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Daisy had been doing very well, actually. She had gone almost four whole days without being cornered by a former Gilead girl in a kitchen, hallway, bathroom, stairwell, or public transportation-adjacent location and asked to explain one of the emotional horrors of human existence.
Four days.
That was basically a vacation.
Then Tuesday happened.
Daisy was standing in the kitchen in pajamas, eating cereal straight from the box and trying to figure out whether the coffee machine was broken or whether she had simply forgotten how to operate technology after Gilead, when Agnes cleared her throat softly behind her.
Daisy closed her eyes, then slowly turned around.
At the kitchen table, Agnes sat very still. Back straight. Knees together. Hands folded. Hair brushed so neatly it looked less like hair and more like evidence. There was a mug of tea in front of her, untouched, the string of the tea bag wrapped around the handle twice.
And her face.
Daisy knew that face.
Every girl in this house had one.
Shunammite’s question face looked like she had seen something sinful and wanted to report it to God personally.
Becka’s question face looked like she had already decided the answer would hurt her but was prepared to stand still for it anyway.
Agnes’s question face was the worst.
Agnes looked like she was about to apologize for existing, then ask whether existence itself counted as immodest.
Daisy lowered the cereal box.
“No,” she said.
Agnes blinked. “I haven’t asked anything.”
“Exactly. And I’m already afraid.”
Agnes looked down at her tea.
Daisy sighed, immediately hating herself.
“Sorry. Sorry, no. You can ask. I’m just…” Daisy gestured vaguely at herself, the cereal, the drawer full of Cheerios. “This is not my final form.”
Agnes did not smile.
Agnes did not answer.
Daisy looked at her properly then.
Past the cardigan.
Past the posture.
Past the careful hands and careful mouth and careful everything, because Agnes had been raised in a world where care was not tenderness, but survival.
Her eyes were red.
Not crying-now red.
Crying-before red.
The kind someone washed their face after and hoped no one would notice.
Daisy’s stomach dropped.
“Oh,” she said, softer.
Agnes’s fingers tightened around the mug.
The kitchen was quiet except for the coffee machine still sitting there making a deeply useless clicking sound. Morning light still came gray through the window.
Still.
Gilead entered the room anyway.
It did that sometimes.
Walked in without knocking.
Sat down at the table.
Waited.
Agnes swallowed. “May I ask you something inappropriate?”
Daisy pulled out the chair across from her.
“Yeah.”
Agnes looked up.
Daisy sat carefully, like sudden movement might scare the question back into her throat.
Agnes opened her mouth.
Closed it.
Then looked at the window.
Morning light came in thin and gray, touching the edge of her face. She looked younger in it. Younger than she usually allowed herself to look.
“Can a person do something wrong,” Agnes asked quietly, “and still have meant it kindly?”
Daisy went still.
That was not where she had expected the conversation to start.
Which was stupid, probably. Conversations in this house never started where they were supposed to. They crawled sideways out of trauma like raccoons from a storm drain.
“Depends,” Daisy said carefully.
Agnes nodded once, like she deserved that.
Daisy leaned forward. “Agnes.”
“Yes?”
“What happened?”
Agnes looked down at the tea again.
Her thumb brushed the handle of the mug.
Once.
Twice.
“I kissed Becka.”
Daisy did not move.
Not because she was surprised.
Not exactly.
There had been looks. There had been silences. There had been Becka turning toward Agnes whenever Agnes entered a room like some part of her body had been waiting for permission. There had been Agnes watching Becka laugh like laughter was a candle she was afraid to breathe near.
So no.
Daisy was not surprised.
But still.
Her chest ached.
“Okay,” Daisy said.
Agnes flinched.
Daisy softened her voice. “Okay.”
Agnes’s mouth trembled. “You keep saying that.”
“Yeah.”
“As if it is not terrible.”
Daisy looked at her.
“It isn’t terrible.”
Agnes went pale.
Not dramatically. Agnes did not do dramatic. She did quiet devastation, which was worse, because it made Daisy want to overturn furniture on her behalf.
“It was before the wedding,” Agnes said.
There it was.
The room changed.
The coffee machine clicked off.
Somewhere upstairs, a floorboard creaked.
