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Serena Joy fucking Waterford.
Yeah. June kind of judges herself for that one, too.
*
If June had escaped Gilead with Nick, that Luke could have understood. He might even have tried to convince himself that he was happy his wife had found someone to love and protect her in that place; he wouldn't have been, but he would have wanted to be happy for her. That was the kind of guy Luke was.
But...Serena Joy.
*
She can't grow up here, Serena. You know she can't.
I can get her out.
Maybe it had been that Serena had given the baby up, or maybe it had been the way she'd squeezed June's arm with her four-fingered hand, but:
I can get us all out.
*
Their Canadian apartment is shitty; if it weren't for Holly, knowing Serena was sharing living space with black mould would make June's heart sing.
June's refugee papers don't allow her to work, not legally anyway, and Serena had been a true believer and hadn't stashed her assets offshore before Gilead had confiscated them.
"You know what?" says June, contemplating a patch of spreading damp. "I bet Naomi Putnam has a small fortune in the Cayman Islands."
Serena rolls her eyes. "And I'm sure that will come in useful if she ever goes on the run with Janine."
By now Serena knows better than to refer to any of them as handmaids; has guessed, rightly, that if June ever hears the name Offred again she'll take the baby and Serena will never see her again.
As Holly's biological mother Canadian law is on June's side in this; so is American law, for whatever that's worth now.
June snorts at the idea of Naomi Putnam, Janine, and baby Angela going on the run from Gilead, and the corner of Serena's mouth twitches upwards. Sensing a rare moment of accord in the apartment baby Holly gurgles happily.
*
June leaves the baby with Serena when she goes to Luke and Moira's place.
In another life Luke would have made a wonderful stepfather, kind and openhearted; and in this one he does make an effort, saying how beautiful Holly is, how much she looks like her mother.
But when he looks at Holly all he can see is not Hannah; the daughter her mother saved, in place of the one she failed.
Luke never says it; he doesn't have to, because sometimes when June watches Holly sleep that's all she can see.
When June gets back to the apartment Serena is lying on the bed with the baby next to her, her palm resting on Holly's little chest.
June takes her shoes off and lies down next to them. "How's she been?"
"A little gassy," says Serena, a smile in her voice like the baby having gas is the most wonderful thing to ever have happened. June remembers feeling the same way when baby Hannah had gas.
This is why June lets Serena stay, because when Serena looks at Holly she doesn't see the child she failed, she only sees her adored firstborn.
June lays her hand on top of Serena's, and watches their fingers rise and fall with the baby's tiny breaths.
*
June meets Emily for drinks.
"She though I was dead; of course she thought I was dead. And I had an affair, so it's not like I thought we were ever going to see each other again..."
Emily's wife has remarried; Emily goes to two different support groups: one for refugees from Gilead, and one for victims of female genital mutilation.
But Oliver turned seven, and for his birthday he got his mother back.
Emily drains her drink; there's her son, and there are vodka martinis.
"I shouldn't have expected her to wait."
"Luke waited," says June. "And look how I'm repaying him."
"By playing house with Serena Joy fucking Waterford."
June clinks her glass against Emily's. "Is there a support group for that, do you think?"
*
June has complicated feelings about Serena, at least that's what the counsellors at the refugee centre tell her.
Fucking obviously, is June's response to that.
Complicated feelings non-withstanding, it always surprises June how normal Serena looks out of the uniform of a Gilead wife. In jeans and a worn soft shirt, baby talking to Holly about how they're going to feed the ducks in the park, she looks like a normal American mother - hardly evil at all.
Then comes the day that the Canadian police have to escort Serena and Holly home.
Serena took Holly to the memorial in Little America, where she was recognised; it was a small crowd that surrounded her, as mobs go, and nothing was thrown because fuck's sake, dude, she's holding a baby.
"I think they got more of a fright than anything," the cop tells June, as she fusses over the grizzly baby she's snatched from Serena's arms, "but I might tell your wife to stay away from Little America; people are pretty tense down there."
June's eyes flick to Serena. It's not like she relishes being mistaken for Mrs Serena Joy fucking Waterford, but the term gender traitor had been one of Serena's horrifying creations.
If Serena even hears the officer's mistake she doesn't react, too busy staring uneasily at the baby in June's arms as though June might never give Holly back.
"How could you be so stupid?" June demands, after the cops have left.
