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Agnes MacKenzie was good.
Becka knew that long before she’d met her.
Her father used to come home from his long hours at the dentistry office, telling of the events in his day over warm plates and muted smiles.
He was the best that Gilead had, which meant he only ever worked with the same. High Commanders sought him out for toothaches, cavities, even the slightest chip of their daughters’ whites, and there was not a day that Dr. Grove did not have a story to recite for his encounters.
Every time, without fail, Becka was urged to lean in to hear him, but she’d learned her lesson the first moment curiosity had enveloped her like sin. Her mother had pushed her chair so far forward that all she could do was sit up straight for the rest of the dinner, skin etched in by the rough edge of their table as proof of punishment. So, instead, she learned to quiet her chewing, stop the stabbing of her fork, and listen closely.
She didn’t much care for the names that brought that immediate awe into her mother’s eyes. Commander Winslow. Commander Weston. Commander Wharton. He talked of their accomplishments—the laws, the battles, the service. The power. It was something that they all—Gilead—craved, especially when Dr. Grove could only clutch at the seams of their suits, and as such, the topic of such officiants never tired.
Only when their families were brought into discussion did Becka truly light up in interest. Daughters her age, daughters older than her, daughters just born to Handmaids. Becka was still young. She spent all of her time at home with her mother and her Martha, waiting for the calling of enrollment into her classes. Waiting for the moment when she could know more, be more.
High Commander MacKenzie has a daughter Rebecka’s age, her father said one rainy night. He’d been addressing her mother, as he always had, for Becka was not to concern herself with the duties between a man and a wife - one that is not herself, at least. Agnes, if my mind is right.
Her mother had nodded politely. As the wife, her commentary would wait for him to finish.
She’s a good girl. Very polite, he’d smiled as he continued. Took to her first cleaning like a natural.
Pity about her mother, her own mother murmured as he paused to eat. Tabitha MacKenzie had passed from an illness recently enough that the news still struck sadness in the air. This was a stranger to Becka in all categories of life, but she was an important stranger, nonetheless. Commander MacKenzie was very powerful, after all.
A shame, Dr. Grove agreed. He let the topic of death settle. But the girl. The Commander will do well by her. She’s the sort who will make a good match without any trouble.
Thus, by the time that Becka stepped foot in Aunt Lydia School for girls, she had expected to find Agnes MacKenzie somewhat terrible.
She was competition - to the highest degree. They’ve only just become Pinks now—zipped in blush, hair pressed down—but before they know it, they’ll be Plums, and then Greens, and then they are to be married off to a Commander with all that they’ve learned since they were very, very little.
Becka was made aware that she was not, and never would be, the same as the surrounding Pinks she’d become initiated with. These are the daughters of the highest-ranked commanders. They’ve been taught and prepared by their Marthas, plural, and their perfect mothers for what is to come.
Becka was beautiful and she was—could be, would be—good, but she was certainly not them. Her father was not their fathers, and her Martha was not their Marthas, and her mother was not their mothers. But she would try to belong and she would do better. That was the way that Gilead lived and intended to live.
Becka Grove was not Agnes MacKenzie, but that happened to matter very little, she’d soon discovered. Nobody was like Agnes MacKenzie in the slightest. She was one, two, even three steps ahead of the rest of them, and it was an implausibility to compare.
Agnes was good. Agnes, with her kind eyes and polite tone, with her nimble fingers and perfect memory. She didn’t have to perform for the Aunts, the Pinks, herself—like it was all simply ingrained in her - this level of precision, this caliber of goodness.
It was impolite to stare, Becka knew, but she couldn’t look away.
As a much needed distraction, in her first days of schooling, Becka makes friends with Shunammite Hayes. Though, you weren’t allowed to call it that. As girls, they’re not supposed to be friends—or anything that could assume the Aunts’ label of particular attachments. These attachments may start innocently, they’d been warned, but they ultimately lead to sin. They lead to distractions from the word of God and the duties of their kind for Gilead. But, if she could not call it a friend, then Shunammite becomes… familiar.