Daisy heard none of it for a second.
Before the wedding.
Before Becka had been dressed and given away like a thing.
Before Aunt Lydia.
Before the Pearl Girls.
Before escape.
Before Canada.
Before this kitchen, this ugly mug, this stupid cereal, this impossible country where girls could say things like I kissed Becka and still be alive afterward.
Daisy gripped the edge of the table under where Agnes couldn’t see.
“Okay,” she said again, but gentler now. “Tell me.”
Agnes looked at her hands.
“It was very quick.”
“Okay.”
“And not quick.”
Daisy nodded, because somehow that made perfect sense.
Agnes breathed in slowly.
“She was frightened,” she said. “Everyone was frightened. But Becka was…” She stopped. Her voice thinned. “She was trying so hard not to show it.”
Daisy said nothing.
“She said she knew everything was going to be okay, because I was there,” Agnes pressed her own thumb against her sleeve, like the memory had moved into her hand. “And I thought, I cannot bear this.”
Daisy’s throat tightened.
Agnes looked toward the window again.
“I had thought that before. Many times. About many things. But that day it felt…” She searched for the word. “Disobedient.”
Daisy let out a small breath.
Agnes’s eyes flicked to her.
“Not because I wished to stop the wedding,” Agnes said quickly. “I mean, I did. Of course I did. But I knew I could not. I knew what would happen if I—”
“Agnes.”
Agnes stopped.
Daisy waited until Agnes looked at her.
“You don’t have to defend yourself to me.”
Agnes stared at her like Daisy had spoken in another language.
Which, honestly, she kind of had.
Agnes looked back down.
“I wanted to comfort her,” she whispered. “But I also wanted to touch her.”
There it was.
Not the kiss.
Not really.
The wanting.
Gilead could survive almost anything except a girl admitting she wanted something.
Daisy felt something hot and helpless move through her chest.
Agnes’s hands were shaking now, very slightly. She pressed them flatter against the table.
“I thought if I touched her face, it might make her less afraid. And then she looked at me.”
Daisy held still.
Agnes’s voice dropped.
“She looked at me as if I had found her somewhere no one else had known to look.”
The sentence sat between them.
Daisy looked away first.
Because Agnes said things like that sometimes. Quietly. Accidentally. Like she had opened a drawer and found poetry hidden under the knives.
“And then?” Daisy asked.
Agnes swallowed.
“And then we kissed.”
The refrigerator hummed.
Daisy nodded.
Agnes’s face crumpled for half a second before she smoothed it back into place.
“I don’t know who began it.”
“That’s okay.”
“I should know.”
“Why?”
“Because if it was me, then I—” Agnes stopped.
Daisy waited.
Agnes did not finish.
She didn’t have to.
Then I sinned.
Then I tempted her.
Then I took something.
Then I wanted too much.
Daisy rubbed a hand over her face.
“Did Becka want to kiss you?”
Agnes looked stricken.
“I think so.”
“You think so?”
Agnes closed her eyes.
“She kissed me back.”
Daisy nodded slowly.
“And afterward?”
Agnes opened her eyes.
“She cried.”
Daisy’s chest hurt.
“But not like…” Agnes shook her head quickly. “Not like I had hurt her. ”
Daisy looked down at the table.
At Agnes’s hands.
At the place where Becka’s had probably fit once, in another country, under another kind of terror.
“Well,” Daisy said, voice rougher than she wanted, “that sounds pretty consensual to me.”
Agnes blinked.
Daisy winced.
“Sorry. That was a very Canadian word to throw at you.”
“It sounds like a disease.”
“It is not a disease.”
“It sounds like something one might catch from a public restroom.”
“Okay, first of all, rude to consent.”
Agnes frowned, confused despite herself.
Daisy pointed at her. “No, don’t look at me like that. Consent is good. Consent is, like, the whole point.”
“The whole point of kissing?”
“The whole point of anything where someone else’s body is involved.”
Agnes absorbed that with terrifying seriousness.
Daisy sat back.
“Consent means both people want it,” she said. “Not just allow it. Not endure it. Not freeze and hope it ends. Want it. Choose it. Can stop it.”
Agnes’s eyes lowered.
“That seems simple.”
