Octavia E. Butler - Earthseed, Book 1 -… [451]

“No,” he said. “We can’t think that way any more. Cory, there’s nobody to help us but God and ourselves. I protect Moss’s place in spite of what I think of him, and he protects mine, no matter what he thinks of me. We all look out for one another.” He paused. “I’ve got plenty of insurance. You and the kids should be able to make it all right if-” “No!” — , Octavia E. Butler - Earthseed, Book 1 -…, 451

Note

The passage enacts the very thing it’s arguing about: a man whose sentence gets cut off mid-clause (‘if—’) by the one topic he can’t finish, right after he has laid out the reciprocity principle. The reciprocity is stated as a chiasmus (I protect Moss’s / he protects mine), which gives the speech a formal, almost contractual ring — and then ‘He paused’ deflates it into a husband bracing for his wife’s reaction.