The Testaments: The Sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale

There was an approved list of names, put together by Aunt Lydia and the other senior Aunts. Becka said the names were made from the names of products women had liked once and would be reassured by, but she herself did not know what those products were. Nobody our age knew, she said.

The truth can cause a lot of trouble for those who are not supposed to know it.

A number of the Aunts were trained in first response and midwifery, though they could not be real doctors.

We would expect you to be spiritual guides and mentors—leaders, so to speak—within your own womanly sphere.

Perhaps we ought not to have shared so much, but it was very comforting. “I wish I had a sister,” she said to me one day. “And if I did, that person would be you.”

The unfortunate girl was found wandering the streets in despair, since the map was inaccurate and the Mayday contacts turned out not to exist.

The most astonishing thing about these books was that Dick and Jane and Baby Sally lived in a house with nothing around it but a white wooden fence, so flimsy and low that anyone at all could climb over it. There were no Angels, there were no Guardians. Dick and Jane and Baby Sally played outside in full view of everyone. Baby Sally could have been

Was it Aunt Lydia’s threat to reveal Paula’s crime that had caused my stepmother to abandon her efforts to marry me to Commander Judd?

Meaningless, I know, except for those who must have loved her and then been torn apart from her.