“It should be.”
A small silence.
Then Agnes said, “It was not simple in Gilead.”
“No,” Daisy said. “It wasn’t.”
And there it was again.
The whole country, sitting at the kitchen table with them.
Daisy hated it.
She hated how it got into everything. Tea. Sleeves. Doorways. Kisses. The way Agnes could say Becka kissed me back and still sound like she was awaiting execution.
Agnes wrapped both hands around the mug, though she still did not drink.
“I want to kiss her again,” she said.
Daisy softened.
“Okay.”
Agnes looked up sharply. “Is that selfish?”
Daisy’s first instinct was to say no.
Immediately.
Loudly.
Maybe while throwing the cereal box at the wall.
But Agnes did not need loud. Not right now.
Agnes had spent her entire life being corrected by certainty.
So Daisy breathed.
Then she said, “Wanting isn’t selfish by itself.”
Agnes stared at her.
“It can become selfish,” Daisy said. “If you decide your wanting matters more than Becka’s comfort. Or her fear. Or her no. Or her not-yet. If you push. If you pressure. If you make your feelings her responsibility.”
Agnes went very still.
Daisy leaned forward.
“But wanting to kiss her again? Missing it? Liking it?” Daisy shook her head. “That’s not selfish. That’s human.”
Agnes closed her eyes.
For one second, all the carefulness left her face.
The relief was so naked Daisy had to look down at the table.
Finally, Agnes whispered, “I liked it.”
Daisy smiled a little.
“Yeah.”
Agnes opened one eye.
Daisy held up both hands. “Not in a creepy way. I just mean, yeah. That makes sense.”
Agnes looked down, embarrassed.
A faint flush had crept into her cheeks.
It was possibly the most Agnes version of scandal Daisy had ever seen.
“It was not…” Agnes hesitated. “It was not improper.”
Daisy lifted an eyebrow.
“I mean,” Agnes corrected quickly, “it was. According to everything I was taught, it was very improper. Almost certainly. In several categories.”
“Several categories?”
Agnes nodded seriously.
Daisy pressed her lips together.
Do not laugh.
Do not laugh at the traumatized bisexual.
She failed a little.
Agnes looked offended.
“I am trying to explain.”
“I know. I’m sorry. Several categories just got me.”
Agnes’s mouth tightened, but not fully.
Not like before.
Progress.
“It did not feel improper,” Agnes admitted.
Daisy’s smile faded into something gentler.
“No?”
Agnes shook her head.
“It felt…” She looked down at her tea. “Quiet.”
Daisy waited.
“Everything that day was so loud,” Agnes said. “Even when no one was speaking. The dress. The prayers. The aunts. The walls. My own thoughts.” Her fingers curled around the mug. “And then Becka looked at me, and it all became quiet.”
Daisy’s throat hurt.
Agnes did not cry.
That almost made it worse.
“It was the only honest thing in the room,” she said.
Daisy swallowed.
“Agnes.”
“I know honesty is not the same as goodness.”
“No,” Daisy said softly. “But in Gilead, sometimes it was the closest thing you had.”
Agnes looked at her then.
Really looked.
Like something in Daisy’s voice had given away more than she meant to.
For a second, Daisy thought of Shunammite in the kitchen at midnight.
Freedom was not one thing.
It was a thousand little humiliations.
A thousand choices nobody had taught them how to make.
Agnes rubbed her thumb over the mug.
“Does that make it love?”
Daisy closed her eyes briefly.
There it was.
The L word.
Not that one.
“Okay,” Daisy said. “Wow. Good morning to you too.”
Agnes’s face went pale.
“I should not have asked.”
“No, no. You can ask.” Daisy rubbed both hands over her face. “I just need you to understand that I have not had coffee and my brain is currently two raccoons fighting over a Pop-Tart.”
Agnes blinked.
Then, very quietly, she said, “I am sorry.”
Daisy’s face softened immediately.
“No. Don’t be. I’m joking.” A pause. “Mostly.”
Agnes looked down again.
Daisy thought carefully.
This was the problem with Agnes. She made Daisy want to answer correctly.
Shunammite made Daisy want to argue.
Becka made Daisy want to draw diagrams.