She was the daughter of one of the more established High Commanders, as per the hush from her father and her peers, and she didn’t make Becka feel any less for being otherwise. Or, at the very least, she did not do so on purpose. She is blunt, yes, but not cruel - never cruel, and it was a quality to be appreciated, selectively.
They sit together at lunch, tail towards the ice cream line side-by-side, and find each other in the hallways between classes. Shunammite points out the Plums by name, letting Becka in on all that she knows from her father and his connections, like which Plums are now Greens or which Greens are being married off to which Commanders. A commander from the Colonies for her, she’d scorned many times over, shaking her head. I can’t think of a worse fate.
One day, after they’ve rubbed their mouths raw with soap, they can only look at each other and giggle. Becka had cursed out loud, having pricked her finger with a needle to the point of bleeding. It was the first time she’d ever uttered such a word, and the widening of her eyes had elicited a surprised laugh from Shunammite. They’d both been immediately lectured by the Aunts for taking pleasure in sinful expressions, before being sent accordingly to the Pinks’ first punishment. The task had been recommended by another Pink, one of the ploys to foster the competitive environment among them. Becka had avoided Shunammite’s gaze the entire trek towards the bathroom, fearing the anger present there.
There is none. Becka is only struck with a lightness in her chest at the sight of Shunammite’s crinkled eyes. The shame she’d felt moments prior washes away with the suds, and she thinks to herself - this is a friend. A blessing like this, from Him, would never be sin.
The same day, another blessing comes to Becka: Agnes MacKenzie finds a spot beside her at lunch. Becka blinks, unable to tear her eyes away from the unexpected guest, who’d typically found herself a couple of seats away with the other High Commanders’ daughters. Agnes gives her a small smile in return, and they sit in silence, waiting for the Aunts to release them into their social hour.
“Hi,” Agnes greets, once the crowds around them are allowed to explode with lively chatter. “Blessed day.”
Shunammite speaks first, and Becka thanks the Lord for the opportunity to soothe her sudden dry throat. “Blessed day, Agnes!”
“Blessed day,” Becka nods, rather woodenly. Shunammite’s attention flits to her. Judgement. She picks at her thumb.
Agnes tucks a lip beneath her teeth, careful enough not to blemish the skin there. “Pray, is your hand alright?”
Becka looks down at her wrapped finger for a second, the hidden burn now dulling. “The bleeding’s over.”
Another smile. Becka only burns warmer - no, brighter.
“Then,” Agnes starts, a level of coyness in her tone, “is your mouth alright?”
Her eyes dance from Becka to Shunammite, and Becka nearly balks. “What?”
“She’s joking, Becka,” Shunammite explains, raising her brows in slight amusement. “You’re allowed to laugh.”
“I was,” Agnes says. There’s a mixture between laughter and apology in her admission. “Sorry. It’s not a laughing matter.”
“No,” Becka replies, quickly, face flushing. “It’s fine. It had to be done for God’s mercy. And now, there is nothing that ice cream can’t relieve.”
Agnes breaks out into a bigger smile. “You’re right. Praise be His bounty.”
Becka smiles then, too. It’s not the same smile she gives Shunammite, when they greet each other in the morning or bid farewell in the evening, the kind of smile that’s earned through familiarity. It’s reserved, small. Tinged with… With what, exactly?
She’s smiling at Agnes MacKenzie, staring at Agnes MacKenzie, and she doesn’t know why, but it’s fear that pricks at her heart. She’s unfamiliar and good and Becka wants to know more.
To their shock, Agnes follows by confessing about the time she’d had her mouth taped for smiling at a boy. She was young, younger than they were now, and hadn’t realized the implications when she’d made eye contact as they awaited their separate buses. What a slut, Shunammite teases, and Agnes playfully rolls her eyes. They talk about classes, talk about which ones come easier to them and not, talk about what they like and dislike, and Becka listens and listens and listens.
