established in canon that that 'original Handmaid' had been June Osborne."

THE BECKA STATUE, BOSTON COMMONS

She continued, "Me, I'm claiming the same today, for the contention that two years ago you would have found friendly. I'm citing the same intermediate sources to claim what I'm claiming about the Becka-statue." She smiled, "Even the identity of Becka, too."

Pieixoto said sternly, "Let's cut to the chase. The only sources that suggest that Becka was, in fact, the baby born to Serena Joy Waterford in Toronto, who was raised by the refugee Martha, Rita Blue, who returned to Gilead to be raised in Dr. Grove's home….."

".…. the only sources for that are found on anonymous FanFiction sites, where just about anyone can upload claims."

The woman turned her head to people quietly witnessing this exchange in the auditorium.

Addressing the crowd she said, "Me, I'm hungry. I'm going for lunch. If anyone wants to continue this informally, you'll see where I am sitting in the cafeteria." She paused, looking back to Pieixoto. "I don't know why Symposium organizers and speakers are ignoring this, when just two years ago they'd accepted the tapes. When in intervening years you had speculated and accepted other things on less."

THE PLAQUE

Daisy/Nichole: Agnes, I don't understand the objection, I really don't.

Agnes/Hannah: It's probably because you did not grow up with her.

D/N: This is mom, isn't it?

A/H: Don't throw mom at me. Look at the plaque, look at its wording. It's fitting for Becka, for what she'd done for you and me, getting us out of Gilead. It's about Becka, not about what either you or I think.

D/N: No it's not. The plaque is ALL about us. Read it!

A/H: We are the link. 'Jade'!

D/N: Don't call me that! I'm Daisy. Now you're just being a bug. -pause- It's not just us who are the link.

A/H: She was a martha, Daisy. An unknown. Hundreds of marthas did what she did. Marthas raised children, that's what they did.

D/N: She could have raised me! She was more than that to Becka, she was her mother!

A/H: No she wasn't. How many times do you have to hear that?

D/N: Yes she was. The plaque should have Rita Blue's name on it. -pause- Or a least a mention, like our kids. Like the two dads.

A/H: -sarcastically- So, should it have Serena Joy Waterford's name on it, too? Should we include Dr. Grove's Wife?

D/N: I never said that.

A/H: -pause- You know what mom thinks.

D/N: This isn't about her. We've made way, way too much concession to mom.

A/H: It was all we could do to get mom to accept the 'two dads' reference. Now you want to get her to sign off on Rita?

D/N: Both our dads are links to our own children. Mom's grandchildren. -pause- Mom goes nuts thinking about Rita Blue, but that's her problem.

A/H: Blue caved in to Serena Joy at every opportunity. Mom was clear about that.

D/N: That's me you're talking about. Rita Blue caved in for me, got me out when I was a baby. Back then mom and Blue, plus my dad, they were the ones who got me out, not mom. Rita had been a hero.

A/H: You know very well how things changed. In Canada.

D/N: 'Canada', 'Schmanada'. All we've ever heard was mom's side of that. We'd never heard from your dad, nor from mom's friend Moira Strand.

A/H: Don't throw dad into my face. Bitch. -pause- Besides, it's not as if they're around.

D/N: All I'm saying is that the inscription, Becka's inscription, should be as honest about Rita Blue as it is about us. About how appreciative we are, how appreciative our families are.

A/H: Well, you're not going to get it by mom. -pause- She's a bit of a control freak.

D/N: No shit, Sherlock!

THIRTEENTH SYMPOSIUM LUNCH

"Can I sit down?" Professor Pieixoto had shied away from the head table with Professor Maryanne Crescent Moon and the elders of the Penobscot Nation. He'd sought out 'the dissidents' as he sarcastically called them.

The woman who'd been at the microphone back in the auditorium pulled out the chair beside her, said, "this one is free!"

Sitting, Pieixoto said, "it's a pleasure to be sitting with the Rita Blue faction of the symposium!" He laughed a bit, "At least you people aren't arguing Team Nick versus Team Luke!"

Within earshot of the dozen or so people who'd wanted to caucus with the woman, she said, "Take a few bites, professor. We'll give you a chance to eat before peppering you." Another voice piped up, said that it was good of him to have joined them.

When he'd had a few bites and had sipped his orange juice, he said, "Ok, let me start. First, it's these sorts of informal chats that I have missed. Transcribing The Handmaid's Tale has made me too much of a celebrity. Why do you think Knotly Wade no longer comes to these things!" Pieixoto paused, then said, "You are quite correct, very right about what all you say about two years ago when it was just The Tapes, just the one, lone handmaid."