Agnes made Daisy feel like the words mattered.
Like if Daisy said the wrong thing, Agnes would fold it into herself and carry it around for the next ten years.
“I don’t know if one kiss makes something love,” Daisy said.
Agnes nodded, like she had expected that.
“But,” Daisy continued, “wanting someone safe. Missing them when they leave a room. Wanting to make them laugh. Feeling like the whole house changes when they look at you.”
Agnes went very still.
Daisy softened.
“That sounds closer.”
Agnes looked toward the hallway.
Becka was not there.
“She laughs here,” Agnes said.
Three words.
That was all.
But Daisy understood.
Becka laughing was still new enough to feel like weather changing.
Not the polite sound she made when she was trying to make someone else comfortable. Not the nervous little exhale she used to soften herself. A real laugh. Sudden. Bright. Usually startled out of her by something stupid Daisy said, something Shunammite misunderstood, or Agnes doing something deeply Agnes-like and pretending she hadn’t.
The first time Daisy heard it, she had looked up so fast she nearly dropped a plate.
Agnes had looked too.
Of course she had.
Agnes was always looking.
“Before, she laughed when it was expected. But she did not laugh like she does here.” Agnes repeated, softer. “And when she does, I feel…”
Daisy waited.
Agnes pressed her lips together.
“I feel thankful.”
The word came out wrong.
Thankful.
In Gilead, gratitude had always belonged to Him. Thank Him. Praise Him. Blessed be His mercy. Thankfulness was something you performed with your head bowed and your hands folded, even when what you felt was fear.
Daisy’s expression softened too much to hide.
Agnes saw it and immediately stiffened.
“No. That is not what I mean.”
“I know.”
“I do not mean it in a virtuous way.”
“I know.”
Agnes looked pained. “I mean, I am thankful. But also I want to be the reason.”
Daisy’s chest hurt.
Agnes said it like a confession.
Like wanting to make Becka happy was a theft.
Daisy leaned forward.
“Agnes, that’s not bad.”
Agnes looked unconvinced.
“It sounds vain when said aloud.”
“Everything sounds weird when said aloud. That’s why people text.”
Agnes frowned. “Text?”
“Oh my God. We have so much work to do.”
“Daisy.”
“Sorry.” Daisy exhaled. “Wanting to make someone happy isn’t vain. It means you care.”
Agnes looked down at the table.
“I care about Becka.”
“Yeah.”
“More than I know what to do with.”
Daisy did not joke.
Agnes looked fragile around the edges now. Not broken. Agnes was not broken. Daisy hated when people said that about girls like them, as if surviving meant they had become less whole.
But fragile, yes.
Like something newly thawed.
Like if handled carelessly, it might go back to ice.
“I think about her all the time,” Agnes admitted. “Not intentionally. I try not to.”
“Why?”
“Because it feels indulgent.”
“Thinking?”
“Thinking of her.”
Daisy stared at her.
Agnes looked defensive in the smallest possible way.
“It is not productive.”
“Agnes.”
“Yes?”
“You are allowed to have a crush.”
Agnes froze.
Daisy froze too, because apparently crush was not the word to use.
Agnes looked horrified.
“A what?”
“A crush.”
“That sounds violent.”
“It is, emotionally.”
Agnes stared.
Daisy waved a hand. “It just means you like someone. Romantically. Thinking about them a lot. Wanting to be near them. Wanting them to laugh at your jokes. Wanting to kiss them. Feeling like you might die if they sit too close to you on the couch.”
Daisy’s brain, which apparently hated her and wanted her dead, immediately supplied an image of Shunammite.
Daisy killed the thought on sight.
Absolutely not.
Wrong girl. Wrong crisis. Wrong Tuesday.
Luckily, Agnes was too busy turning pink to notice Daisy’s brief internal collapse.
Pink.
All the way to her ears.
Her eyes were still wet, but the terror had shifted.
Not gone.
Never gone that easily.
But there was something else there now. Embarrassment. Relief. Maybe even the beginning of humour, which in this house felt like discovering fire.
Agnes looked at her tea.
When she spoke again, the softness had changed shape.
