Day 19: "Love Is a Washing Line"

Rémy Ngamije (Prairie Schooner, Winter 2022/published 2023)

In this twenty-two-day series, we are counting down the days to publication (October 22, 2024) with a brief passage from each of the twenty-two essays included in The Best American Essays 2024. These excerpts were curated by Best American Essays Editorial Assistant Cheyenne Paterson and are presented in the order of the volume’s table of contents.

“As far as you know this is what people in love do when they are married: they eat gluten-free pizza with basil pesto and yesterday’s pan-fried calamari like it is Jiro Ono’s Michelin star–winning sushi; they laugh at each nearly missed rent payment and high-five each other when they just about make it; they attend family lunches and dinners, and plan clan holidays—the dysfunction of one family is multiplied by two, then dialed to one hundred. They change diets to suit each other.”

—Rémy Ngamije, Prairie Schooner, Winter 2022 (published 2023).