"Ok, 'sources'," Pieixoto said to no one in particular. "Rita," he continued, "seventy-six references in the Tapes, give or take. Described as a surly character." He went at length to characterize the 'Rita' of the Handmaid's tapes, the Handmaid's Tale, as very different to the woman from the subsequent 'finds'. "It's as if they were different people."

The woman interrupted, "already we're into a dispute about sources. At the Waterfords, according to the tapes, there had also been Cora, another Martha."

"Yes," Pieixoto conceded. "But subsequent finds cast doubt on Cora's actual billet. No one writes about Cora, they write about Rita." Cora had got a brief mention in the Miller/Moss folios, but only as attached to the Lawrence house.

And so it was they were into it.

THE DEDICATION ACC. TO RITA

We had not seen each other in decades. As it was, my wheelchair was pushed up beside June Osborne's. Nichole Blaine-Osborne had delayed her part of the proceedings until both wheelchairs were settled. As well, she needed to be confident that a bun-fight would not break out.

When the gathered grew silent, Nichole recited, "A bird of the air shall carry the voice, and that which hath wings shall tell the matter, love is as strong as death."

Agnes then came forward in front of the statue, the statue of a 'Pearl Girl' with distinctive cap, pearls and backpack. Forget-me-nots, Agnes pointed out, meant that we were honouring Becka today, we were following those flowers' lead.

Agnes said, "This is fitting, it is right to honour Becka Grove, Aunt Immortelle. My sister and I, and our families would particularly like to thank the Montreal artist who carved this," Agnes mentioned him by the name he'd chosen for himself following his own escape from the now defunct Gilead.

Agnes did not once make eye-contact with me. She took a step back, and Nichole came forward again. Nichole, she stared straight at me.

"It's not lost on me," Nichole said catching me by surprise, "that both Becka, as well as me started our lives swaddled in Rita Blue's arms. That according to mom," Nichole said looking at the old woman in the chair beside me, "it had been Rita, enslaved as a Martha, who had bravely taken me from my cradle and handed me to mom. That night, the night that Dr. Emily Malek - also bravely and sacrificially - made her escape with me to Canada."

One of Nichole's own toddlers chose that moment to come to her for a cuddle. It was so sweet! Picking up the child, Nichole looked at me and gave a wink, wiping a tear away.

Nichole had not said anything about Serena's baby. With Nichole, it was understood.

So it was for me to remember. There at the memorial statue to Becka, who had given her life so that both Nichole as well as Agnes could make their escape. I had taken the baby from Serena Joy, but then lost her back to Gilead, to accomplish all this.

IT WAS FOR ME TO REMEMBER

It was for me to remember. How I had arranged with Commander Nick Blaine (my old rescuer Nick) to return to that school, so that I could hand the baby off to him. He'd said, "Better in Gilead than in Toronto, believe me!" And I did.

With June returned to Canada, even with an ankle surveillance bracelet, I was not going to risk it. Nick and I had used precious few words, finding a moment out of June's earshot - while she was being 'processed' by my Marine soldier protectors - to conspire, for the baby's sake. I had understood, understood perfectly the bond he had formed with June.

But he knew June better than anyone.

It had been just a few years ago I had discovered what had happened. How that baby had been settled into the Grove home, Dr. Grove being the pervert dentist. Dr. Grove who had himself later been particicuted at the hands of Ardua Hall. Had run afoul of Aunt Lydia.

As speaker after speaker got up to laud Becka Grove, I noted that June Osborne's ire-laden glare was directed at me. We were old. What was past was past, and our soured relationship would have no time to even remotely heal.

It was for me to remember. I remembered Tricia. I remembered Offred #1, the one whose suicide Nick had gotten me through. I remembered the first time that Offred #2, June, had been taken from the home, when Serena had said, "Bitch, after all (The Commander) did for you." I remember June's suicide attempt, too.

It was for me to remember handing Nichole to June, I later saw June allowing Serena to say goodbye, before Emily fled north. I remembered seeing June in Loaves and Fishes the day after the Waterfords were caught in Canada.

It was for me to remember praying at midnight with June outside the airport fence with eighty-six noisy kids around us. I then had not seen June until her own rescue from Chicago.

It was for me to remember being told by Serena that she herself had been pregnant. At the time I was trying to distance myself from the Commander - I had been forced to do way too much as a slave in their house.

It was for me to remember the wee baby. Remembering that first look, I looked past June, and up to the Statute, there at Boston Common. Becka. Who had distinguished herself through our memories.

In the new United States of America.