“When we were in Gilead, I knew what I was supposed to feel. Or at least, I knew what I was supposed to say I felt. Duty. Modesty. Gratitude. Obedience.” Her mouth twisted faintly. “So many small words for dying.”
Daisy said nothing.
“And then Becka…” Agnes stopped.
The kitchen seemed to hold its breath.
“Becka made me want to live,” Agnes said.
Daisy went still.
Agnes stared at the mug like she had not meant to say it.
Like the words had slipped past her careful mouth and now there they were, alive and unforgivable.
Daisy’s eyes burned.
She looked down immediately, because no. Absolutely not. She was not crying before coffee. That was where she drew the line as a person.
Agnes spoke again, smaller.
“That cannot be only friendship.”
Daisy breathed in.
“No,” she said. “Probably not.”
Agnes nodded once.
A tear finally slipped down her cheek.
She wiped it away quickly, almost angrily.
“If it is love…what then?”
Daisy didn’t answer right away.
Because the truth was terrible.
Because love had not saved them from Gilead.
Because wanting someone did not mean the world would suddenly become kind.
Because Becka still woke up afraid. Because Agnes still apologized to furniture when she bumped into it. Because Shunammite still looked at girls holding hands like Canada had invented a new weather system specifically to frighten her.
Because love did not fix everything.
But it had gotten them here.
Somehow.
“Then you take it slowly,” Daisy said. “And you don’t let Gilead be the only voice in your head about it.”
Agnes looked up.
Daisy shrugged.
“And maybe you talk to Becka.”
Agnes immediately looked like Daisy had suggested arson.
“It doesn't have to be today,” Daisy added quickly. “Not today is also fine. Huge fan of not today.”
Agnes let out a breath.
This time, it almost sounded like a laugh.
Daisy smiled a little.
“Are you sure?” Agnes asked.
Daisy thought about lying.
Not really.
But she thought about giving Agnes certainty, because Agnes wanted it so badly. Because certainty would be kinder in the moment.
Except Gilead had been full of certainty.
So Daisy told the truth.
“No,” she said. “I’m not sure. Not about everything.”
Agnes blinked.
Daisy held her gaze.
“But I’m sure you’re not wrong for loving her.”
Agnes closed her eyes.
For a moment, Daisy thought she might break.
For a moment, Daisy thought relief would come.
It did not.
Instead, Agnes breathed.
In.
Out.
A tear slid down her cheek.
Agnes made one small, terrible sound, and then she folded forward like something inside her had finally given way.
Daisy froze.
“Oh—Agnes.”
Agnes pressed both hands over her mouth.
Her shoulders shook.
Not politely.
Not beautifully.
The way girls cried when the body stopped asking permission.
Daisy stood so fast the chair scraped across the floor.
“I’m sorry,” Daisy said, immediately panicking. “Was that the wrong thing? Did I say it wrong? Oh, no, please don’t cry. I’m not qualified. I’m so bad at this before coffee.”
Agnes shook her head, but she was crying harder now.
Daisy hovered uselessly beside the table, every instinct in her body screaming touch her and don’t touch her at the exact same time.
That was when Shunammite appeared in the doorway.
Daisy’s first thought was: oh no.
Her second thought was: she is absolutely going to think I made Agnes cry.
Her third, much worse thought, was that Shunammite looked beautiful when she was angry, which was inappropriate for several reasons, including the fact that Shunammite might be about to commit breakfast violence in defense of Agnes.
Shunammite stood there in an oversized sweatshirt, hair loose over her shoulders, one sock half-slipping off her heel.
Her eyes went from Agnes’s wet face to Daisy.
Very slowly, her expression sharpened.
“Explain.”
There was something in Shunammite’s voice that made Daisy actually do it.
Not because she was afraid of Shunammite.
Well.
Maybe a little.
“Nothing,” Daisy said quickly. “A good nothing. A supportive nothing. An emotionally educational nothing.”
Shunammite stared.
Daisy raised both hands.
“Please don’t hit me with the kettle.”
Agnes blinked through her tears.
Shunammite’s eyes narrowed. “Why would I hit you with the kettle?”
“Because you look like you’re deciding whether I deserve blunt force trauma.”
“…I am not.”
“You hesitated.”
“I did not.”
“You definitely did.”