They quickly become a set of three. Then four, when Agnes invites another Pink, Hulda, on their side of the table. Over and over, they’re reprimanded for their mirth, snapped to attention, and punished once sinned. Many corrections stumble into few, and it soon becomes a rare occurrence for the Pinks to be scolded to the eyes of the others.
“You are becoming women,” Aunt Estée praises. “I am already proud of the day that you will all blossom into Plums.”
“Not all,” Shunammite says, low enough to avoid scolding.
Becka flicks her gaze towards where Shu’s lingers. There stands one of the only Pinks like her—not the daughter of a Commander, but of a renowned doctor instead. Ex-doctor, her mind corrects for her. Her father had told her the news, how the doctor had failed an important treatment for Commander Wharton, and the infection he’d suffered grew severe enough to delay his military calling. The doctor had been dismissed from his position quietly, demoted to the Colonies. It was only a matter of time before she would soon be withdrawn from their school. It was the only sensible outcome, with such a loss in status.
Bile claws up Becka’s throat. Could this be her fate? One mistake, not even hers, and she’d have her entire life taken from her. Have this taken from her.
A hand brushes against her wrist. Agnes is much taller now, prettier too, now that time has passed, but she’s still her Agnes. She does not remember when she became her Agnes or how, but she is. Becka cannot thank God enough for blessing her, blessing everyone, with this one person. Agnes’ touch trails down further—she’s leaning, posture imperfect—and she locks their pinkies together for only a heartbeat, maybe two, but it’s enough.
Next cycle, when the weather lightens, when the gardens produce plentiful harvests, they find themselves—no, rather, they’re declared as ripened.
It happened quickly, as the Aunts had always told them it would. The morning of, Becka slides her hands down her new dress, fastened perfectly to her growing build. The Pink uniform, at last, had begun to press tighter at the seams, and her mother assumed it a waste of money to tailor further. Any day now, she’d reminded Becka, you’ll become a Plum. It will be wonderful.
Though, did Becka feel wonderful?
She wouldn’t describe it that way.
She was to wear a Plum outfit, was to take the Plum bus, and was to attend the Plum classes. Her parents seemed prouder of her than ever, constantly highlighting the beauty she’s grown into, the promise of her future ahead. Not wonderful, exactly, but… different. Different enough to fester something within her.
Different enough to bloom something within everyone else.
The Aunts take to the lessons with newfound fervor. The subjects are more or less the same, but there’s a definitive dip in the atmosphere - not negative, but palpable. They knew this was always preparation for what is to come—preparation to become the perfect wives to the chosen Commanders—but it was beginning to feel more like a finishing. They were being sanded, varnished, ready to be inserted into promised homes.
Most of the Plums leaned into it, with something akin to but stronger than just zeal.
“Imagine a Commander from the North,” Shunammite says in lieu of a greeting, the second after they’re called to socialize. Her tone is low, conspiratorial almost, like she’s sharing the secret of secrets. “My father tells me that the North has proper estates. Great, big mansions with the largest fields around. Houses can not even compare. I would love that.”
“You’ll freeze,” Hulda points out, frowning at the idea.
“I’d have furs. I’d be rich enough to.”
Agnes laughs then. “You’ve thought about this a lot, haven’t you?”
“Haven’t you?” Shunammite asks, including Becka in the drift of her gaze. “Haven’t we all? It would be a good life. A real household in a real estate. Children, Marthas, Guardians. A perfect life, by God’s grace.”
“A dog, possibly,” Hulda smiles to herself at the thought.
They nod their general agreement. It’s a comfortable murmur of girls imagining the future of their reality. The same future they’ve been pushed to imagine their entire lives.
Is it really so appealing to imagine a dream like this? One that was implanted in you, but never quite yours?
Becka looks down at her plate. She had tried, she had really tried, the same way the rest of them had and succeeded. In her mind, she’d arranged her future piece-by-piece, like threads in embroidery—the kind of embroidery where they’d simply mimicked the designs set out for them by the Aunts, no such thing as individualism expected. There was a strand for her, of course. One for the Commander that she’d marry. A Martha. A child. Maybe even two. Perhaps a dog, just as Hulda suggested. The perfect image.