"I just wanted to take a look–"
"At what you did?" Serena flinches. "Next time you want to take a guilt trip, Serena, leave my daughter out of it."
"June, please. I can fix it."
"No, Serena. You can't."
*
"Are you fucking her?" Moira asks.
Before, the question would have been asked teasingly, like: if you were ever going to screw around with a woman it should have been me. Now Moira's voice is cold as ice.
"Ew," says June, because the real answer is somewhere between it's complicated and she's Holly's mother.
*
There's a man in the apartment when June gets home.
He's white, well dressed, and not immediately threatening. The hair on the back of June's neck stands up, and her hands ball into fists, fingernails digging into her palms.
"June, this is Mark Tuello." Serena offers the man a glass of water. "He's here to help us."
"Hi, Mark." June's voice is cold; she quickly notes that the baby is sleeping and that Serena is between the man and the crib. "How exactly are you going to help us?"
June has seen the letters that arrive for Serena. There are far right groups here in Canada, as well as in Europe that want to meet with her, some just seem to want fascist pep talks, others straight up offer to help her set up Gilead Mk II: a kinder, fluffier reproductive dystopia with Serena Joy as its supreme leader.
June hasn't been too worried; Serena is too smart to make the same wish on the same evil monkey's paw twice in a row.
Maybe she should have worried more?
"Let me give you my card," says Mark, reaching into his jacket.
Mark Tuello turns out to be an agent of the US government-in-exile; the same government that wants Serena to write a book denouncing Gilead and in exchange will relocate Serena's family anywhere they'd like in the two states.
"Serena's...family?"
"Serena, the baby, and yourself." Mark smiles disarmingly. "Hey, I was just saying to Serena: your daughter sure is beautiful."
*
"What do you think?" Serena asks, later.
"I think– I think it's the middle of the night, Serena."
Holly should be past middle of the night feeds by now, but she wouldn't settle, and maybe if she's full she'll finally sleep.
Serena's awake too; the apartment is one big room, and unless June wanted to feed the baby in the bathroom she's had to get used to Serena's greedy eyes on her as she breastfeeds.
"This is no place to bring up a child." Serena's all-encompassing sneer takes in the mould, the dripping taps, and the lone bed that they share out of a combination of stubbornness, PTSD, and co-dependency.
The pool of black resentment in June's belly roils, then subsides. She sighs, "That's my line."
*
Holly really, really doesn't want to go onto solid foods.
June drinks her coffee, blearily focusing on the clump of stewed apple in Serena's hair as she tries to feed the baby.
She thinks about what the American had said - anywhere they'd like in the two states - and remembers pie-in-the-sky fantasising with Nick about Hawaii, about Holly playing on the beach, and imagines it being Serena rather than Nick freaking out about the baby eating sand.
"Alaska," she tells Serena, who turns and narrowly misses being hit with another chunk of spit-up apple. "I want to go to Alaska."
*
They need to get a birth certificate for Holly before they can move.
June briefly considers Blaine for a last name. Holly should have something more of Nick than the things June whispers to her when Serena is out: Nick is your daddy, he loves you so much, he helped us get out.
But the last time things went to hell June hadn't shared a last name with Hannah, and she won't give anyone else an excuse to say that Holly isn't hers.
There are middle names, though.
"What was you maiden name?" she asks Serena
"I was Serena Joy Waterford before I met Fred. I was already a published author, and he was still trying to establish himself in the movement. Of course, later he was paranoid about people finding out."
Huh. Well, at least if June ever gets dragged kicking and screaming back to Gilead she'll be able to tell everyone that the great and powerful Commander Waterford took his wife's name.
No. June won't have that name marking her daughter.
"First names?" asks the official registering the birth.
"Holly Nicole," says June, and doesn't look at Serena.
Holly Nicole Osborne. Joint US - Canadian citizenship. Parents: June Osborne and Serena Joy Waterford.
They emerge into the weak winter sunlight and Serena takes June by her shoulders, her fingernails digging in painfully; she leans across the baby's stroller and presses her forehead to June's, her eyes screwed up tight.
"Thank you. Thank you."
June keeps her eyes open wide and watches the tears roll down Serena's face.
*
June takes Holly to say goodbye.
It's Emily's weekend with Oliver, and the little boy is fixated on the possibility that June might see a polar bear in Alaska. She promises she'll send him a picture if she does.