Shunammite ignored her and crossed the kitchen.
With a frightening Gilead-born purpose that made Daisy briefly consider whether all former wives-in-training had been secretly taught how to kill a person with posture alone.
Then Shunammite crouched beside Agnes’s chair.
Her whole face changed.
Not softened, exactly. Shunammite rarely softened. She redirected. All the sharpness stayed, but it turned careful.
“Agnes?” she said, softer. “What happened?”
Agnes shook her head.
“It was not Daisy,” she whispered.
Shunammite glanced at Daisy again.
Daisy pointed at herself. “Still innocent.”
“For now,” Shunammite said.
“Terrifying. Thank you.”
Agnes lowered her hands.
Her face was wet. Red. Ruined in a way she would have hated if she could see herself.
Shunammite turned back immediately.
Agnes tried to breathe and failed.
Shunammite hesitated, then reached for Agnes’s hand.
She did it carefully.
Like Agnes was something injured.
Like touch itself had to ask permission.
Agnes let her.
Shunammite looked down at their hands, then back at Agnes.
“What happened?”
Agnes swallowed.
For a moment, Daisy thought she would fold the whole truth back into herself. Hide it behind posture and scripture and all those locked little rooms Gilead had left in her.
But Agnes only breathed in.
Then she whispered, “I think I love Becka.”
Shunammite went still.
Daisy did too.
The kitchen seemed to shrink around the three of them.
Agnes looked at Shunammite with naked terror.
Shunammite’s lips parted.
No sound came out.
Agnes’s voice broke.
“And now I keep thinking—” She swallowed hard. “I keep hearing it.”
Daisy knew that Shunammite knew before Agnes said it.
Agnes looked at the table like the words were written there.
“Gender Traitor.”
The words landed like a slap.
Shunammite flinched.
Daisy felt her whole body go cold.
Agnes covered her mouth again, but the words kept coming, muffled and desperate.
“That is what they would call me. That is what they would call her. If they knew. If anyone had seen. If Aunt Lydia had known, if the Eyes had known, if—”
“Stop,” Shunammite said.
Agnes froze.
Shunammite’s face had gone pale, but her voice was steady. Too steady.
“Do not speak their words over yourself.”
Agnes stared at her.
Shunammite swallowed.
For once, she looked younger too.
“They would call you that,” Shunammite said. “Yes.”
Agnes made another small sound.
“Because they are cruel,” Shunammite said. “Not because it is your name.”
Daisy’s throat tightened.
Agnes began crying again, but quieter now.
Shunammite leaned closer.
“You are Agnes.”
Agnes shook her head.
“You are.”
“I don’t know how to be.”
Shunammite’s face crumpled for half a second before she forced it back into shape.
Daisy knew that move.
They all did.
Shunammite looked over her shoulder.
“Are you going to stand there?”
Daisy startled.
“Okay. Still not totally convinced you won’t attack me, but fine.”
Shunammite glared.
Daisy joined them.
Slowly.
She crouched on Agnes’s other side, careful to keep her hands visible.
“Agnes,” Daisy said softly, “can I touch your shoulder?”
Agnes nodded.
Daisy rested one hand there.
Agnes broke.
Not loudly.
Not dramatically.
She just bent forward until her forehead nearly touched the table, caught between Daisy’s hand on her shoulder and Shunammite’s hands around hers.
For a while, nobody said anything useful.
Maybe there wasn’t anything useful to say.
Maybe comfort was not always words.
Sometimes it was Shunammite holding on like she was personally keeping Agnes from being dragged backward into Gilead.
Sometimes it was Daisy rubbing slow circles over Agnes’s cardigan and trying not to cry into someone else’s crisis.
Eventually, Agnes whispered, “I thought if I loved her, it meant they were right about me.”
Daisy’s hand stilled.
Shunammite’s grip tightened.
“No,” Daisy said.
Agnes looked at her through tears.
Daisy’s voice was rough.
“It means they lied about love.”
Agnes squeezed her eyes shut.
Shunammite nodded once, fierce and trembling.
“They lied about everything,” she said.
Daisy looked at her.
Shunammite looked back, as if daring Daisy to comment.
Daisy did not.
Agnes let out a shaky breath.
