DISSOLVING INTO SAND

"Emily, answer me this. Why is June such a big deal? You gotta know, when she was young… before Gilead… June was apolitical. I mean, how many times had I lectured her about the plight of women in western patriarchies? There was no such thing, I'd say, as 'apolitical'! You either had an enlightened consciousness, or you were living off of your life of privilege….."

Dr. Malek held up a hand to stop me. Emily, she was a quiet person. Looked like one of those who would passively lean back and listen, rarely telling the extroverted among us to, 'shut up for a second, give me some space!'

So she just held up her hand, palm towards me….. I got it. I shut up. I let the silence carry the next few moments.

Finally Emily said, "you know what's happened since the Rock River Bridge?"

The what? My geographical ignorance, it did not deter Emily.

"June, my former friend, your daughter…. you know what's happened since we particicuted Fred fucking Waterford?" I thought I was leaving enough space for the ensuing silence, so that I didn't trample all over her thoughts as they developed. But I did not leave enough.

I said, "look, I've been out of commission…" then she held up the palm of her hand again. She was positively shaking this time. I'd seen it before, as an M.D. This young lady was dealing with multiple episodes of PTSD, when some past, traumatic event bubbled up as fresh and horrible as the day it had happened.

So, I said to myself, 'Holly, if you want this lady to speak, if you want to find out about June, you're going to have to let her speak.' Quite the concept.

I could see calmness eventually wrestle Emily away from her shaking. This was a woman with a powerful survival mechanism, albeit obvious that survival was a struggle for her. As she began, her almost quiet, robotic voice made her seem like she might soon dissolve into sand…..

I tried to warn her, I tried to warn Offred. I was Ofglen then, at the Deeds house, she was next door at the Waterfords. I'd been at the Deeds for a year when Offred arrived. June, I mean. There had been an old Offred, she'd been my shopping partner for the year before June got there. I never said anything to the first one, not about me, nor about who I thought was in the Waterford house with her.

The Waterfords, they had an Eye inside, one I don't even think that either The Commander or Serena Joy knew about. I also think that that Eye was seeing Offred, Offred #1, illegally and in off hours. Then Offred, the first one, she suicided. I still have nightmares and cold sweats about that day. I remember that day like it was yesterday. I'd been outside in the Deeds yard by the fence, a place I shouldn't have been. I was going to run. I was going to run for Canada, where my wife and boy were.

Then the birthmobile came up, draped in black, to the Waterford's. I could see everything through the fence. Strangely, I was joined by Mrs. Deeds, as well as our Martha. The Martha whispered to us both, 'I think Rita found the girl, hanging from a chandelier.' As events unfolded next door, no one at the Deeds complained that I was outside, where I shouldn't be.

Then they brought out Offred on a stretcher, with a sheet over her. Mrs. Waterford was upset, but not about the suicide. She was upset about her Commander. She said sternly to her husband, 'what did you think was going to happen?' That's when I knew why Offred had been so vacant, so unwilling to hear anything about Mayday. Offred was being abused by both the Commander as well as their Guardian. So I don't know why June was indifferent to my warnings about the Waterford Guardian - a guy I knew had been sleeping with her predecessor, Offred. On the side.

Then June came, Offred #2. Fred Waterford was as weird with her as he'd been with the now dead one. He even got weird with Scrabble. Even though June and I were now shopping partners, all we'd ever done with that was compare notes of the weather. But we really connected at the next particicution, where us handmaids were to tear a guy apart, with our bare hands.

You remember Janine? From the Bootheel Colony? At that particicution, she'd told June that her friend Moira, was dead. Janine can't keep her mouth shut. It wasn't true, but that's what you get for relying on Janine for anything. June then led the charge, ripping the guy apart. He'd not raped a pregnant handmaid like we'd been told, he'd been resistance - Mayday.

I wasn't going to make the same mistake with June as I had with the first Offred. So I told June everything. I told her who I was, that I was a 'rug muncher', had a wife in Toronto, and a boy. I told her to beware of 'the Eye at the Waterfords'.

Don't get me wrong, it wasn't June who turned me in - but telling her, it had been a mistake. When an investigating Angel asked her, she confirmed for them I was a gender traitor.

Not that June had anything to worry about, I was soon arrested, betrayed by a Martha, of all people. Martha Irene. She'd escaped to Canada as my lover was being hanged. She gave interviews to the Toronto Star, while I was being mutilated. It was Martha Irene who'd betrayed me, it turned out that New Gilead Commanders, they too read the Toronto Star. So I know something about betrayal.

ALL ABOUT SERENA JOY

Okay, when June got to Canada, she was fixated on Serena Joy Waterford. For Fred Waterford, June was plotting. I gladly helped her out on that one, I never thought June would abandon us after Fred.

So let me cut to the chase. After we killed Fred, all of us handmaids we helped, we just figured that we'd do June's first, June had had the 'profile', as it were. And then we'd figure out how we were going to go down the list, who was next.

No one was next. June bailed on us. You know what your daughter is doing right now?

She's in bed with Serena Joy Waterford. She's still seeing Commander Blaine. Quite the cross-border love affair. Me, my wife and I argued. Me, I had to get out of there. Sylvia, my wife, kept telling me to 'get over it'. I couldn't. Not while June was talking with Commander Lawrence about this Bethlehem thing. I think she was talking to Lawrence as a way to get her other daughter, Hannah, free.

So we need to know, Dr. Maddox…. did June help Gilead shoot down that special forces team over Montana? I should let you know, I'm from Montana. Shelby, on the old I-15, just south of Canada - probably the spot where Gilead crashed those planes. She may have thought that with the raid compromised, that she had to cooperate to, once again, save Hannah.