"I don't fucking get it," hisses Moira, but she hugs June tight, tucking her face against June's neck, and it's a long time before she lets go.
Luke's hug is awkward, but warm. "Seven years," he whispers into June's ear, "remember?"
One night June had gotten drunk and cried ugly tears telling Luke about Eden; in seven years Hannah will be the same age Eden was when she was married off to Nick.
Luke worries that Gilead will give their daughter to some guardian like Nick (or worse, June amends, a guardian nothing at all like Nick); June worries about all the things that could get Hannah killed before then: she could kiss a boy that she likes, she could kiss a girl.
"I haven't forgotten."
*
The have a carriage to themselves on the train to Anchorage; Serena sits Holly on her lap and narrates everything they can see out the window for the baby.
"What about the fertility treatment?" June asks. "I know that was part of the deal the Americans offered you."
"Maybe one day." Serena doesn't look at June as she kisses the top of Holly's head. "This one's too little to be a big sister."
"She already is a sister, Serena."
June thinks that Serena is going to do that thing where she just pretends June hasn't spoken; instead she bows her head and inhales Holly's baby scent. "I know."
*
The government house in Anchorage is nice, sometimes too nice.
June misses their shitty Canadian apartment because sometimes this place feels so much like the house in Gilead that it makes her want to tear her own skin off.
There are differences, of course. June sleeps in the master bedroom; Serena does too, when she doesn't fall asleep writing in her office. There's a dinosaur mobile hanging over Holly's crib, and she has a set of wooden blocks with her ABCs painted on to play with; mostly she chews them.
Mark stops by once or twice a week to see how Serena's book is progressing. Today he's brought the mock book cover for them to see; it's a close up of Serena's primly crossed hands, the mutilated one covering the whole.
"I think it's best not to mention your current...understanding with June," he says.
"We wouldn't want the readers to get the idea that all the wives and handmaids in Gilead end up living in passive aggressive, borderline lesbian bliss, right?"
"June, for God's sake!" snaps Serena, because taking the lord's name in vain is like that extra glass of riesling or cigarette, or using too many adverbs when she writes, an easy habit to fall back into.
Mark just smiles placidly.
The irony isn't lost on June that the US government is less interested in the woman who was raped in Gilead than it is in the testimony of the woman who raped her. Because Serena did. Rape June. And the fact that she used the commander for the actual penetration doesn't change that.
The worst part is that they're right. June stays up late listening to Holly breathe over the baby monitor, crossing out excess adverbs with a red pen, and being complicit in the whitewashing of Serena Joy fucking Waterford, because this isn't about what happened to June, or even the truth, it's about burning Gilead to the fucking ground.
*
Serena decorated Holly's nursery, and June decorated the other room; maybe Serena really believes that it's meant for Holly when she's older, maybe she doesn't, June hasn't asked.
It's where Serena finds her, sitting on the child-sized bed clutching a stuffed elephant.
"I want Hannah back." Serena doesn't reply; she's dressed for bed and holding the baby monitor. "I want you to get her back for me."
"I can't."
"The government can." Every official in the US government above the mid-level has relatives who mysteriously turned up outside Gilead. Everyone's heard the rumours; a name, an approximate location, and sufficient motivation and the Americans can get people out. "You're their propaganda coup. Tell them Hannah is your price, they'll pay it."
"And if I don't you'll take Holly away from me."
Serena's voice is cold but June can hear the fear underneath it; she can see Serena gripping the baby monitor so tight that her knuckles have gone white.
This is the moment of truth. Every time Serena had done her impression of a decent person in Gilead, every fucking time, June had fallen for it, and every time, every fucking time, she had gotten her heart broken.
Maybe Serena really has been taking baby steps towards being a better person all this time, or maybe it has all been a long con to get June to let her stay close to Holly. And maybe June has finally, finally learned her lesson.
June crosses the room and presses the stuffed animal into Serena's free hand.
"I'm not going to take Holly. But one day our daughter is going to learn to read, and she's going to read your book and learn about all the terrible things that you did. On that day don't you want to be able to tell her that you're the one who saved her sister?"
June stands on her toes and presses a papery kiss to Serena's cheek. "I'm going to bed."
Serena's voice calls after her. "I'll call Mark in the morning."
June's mouth twitches. "Thank you, Serena."