P Mattern

American Handmaidens P Mattern

What would you do with a terrible secret? Would you bury it as deeply as it would goOr talk about it as soon as you were able to anyone willing to listen? I was the sister who buried it. Lyn was the sister who refused to. In the end, it cost her everything. Some secrets are too terrible to keep. Excerpt from American Handmaidens CHAPTER ONE - BOXING DAYI am excited. My father, a tall, handsome WWII vet who returned home to land a government job, is taking his old boxing gloves out of the top of the hall closet. He tells my sister and me that he used to box in the army and did pretty well. I am excited because boxing is on TV every Friday in the post-war era, and it looks like fun, dancing around and throwing punches and blocking them. He gets down the slightly dusty boxes and proceeds to lace up the smaller of the pair on me. I feel powerful just having the leather gloves hanging from my spindly arms. I am six years old, my younger sister Lyn is three and a half, and looks on with wide cornflower blue eyes. She is beautiful, like a seraphim, with perfect blonde corkscrew curls and dimples. I am the plain sister, the one strangers never notice. My grandmother on my mother's side notices this, takes me aside, and tells me not to worry because I am' distinguished looking.'My father has finished lacing his own gloves on, and he gives my sister a bell to ring to signal the first round as we square off in opposite corners of the living room. My entire body thrums with excitement. This is an unprecedented special event. I am particularly impressed that my father makes it clear that he WANTS me to take a shot at him and land some punches. I think this is very cool. My father has taken off his shirt. He is a mechanical engineer and works on huge machines at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing in Washington, D. C. He is very muscular, with well-developed biceps and pecs, and he looks excited too as he gives my sister a nod to ring the bell for the first round. I run to the center, swinging haphazardly for all I am worth. My father laughs and easily blocks my punches. I laugh too. And then he moves in more closely and starts punching me, and I stop laughing. His first punch catches me in the jaw and knocks my head back. I am startled and drop my gloves so that his next punch also lands cleanly on my forehead. I feel dizzy. He doesn't stop but begins punching me in the chest and stomach. The stomach punch knocks the breath out of me, and I fall backward on my rear end on the carpet. I hear my sister scream as I shake my head. Just like in the cartoons, I think I see rotating circles with birdies flying around. I look up through my disoriented haze and see that my sister has jumped up on my father's back, and she is still screaming."STOP! STOP DADDY! YOU'RE KILLING HER!"My father looks irritated. He is sweating and breathing very heavily. With a disgusted look on his face, he jerks me to my feet and removes my gloves, and as he does that, he looks me in the eye."Remember this," he says, "Remember that you better always do as I say because you can never beat me. Do you understand me, Trish?"I nod, humiliated. I never landed one punch. I believe him.