I loved this book. Thank you to Emma for the rec after reading Our Wives. I like the, despite having a wide ranges narrators and premises. This collection still felt really cohesive. Two stories it out to me most strongly. The first woman who continously is burdened by versions of herself as a child, I must do things like put them in front of TV, braid their hair and drop them off at her moms for babysitting. I think this is such a cool concept as so many women get Afton therapy. What would you say or do for your younger self if she were in front of you right now. Truly caring for your youngest self is much more like being an unwilling babysitter, then being healing and maternal character. Especially when maternity is a nebulous goal.

“She isn’t mine mom, she’s you… We can’t both be me.” “’I can’t hold this for you.’ you say instead ‘This is yours.’”

The second story I liked best was the titular one. Premised on a interdependent queer couple who find a straight man interjected into their lives. I actually loved this as a way to discuss how dominant straight culture still exersices so much ownership over queer women. There is truly no winning, as to play along, is to gain the distain of other women, yet to create friction, is to be, and unyielding distrustful force. I loved the ending.

“That if I learned how to really say no to her, I do not know if she would have loved me as much”

“’You can’t have that’ I said agin thinking that she has said she loved me. That anger did not kill love. Or that if it did, it killed it like amatoxin, over a long period with several lapses and relapses. ‘This is just for us’ Agnes had said. Had Agreed. Had Upheld. ‘This is just for us’”