What's Mine and Yours

by Naima Coster

“If there’s something I’ve learned in this country, it’s that your address decides everything. You’ve got to get out.”

the fuel needed to run a marriage, how exacting it was to be so close to someone, to see them with the same mixture of sympathy and scorn that you saw yourself. It didn’t even take an unkindness to feel let down by the person with whom you had vested your whole life.

It’s no good dying, but sometimes I think it’s worse being the one who’s left behind.”

If there was something she could do for her son, it would be to never be indifferent to the course of his life.

Losing a parent was like losing a part of yourself, even if it was a part you’d rather forget.

To be a mother was like this: to fight desperately to hold on to yourself most days, to struggle against the snare of your child, to focus on his future instead of your own. And then, suddenly, to feel bowled over by your love for him, to feel his breath is your breath, your music his music, and you are the same. It was a sensation she hadn’t had in a long time. She let the feeling fill her.

Maybe this was another way that she was white: the ease with which she could ignore calamity, focus mainly on what she wanted.

“When you’re married, you think you’re going to spend your life with someone, but it isn’t true. You can only ever spend your life with you.”