We need to know, Dr. Maddox: who is your daughter? She used to be my friend. She saved my life. But that is now not enough.

When it comes to our turn, your daughter bails. Best case scenerio? She's selfish.

Worst case? She's delivering Mayday to her boyfriend on a platter.

JUNE AND SERENA JOY

Canada.

On the way up there to the northern border, Dr. Malek told me what the Húŋkpapȟa Lakota indigenous people in Montana used to call the 49th parallel. (Which out east north of the old Vermont, was the 45th parallel.)

Falsely attributed to Sitting Bull, the border with Canada was called, 'the Medicine Line', because the way the American Blue Jackets would pursue them, then suddenly stop in the middle of nowhere.

Emily Malek had been brought up in Shelby, Montana, very close to the middle of that nowhere.

Martha Lori, she had arranged our exfiltration from Gilead. Me, I called it, 'getting out', but for Martha Lori, she had a plan for us…. therefore the more flowery term for our escape.

Once we arrived at the women's resistance camp, 20 feet past the border obelisks, Emily's and my reactions couldn't have been more different. First of all we were met by women with shotguns. Turning to look at Emily, I realized she was showing no fear - I'd not seen that look clinically for years, and this certainly was not a clinical setting.

Emily looked like she would welcome a blast from a more friendly shotgun - fired as a mercy by another woman.

My delay at interceding? I mean, clinically speaking, Emily looked as suicidal as the women with the firepower. The reason, I guess, I did not intercede for Emily, was because me, I was on my knees scooping up little samples of Canadian soil and smelling them. Apparently I was getting the soil on my face - there were little wet-dirt tracks under my eyes.

How was that for my first visit to Canada?

After a flurry at the Medicine Line, including a very thorough frisking worthy of a taser-toting Aunt back at the Bootheel Colony…. including an argument among the women about whether or not we were real Marthas…..

A young woman named Lily emerged. Lily asked who we were. We told her. She seemed to know Dr. Malek, saying, "Jesus, we sent you south, then no one knew what had happened to you. I didn't think you'd ever come back, much less voluntarily." Which she'd not.

As we entered the main border tent, we were given a warm wrap, and were sat down on a very ragged couch. We were given coffee.

Lily then started up her 'interrogation', the nicest one I'd had in quite some while! By that time I had stopped weeping, and I had let go of the Canadian soil…..

Lily asked, "and so who have we here? Malek is vouching for you, and her word is trusted at this camp."

Me, I couldn't speak. I literally did not know what to say. I could tell from Lily's very slight Boston accent that she was not Canadian, but I was not prepared for the introduction Malek proceeded to give.

"Lily, meet Dr. Holly Maddox. Like you, she's from Boston. Like you, she is - was - in Gilead's Martha service." Emily turned to me and said, "Holly, meet Lily. Martha Lily. Mayday Lily. She came north as one of the 22 Marthas in the trade for Commander Fred Waterford, at the Rock River Bridge. Obviously, she's put her freedom to good use."

Emily then disengaged from me and Lily and looked at the tent's ceiling, and said, "unlike some others."

When others started with their questions, Lily shushed them. So it was we sat there in silence, me with my coffee, and Lily with her stare.

Finally she asked, "are you June Osborne's mother?"

Still unsure of the limits of this Canadian 'freedom' they told me existed across the Medicine Line, I didn't say anything.

Lily then said, "June Osborne, she saved my life. She told me she'd been lucky in arranging the exchange. Me, I told her that women always sell themselves short, they credit luck to when they've done something extraordinary. June was no different."

More silence. More coffee. It's amazing - the woman who refilled my mug, she did it in the Martha manner, like we'd been trained. Like I'd never perfected at the Mackenzie house.

At that, Emily spoke: "Martha Lori, she arranged our escape. Me, I didn't want to come, but someone needed to watch Dr. Maddox, here. Don't worry about me, I'll hold it together."

I thought, 'who ever worried about Emily holding it together?' Now that she's said it, I think that that will be me. I'd only once done outpatient-psychiatry, and I wracked my brain now for what to watch her for.

Lily then added, "I don't want to burst your bubble, Holly. June, she saved my life, I have to remember that."

"But listen to this," Lily said as gravely as I've ever heard someone say. "She's now teamed up with - Emily, you will love this - teamed with Mrs. Serena Joy Waterford. June, she was mid-wife to the birth of Noah Waterford."

I did not know what that meant, but I did know who Mrs. Waterford was. I thought that Serena Joy had been June's tormentor.

Emily said, "Martha Lori has sent us to find June. We have to clear up rumours about her and another Commander of the Faithful, someone who Martha Lori fears has compromised June."

I said as weakly as Emily ….. "June, she's apolitical."

Lily said with a sigh, "well, she has a shit-way of showing it." After a pause and a regrouping, Lily said, "Well, you'd better get a move on. As we speak, June fucking Osborne is on a train, the Canadians are deporting American refugees to the west. On trains."

"And get this. June, with her daughter Nichole, is now BFF with Serena Joy on that train, her with her son."

"They're sharing diapers."

What do you want from me?
Why don't you run from me?
What are you wondering?
What do you know?
Why aren't you scared of me?
Why do you care for me?
When we all fall asleep, where do we go?

Your talk'll be somethin' that shouldn't be said out loud
Honestly, I thought that I would be dead by now (wow)
Callin' security, keepin' my head held down
Bury the hatchet or bury your friend right now