Cleopatra and Frankenstein

by Coco Mellors

“Time stored up to solve and satisfy. Is that how the Larkin poem goes?”

‘Love looks through spectacles that make copper look like gold, poverty like riches, and tears like pearls.”

wrong. Fun was fine when you were young, but as you got older it was kindness that counted, kindness that showed up.

I tell him I think that’s a good thing to hope for in life, for the carpet to grow thin before you.

“Do the things you’ve never done to get the thing you’ve never had. Or whatever.”

It was as if they could dip their hands beneath the surface of the day and feel the current of that other life, only nine months earlier, running just beneath it.

It’s how the human heart works. Your life is more precious than any other life to me. Even more—even more than my own.” “Is that meant to be romantic?” “It’s not meant to be anything. It’s just true.”

If you prefer one outcome over another in life, you will likely be disappointed. I prefer nothing and am always surprised.”

“Perhaps you kiss me and I get a cold sore. Perhaps you punch me and bring me a new perspective on pain. If I have no preference, the outcome shows me what is beneficial or harmful in my life. I don’t impose that value.”

Fondness was warm but not tepid, the color of amber, more affectionate than friendship but less complicated than love.

So what?” “Let me tell you something,” says my mother. “Those are two of the most powerful words in the English language. Right between them is a free and happy life.”

“Kintsugi,” he says. “It’s the Japanese art of mending broken pottery.”