The perfect image, and yet she didn’t feel what she was supposed to feel. She doesn’t know what it is exactly, what it is that she should be feeling, whether it’s meant as happiness or anticipation or hope or all of the above, but she looks at the girls around her and knows, knows there’s an absence inside of her.
“Becka?” Agnes prompts, and she meets her gaze.
Agnes is watching her carefully, eyes kind and curious. Over the years they’ve grown together, from Pink to Plum, Becka has learned that, while Agnes is warm to most if not all, there’s a special sort of warmth that she reserves for Becka, just Becka. Although, as she looks into her eyes now, warmth doesn’t quite capture the burn she feels in return.
Becka shapes her mouth into a smile. “A good life. By God’s grace.”
Agnes holds her gaze for a moment, one that lasts longer than necessary. She doesn’t exactly doubt Becka, she would never—they’re best friends, they trust each other more than life, and Becka can’t bear to truly, deeply lie to Agnes—but there’s a question that lingers there. Shunammite calls for Agnes’ attention with another hypothetical, and the thread between them snaps.
It is a recurring thought that Becka’s had, ever since she was a little girl. Ever since she was a Pink and befriended Shunammite and Agnes and Hulda and the rest of her peers. I wish time would slow down. It’d been the thought that sprung in the moments of utmost joy, when they shared memories of their free days, took bites of each other’s snacks, laughed and laughed at unfunny jokes: if only she could stay in this moment forever, with these people forever.
Now the Plum season is deepening, and it’s grown into a desperate sort of plea. Not like before, not because she was so happy that she couldn’t imagine a time she could be happier - but because she’s come to the honest realization that the current life that she has contains Agnes. Agnes, who greets her every day with a wrinkle in her nose and a hook of her pinky. Agnes, who seeks her out first before class, in class, after class, because she must inform Becka of her thoughts, even those that make little sense. Agnes, who fits seamlessly with every single part of Becka, even those that are yet to come.
The honest realization—
The Commander’s house will not contain Agnes.
But she hopes Agnes will visit.
She hopes, she hopes, she hopes, she prays.
Weeks, or months, move forward.
Becka has settled for shielding her discomfort with humor. When Shunammite asks her about the colors she’d like for her wedding, she tells her Pink and Plum, maybe Green. Although Shu frowns at her for not taking the question seriously, it earns a giggle from Agnes, and that immediate pang of pride in Becka— forever, please, God, forever.
The Plums had complained of the Pearl Girls being snitches, from the moment they’d been inducted into the Aunt Lydia School. They were even more out of place than Becka, the white a direct contrast to their deep plum, brought in from outside Gilead as if they could be saved from their sins, so long as they reported over each one they’d witnessed.
These days, however, Becka has noticed that the Plums have stooped to their level, have resorted to betrayal for even one measly inch ahead of the rest. She finds the behavior abhorrent, though she is well-aware that it is actually obedience.
“I don’t understand,” Becka states, frowning at the Plum who’d been publicly humiliated for calling another a slut, among other flowery language.
“What?” Agnes looks over. She blinks, eyes drifting slightly, then moves to adjust Becka’s backpack strap.
“Thanks,” Becka murmurs, before continuing. “I don’t understand why this is making everyone all so crazy.”
Agnes’ eyes twinkle with amusement. “Crazy like what?”
“Like Pearl Girls.” A pause. “Even they have started to report on us less than we have our own selves.”
“You’re not wrong,” Agnes says. She bumps their shoulders. “You know they all want a good match.”
Becka grimaces. She does know. Everything they’ve ever done was to find a good match. Everything their parents have ever done was to find a good match. Looking good in front of the Aunts meant they would feel more inclined to choose well and above for you. Your skills were only a part, your beauty another, and your flattery the rest.
“We have not yet been blessed,” Becka mutters, though her tongue does not feel right around the word. “Not a single one of us. I don’t— I don’t understand the rush.”