“But I am frightened.”
“I know,” Shunammite said.
“And I am ashamed.”
“I know.”
Agnes looked stricken.
Shunammite softened, just barely.
“I know because I am ashamed too. All the time. Of things that are not sins. Of thoughts I did not choose. Of questions I am not supposed to have.” Her voice thinned. “But I am trying not to let them keep my shame.”
Agnes stared at her.
Daisy went very still.
Shunammite looked down at their joined hands.
“I do not know if I understand everything,” she admitted. “About you and Becka. About Canada. About any of this.” Her thumb moved once over Agnes’s knuckles. “But I know you are not wicked.”
Agnes’s face twisted.
“Shunammite.”
“You are not.”
Agnes leaned forward then.
Not much.
Just enough that Shunammite could meet her.
They folded into each other awkwardly at first, both too trained in restraint to know how to be held. Then Agnes made a sound like surrender and Shunammite wrapped both arms around her.
Daisy stayed crouched beside them.
One hand still on Agnes’s back.
The other pressed against her own knee because she needed something to hold onto too.
Shunammite rested her cheek against Agnes’s hair.
The room went quiet.
Not Gilead-quiet.
Canada-quiet.
A refrigerator humming. Snow ticking lightly against the window. The soft, ordinary sound of a house that was not listening for reasons to punish them.
Eventually, Agnes’s breathing slowed.
The kind of breathing that meant her body had finally remembered it was not in danger, even if her mind had not caught up.
Shunammite pulled back just enough to look at her.
Agnes covered her face with one hand.
“I’m sorry.”
“Do not apologize,” Shunammite said immediately.
Shunammite wiped one tear from Agnes’s cheek with the cautious focus of someone handling glass.
Agnes swallowed.
“They are not here.”
Agnes’s eyes searched hers.
Shunammite’s voice shook.
“We are.”
That did it.
Agnes started crying again, but this time she reached for Shunammite first.
Shunammite held her.
Daisy stayed close.
And for once, nobody tried to make the crying stop.
When Agnes finally pulled back, she looked exhausted. Hollowed out. But not alone.
Shunammite kept one hand in hers.
Daisy leaned against the table leg, sitting fully on the kitchen floor now because apparently this was her life.
Agnes wiped at her face.
Shunammite reached for a napkin and pressed it into Agnes’s hand.
Agnes took it.
Their fingers lingered.
A little.
Tenderly.
Like both of them were learning that gentleness did not have to be rationed.
Shunammite looked at Agnes for a long moment.
Then said, very quietly, “I am glad you told me.”
Agnes looked down.
“I was afraid you would hate me.”
Shunammite’s face changed.
Hurt, first.
Then shame.
Then something steadier.
“I thought something was wrong,” she admitted. “At first.”
Agnes flinched.
Shunammite did not let go of her hand.
“But I was wrong,” Shunammite said.
Agnes looked at her.
Shunammite looked embarrassed. Angry about being embarrassed. Still brave enough not to stop.
“I asked Daisy. She explained. Badly.”
“Excuse me,” Daisy said.
Shunammite did not look away from Agnes. “But she explained.”
Daisy shut her mouth.
Shunammite’s thumb moved once over Agnes’s knuckle, awkward and stiff and trying.
“She said you and Becka were allowed.”
Agnes’s breath shook.
“And you are.”
Daisy looked away.
Not because she didn’t want to see the moment.
Because it felt private.
Because Shunammite saying that was almost as brave as Agnes saying Gender Traitor out loud and surviving it.
Agnes’s mouth trembled.
"I think Canada is changing us," Agnes whispered.
Shunammite’s eyes filled suddenly.
She blinked hard, annoyed by them.
Daisy pretended not to notice.
Agnes squeezed her hand.
For a moment, the two of them sat there in the gray kitchen light, still in their nightclothes, still carrying Gilead in their bones, but not letting it have the final word.
Then Daisy cleared her throat.
“Okay,” she said. “I’m going to make coffee before any more emotional breakthroughs happen.”
Shunammite looked at her.
“You do not know how to make coffee.”
“That is slander.”
“You put grounds in the water part yesterday.”
“I was under duress.”
“You were sleepy.”
“That is a form of duress.”
