I had not expected this story to orbit around Agnes as much as it did but I was surprisingly captivated. I thought a lot about my own mother throughout. There were many times I wished she were some abstract idea of “better”--that she would beat all the odds against her, that by some miracle she could wake up unharmed by her sufferings. I wished also that she could keep bigotry from reaching my shores. Both unfair, and impossible to actualize completely. Our mothers live only once just like everyone else.

It felt like I was in the rooms with them the entire time, fully immersed. Parts of this felt violently familiar and the parts that didn’t were deeply moving still. Masterfully melancholic. I wished there was one more chapter at the end, just a tad more time with Hugh, but I’m not disappointed at where it left off either. I was sad by the state, but they, you, we will keep going.

I am on fire. I do not burn.