The look that Agnes levels with her is almost sad. Almost pitiful. Like Becka has not quite reached their levels of discernment, has not realized the wonder that would be coming their way, of the marriage, the family, the life. That one day it will come, where Becka joins in on their domestic conversations with new passion, and it will be settled and right once she understands that they must grow.
Agnes does not know that Becka perhaps understands far greater than her and them and the Aunts and everyone.
What she does not understand is why.
Why does she feel the way that she does? Why is she not like the rest of them?
Why, God, why, she pleads, bloodshot eyes bore into her reflection in the empty nights. Why have you made me this way?
The confession bubbles under her skin, threatens to burst against the flesh. It burns her blood hot, wounds her veins so tight. It hurts, but denying it, ignoring it, hurts more.
Because when she weaves it all together for the future—the one that feels right, the one that feels wrong—hers and Agnes’ threads cross in the stitch.
She wants to be good. She must be. She’s been made a Plum because she is pretty, and she’s been made pretty because God has decided so.
She wants, wants, wants to be good. Everything else has fallen into place for her.
“You’re the best of us,” Agnes has said to her, not once in a lifetime, but twice now, in moments when the sun is shining and Becka shines with her. It’s an unwarranted comment; the conversation had been steered, but Agnes has always been this way when it comes to her. “You’re radiant, really. Beautiful.”
Though, somewhere along her perfect seams, she’s frayed. The work of God left half-finished, just waiting to unravel.
Fix me, Becka addresses Him, knees bent at the foot of her bed. Let me be good. Please. I know what’s wrong with me.
She knows what it means, she knows what she is—has long accepted that this is a part of her, that it is her, though she can never bring herself to say it aloud. Between the quiet walls of her room, in the absence of the Aunts and her peers, this is where God attends alone. It’s not natural. It’s horrific. It sullies His love that they’ve been blessed with, His love that is reserved between Commander and Wife.
His love that she only feels for Agnes.
Her prayers lay discarded, unanswered.
Give me a sign, she says, pressing bitten fingers against the line of her teeth. I’ll show you this. But if it’s not enough— if it’s still wrong, if it’s not enough, give me a sign.
She closes her eyes, tight, and bares her mouth to Him. Look. Don’t you see? Can’t you? You must see it— you must see how dull she’s made my bite.
Uncertainty in His silence makes her bloom with rot. She’s spoiled fruit that’s softened with its bruises, the beauty of His craft now left tainted. Anything, anything, please—and then, when the sun sets the following day:
Becka bleeds.
She’s the first of them.
It’s darker than she’d imagined. Darker than any blood that’s seeped from her skin. Almost black in the dimness of her room, no star in the dreary sky, and she stares down at her soiled cloth and thinks to herself - is this His punishment?
He’s taken her fraying edge and sewn it down.
When she was only half her height, apples of her cheeks round with girlish youth, her worst fear was that she could never, would never belong with them, the ones that she did not want to be without - not when her father was a mere dentist, and theirs stood strong as Commanders. It’s funny, she thinks numbly. How she’s cemented her spot into Gilead now.
She looks into the mirror after she’s cleaned herself, and she can’t see a mother in the girl there.
“Oh, Becka!” her mother exclaims at the sight the very morning, and Becka has never witnessed such happiness. “I was expecting this blessed day to come, when God truly saw just how much you love Him, and He would know exactly what to do.”
She smiles, as she’s meant to.
She rings the bell, as she’s meant to, and the echo of its chime follows her down the stairs she’d climbed one step at a time. The sound joins the mumble of the girls that have gathered, the excitement in the air of the promise: this would happen to them soon enough. She was the first ripple in the pond.
“Rebecka Grove,” Aunt Vidala says, mirth in her expression, when she approaches. “What a blessed day this is.” They are so, so happy that she has blossomed. They are happy every time a Plum turns Green. She does not think they have ever been prouder of her.
