What I Lost
I had left everything to come to Denmark. I had left my job as an associate at Marie Brown Associates, a literary agency that nestled itself between the West Village and Soho. Marie Brown was not just my boss. She came from a tradition, a very Black tradition of overextending oneself. A tradition of raising other people’s children cause if you didn’t do it, nobody else would. She came from a tradition that most Christians ought to take note—Marie constantly got involved personally. There were no barriers between business and personal life. As a result she was not just my boss, but my mentor and spiritual mother. We took it as fate that we shared the same last name, and I had the exact initials as her daughter as well. Marie fed me when I didn’t have any lunch money, she wrote me checks when my rent was due, and she picked up little blouses she found at little sales. She introduced me to Balthazars and chic cocktail bars with no names. She took me to lunch at Noho restaurants owne...