Agnes laughed again.
Small.
Wet.
Real.
Daisy looked at her and smiled.
Shunammite did too.
Not much.
But enough.
Agnes took a careful sip of tea.
“I think I should go upstairs.”
“Good plan,” Daisy said, too loudly. “Great plan. Sleep. Very healthy. Love that.”
Agnes stood, then paused at the doorway.
“Daisy?”
“Yeah?”
“If I feel guilty tomorrow?”
Daisy’s face softened.
“Then you come back downstairs,” she said. “And we remind you again.”
Agnes nodded.
This time, when she smiled, it stayed.
After she left, the kitchen settled.
Shunammite looked at her.
Daisy looked back.
For a moment, all the things Daisy had spent the last hour explaining to Agnes sat between them, bright and terrible and unnamed.
Wanting.
Permission.
Fear.
Human.
Shunammite looked away first.
Daisy braced herself for the goodbye.
For Shunammite retreating upstairs.
For the conversation ending before it could become something worse.
Instead, Shunammite sat down in the chair beside her.
Daisy blinked.
Shunammite reached into the cereal box between them and took a single piece.
“You did that well,” she said.
Daisy snorted. “I ate dry cereal from a box and explained kissing like a youth pastor who got possessed by a bisexual.”
The corner of Shunammite’s mouth twitched.
“You comforted her.”
“Debatable.”
“She was crying less when she left.”
“That’s an incredibly low bar.”
“It still counts.”
Daisy looked down at the cereal box. “Yeah, well. Everyone keeps needing me for extremely specific gay counseling while I’m trying to eat, so apparently that’s my brand now.”
This time, Shunammite actually made a small sound.
Not quite a laugh.
But close enough that Daisy felt weirdly proud of herself.
When she looked up again, Shunammite was watching her.
With that face again.
The one Daisy had started cataloging in her head even though that was insane behavior.
The face that meant Shunammite had seen something and did not yet know what to call it.
“What?” Daisy asked.
Shunammite shook her head.
“Shu.”
The nickname landed.
It always did.
A tiny break in the armor.
Shunammite looked at the cereal in her hand.
Her other hand rested near Daisy’s on the table.
Not touching.
Just close.
A harmless thing.
A normal thing.
Daisy’s heart answered anyway.
For one small, dangerous second, neither of them said anything.
Then Shunammite looked at her hands.
“When Agnes talked about loving Becka…”
Daisy waited.
“I wondered,” Shunammite said carefully, “how people know.”
Daisy swallowed.
Shunammite looked up.
Her voice was quiet.
“Without saying it.”
The kitchen became very still.
There were a lot of answers.
Too many.
The way someone came to you with questions they were ashamed to ask anyone else.
The way they trusted you with the ugliest, most frightened parts of themselves.
The way sleeves touching could ruin an entire evening.
The way a name became something smaller and softer in one person’s mouth.
Daisy said none of that.
Instead she shrugged.
“Sometimes they don’t,” she said.
Something flickered across Shunammite’s face.
Not disappointment.
Not exactly.
Something close enough to make Daisy’s chest hurt.
“And sometimes,” Daisy added, quieter, “they know because the person stays.”
Shunammite looked at her.
Daisy looked back.
Neither of them moved.
Upstairs, a floorboard creaked.
Outside, snow dragged softly against the windows.
Canada kept existing.
Obscenely normal.
Daisy swallowed.
“You want coffee?” she asked.
Shunammite blinked.
“Okay.”
“Great.”
Daisy stood and immediately began pressing random buttons on the coffee machine.
Nothing happened.
“It’s mocking me.”
“You pressed the same button three times.”
“See? This is why I need coffee.”
Shunammite stepped closer to inspect the machine.
Close enough that their sleeves brushed.
Then brushed again.
Neither of them moved away.
Neither of them mentioned it.
Eventually the coffee machine sputtered to life.
Daisy considered that a personal victory.
The kitchen settled around them.
No crisis.
No questions.
No one crying.
Just the sound of coffee dripping into the pot and snow brushing softly against the window.
For the first time all morning, neither of them had a reason to stay.
Neither of them left.
Shunammite stayed beside her.
Even after every excuse to leave had run out.