“We’re going to make it”

“We’re going to make it” gathers the changing force of Tish and Fonny’s hope: first a question that asks whether belief can survive hardship, then a conviction she connects to his determination to be free, and finally a resolve carried between them when they are separated again. The phrase is not a promise that circumstances have been overcome. Its force comes from the work of sustaining a shared future while the outcome remains uncertain.

The Question Under Pressure

Fonny asks Tish whether she believes they will make it at a moment when their confidence has to contend with material strain. He tells her he knows she loves him, kisses her, and suggests dinner at their Spanish restaurant, this time on credit. The question belongs to an intimate exchange, but it carries the weight of their larger circumstances: affection is present, while money and Fonny’s confinement remain unresolved.

Tish’s earlier thoughts show what that uncertainty means in practical terms. Exhausted and pregnant, she considers whether she may have to find another way to support herself if Fonny is not released before the baby comes. On her commute, she worries that as she becomes heavier and sicker she may not be able to keep getting to work, and that Fonny is counting on her to bring their child safely into the world. The expression’s hope therefore has a concrete burden behind it: Tish must keep working and protect the future they are trying to reach.

From Belief to Shared Resolve

Later, Tish understands the baby’s growth as connected to Fonny’s determination to be free. Her thought joins three futures that the separation threatens to pull apart: the child’s arrival, Fonny’s release, and the family they hope to make. The conviction that they will make it is not confidence in an easy path; it is Tish’s way of holding these linked hopes together in time.

The pressure is also public and racialized. When a young man harasses Tish at a crowded vegetable stand, she recognizes the danger of Fonny being drawn into a fight in front of a white police officer. After the young man grabs her, Fonny intervenes; Tish then holds him back and tells the officer that she was attacked. Onlookers say nothing. The scene gives their struggle a social setting: Tish’s effort to protect Fonny and their future takes place amid racial power and the threat that a public encounter may be turned against him.

A Resolve Carried Across Separation

During a visit, Fonny and Tish exchange affection before the man who ends their time together appears. Fonny rises and raises his fist; Tish reads love and courage in the gesture, raises her own fist, and watches him turn away. Her resolve that they will somehow make it follows this reciprocal action. The hope is shared, but the separation is real: he returns to confinement, and she leaves to continue the struggle outside it.

In a later conversation, Fonny reassures Tish that the baby is fine and tells her he is all right, will come home, and wants to hold their child. He asks her to keep faith. His words echo the earlier expression’s movement from asking whether they believe in a future to insisting on one, but they do not establish that he has been released. The promised homecoming remains ahead of them.

Meaning and Limits

The expression changes with its speaker and circumstance. Fonny first makes it a question between lovers; Tish later recognizes its connection to his determination for freedom; together they embody it in the raised-fist exchange. Its recurrence makes hope an act of mutual support rather than a report of success. Tish’s pregnancy and Fonny’s confinement keep that hope exposed to uncertainty, while their gestures and assurances allow it to persist without pretending the obstacles have disappeared.