Red at the Bone

by Jacqueline Woodson

My love. My light. My life.

I know you hold on to your dreams and you hold on to your money. And I know that paper money burns, so you put it into rolls of quarters and nickels and dimes. And when those grow to be too many, you find the men who sell you the blocks of gold. And you take those blocks of gold and stack them beneath your floorboards and way up high in your cabinets. You let them turn white with cold inside your freezer. And every day you’re living you tell your child, Don’t let me die without you knowing that throughout this house is something for you. Something you’re going to need.

Twenty-one. Nah. Twenty-two. Actually, you shouldn’t kiss somebody the way I kissed your mother till after I leave this world.

Your family is bougie as all get-out. I know I’ve said this a million times, but damn. Today. Tonight. The whole thing.