“As He blessed Leah and Ruth,” Becka recites from memory, “He has blessed me this day, and He too has saved me from barrenness. By His hand, He will make me fruitful.”
“Praise be His mercy,” Aunt Vidala nods, signaling for Aunt Estée. She turns back to Becka, pin in hand. “Your blessing is a blessing upon us all.”
She’s pinned, and the crowd sings with her praises—Praise be, Becka—and she’s allowed into the comfort of her friends. They take her into their arms, smiles stretched wide, and she is surrounded by love and friendship and all good things and not sin.
“Don’t overwhelm her,” Agnes tells them all, and they sheepishly step back from Becka, although their energy remains vibrant. “She is still the same Becka as she was yesterday.”
Becka catches Agnes’ eye. They both know that’s not true. The Becka today is a woman now.
When she gets the chance to hug Agnes, finally, she closes her eyes and inhales in her scent softly - slow down, time, slow down.
They attend a field trip that day, the buzz from her blessing not yet tamed—though, she’s glad for the distraction—and Becka now stares up at the hanged bodies before her, heartbeat rapid from the play they’ve just had.
It is not an unwelcome sight. They have seen God’s justice take place plenty, from the school balcony, punishment towards those men earned for defiling themselves and the world around them.
“Gender traitors,” Shunammite says as the other girls are called to attention, and Becka whips her head at her, alarmed. She is not looking at her. “The triangle symbol—that’s what it means.”
It’s divine justice, Becka knows. She presses a glove down on her new enamel pin. It was silly of her to ever think her bloodied underwear was His punishment for her. Not when the faces around her light up with the blessing.
This, she thinks, as the wind brushes through the folds of the symbol-painted bags, is the punishment.
“Come to my house tomorrow,” Agnes tells her, when they’re seated back on the bus. “It’s been too long.”
“Since we were little,” Becka says, the corner of her mouth lifting in nostalgia. “Paula won’t mind?”
Agnes makes a face. “God doesn’t need to tell me how ecstatic Paula will be when she finds out our Plum season is blooming. Trust me, she won’t mind.”
Agnes links their pinkies, and Becka smiles at her as she nods her attendance.
That night, Becka wakes to Aunt Lydia.
She’s ushered silently into a car, where they follow the familiar path the bus takes to the school in her company’s name. Her body feels weak, she has not been sleeping well, but she is more than awake. Her pulse buzzes in her chest as she follows Aunt Lydia’s guidance, the only light flickering from meticulously arranged candles.
She walks through an archway of stone, then past a tunnel of hooded figures that lead her into a vast pool. On the other side, the Aunts stand behind a podium.
“We gather here tonight,” Aunt Lydia starts, “as this daughter of Gilead comes of age, seeking His divine protection. And she will need it—His protection—for being a woman on God’s green Earth is no easy feat.”
Becka blinks her confusion, stepping towards Aunt Estée’s offered hand, entering the water as the figures begin to disperse around her.
“But we needn’t look so far back to see the suffering of women, do we?” Aunt Lydia continues. The water is to her knees now. “That’s why Gilead was created. To bring women back to their rightful place.”
She reaches Aunt Estée, and she coaxes her into a floating position, the back of her nightgown cold as water floods her ears. Aunt Lydia’s following words feel far away now.
“The world will be lost without you! Who can bring forth God’s children? Who will populate this world, so His divine presence can be multiplied? Who but you?” A pause. “You join your Sisters now, in this holy endeavor.”
Aunt Estée’s palms press down, and then Becka is plunged underwater. Her body reacts immediately, arms thrashing against the current. She’s slow, so slow, and the water is so heavy against her. Through the surface of the water, she can see shadows staring down at her. They’re blurry, and her eyes are hurting, trying to look past the haziness of it all—so she shuts them as hard as she can, succumbing to nothing but darkness over each of her senses.
There’s a muted throb, the blood of her own ears, but there’s something else outside of the fear that’s drowning her—some sort of relief of being suspended between Earth and Heaven at this moment.
Through her closed eyes, she can almost imagine a light. It’s a blip of warmth in the ice her skin feels, and in her mind, like always, there she is. Agnes.
Hands pull her back to the surface.
Becka comes up heaving, water expending from her nose, her mouth, and all she can remember from Aunt Lydia’s final words, through the coughs and the ringing in her head, are Blessed be the fruit, and she’s still drowning.
Tomorrow comes, as promised, and it’s the first tomorrow in a while that Becka has truly looked forward to.
The MacKenzie house has not changed, not really, but she’s taller now—they all are. In the scale of her growing years, the house that she once knew was only a childish memory.
They take the stairs, Becka following Agnes up. She remembers the first time she’d been allowed to visit Agnes, when they were Pinks and she climbed the stairs with her hand held carefully away from the bannister. She watches Agnes slide her fingers across the wood now, smiling to herself.
They sit at her window, in her room that’s much larger than any bedroom in Becka’s house.
She’s always liked Agnes’ room, she remembers now. Not just because of the size—though the lavishness was a part of it, definitely, because it couldn’t not be. But Shunammite had a big room, and Becka found that she didn’t quite like it as much. There were other things, like her dollhouse, and her bed, and the mirrors that filled the hallways, and— Agnes. There was Agnes.
“I wish I was a Green,” Agnes says, tilting her head. Becka looks at her, and she shrugs, shy. “So, we could be Greens together.”
Becka musters a smile. “Me too. I wish I wasn’t the first one.”
“Why?”
“It feels… real. Everything does.”
“Didn’t it always?” Agnes raises her brows.
“It was more like a dream,” Becka answers, staring at her hands. “We used to be Pinks.”
Agnes has a fond look at that. “We did. Then, we became Plums.”
“Then, we became Plums,” Becka repeats. She absentmindedly finds her pin, pressing against the metal. “Now, I’m a Green.”
“You’ve been blessed,” Agnes agrees, and the knot in Becka’s stomach twists. She sighs. “Our lives—it’s all moving so fast.”
“Too fast.”
She means it differently than Agnes does, not with the wistful excitement that causes Shunammite and Hulda to pout and squeeze each other’s hands, promising each other they’d try to visit with their future daughters.
Slower. Please. Just a little longer.
Agnes is looking out the window now, the corners of her mouth turned up pleasantly. It was a blessed day of beautiful weather, and it’d been warm enough that Becka had quickly eased out of last night’s baptism. The light catches on Agnes’ face, striking a line against her jaw, the curve of her cheek, and Becka can’t bear to examine her any longer.
She looks at the dollhouse, instead.
Like the real house, the replica stayed the same. Becka can imagine her younger self, circling the table with wide eyes and a toothy grin, oohing and aahing as Agnes gave her a tour of its interior. Agnes had whispered to her one time, breath tickling her ears, that she’d lock up the Wife doll when she played by herself, because it was Paula in her head.
A house with a Commander and a Wife and a Plum and a Pink and a Martha.
This would be her life.
Becka would be going into a house like that, one that’s smaller, most likely—unless she marries a very High Commander, maybe even one from the North with an estate like Shunammite said—and Agnes would be at another house, with a different Commander, and that would be Agnes’ life.
That was always going to be the case.
“Do you want to play?”
Becka blinks.
Agnes has unfolded herself from the window seat, staring at Becka with a question in her stare. “Like we used to.” She offers a small smile, brow lifting. “I’ll even let you pick.”
Her smile hooks up at the corner, as soon she finishes her sentence, and Becka can’t help but return it, the widest smile she’s had in days. Agnes’ eyes are practically glittering, and she’s pressing her lips in a tight line to stifle a giggle. Something in Becka’s expression seems to make the dam burst a moment later, and she laughs out loud, girlish and wonderful and good.
“Okay.” Becka stands up, warm all over, taking Agnes’ pinky into hers, and they head towards the dollhouse together, the same way that they used to.
Just for today, they can keep pretending.
-
“I’ll be the Commander. You be you.”