10. THE WEDDING

I WANTED to go,” Sadia said about the wedding in Utica. She did not even know the girl. But dozens of her young cousins would be there.

Somali Bantu weddings are loosely put together affairs—a kind of family reunion, which can draw hundreds of clan members. These marriages are often arranged by the parents; a contract is signed, and the young woman’s family receives a dowry.

There is not a huge stigma associated with divorce: If a woman leaves her marriage, her family generally absorbs her and her children back into the fold. She may marry again.

These weddings are the highlight of summer—a chance for people to swap news, arrange marriages, and find out about job opportunities and living conditions in the cities where others have settled. Sadia has maternal relatives across the country: in Syracuse, Buffalo, Rochester, Burlington, St. Louis, Louisville, Columbus, and Denver.

A family might attend three or four weddings a summer. Often, there is no formal invitation; word gets around.

“You just know—there’s a wedding that weekend,” Sadia said. “And you go.”

Sadia’s mother was skipping this one. So were her sisters. “But my grandma and aunts were leaving in the morning,” Sadia said, “and asked if I wanted to go.”

But when Sadia went into the kitchen to ask her mother’s permission, Zahara hardly looked up.

Sadia knew her mother was angry with her. She had just finished her junior year—a lot of things had gone wrong.

She plunged in: “Ma, can I go to the wedding?”

“She gave me this look,” Sadia recalled. “My mom’s generous—she gives everybody something. But not me.”

“She said, ‘You can’t go! You never want to sit down in the house!’ “

Her mother’s words struck Sadia like a slap. “That’s like calling someone a dog in our culture,” she said.

She knew what her mother was saying: You are running around. You never help me. A good Somali Bantu girl stays home, takes care of the younger children, and helps with the housework.

That was unfair, Sadia told me: “I’m always home. I’m an inside girl! And I help my mom—I clean 24/7!”

There were other things that pained her mother: Many mornings, Sadia could hardly get out of bed. She did not come home straight after school. She did poorly in her classes.

Her mother suspected she was seeing boys. That she had sneaked a boy into the house.

“Not true!” Sadia said. “I’m not fascinated by boys, especially young ones. I have other things to worry about.”

Anxious about school and her home life, she had lost a lot of weight, and looked hollow-cheeked. “Sometimes, I’d just get up and not eat all day,” she said. “I’d just drink water.”

“I was trying to smooth things down,” she explained. “Do better in school. Just worry about myself, not anybody else.”

But sometimes, she got irritated. “This one teacher, he’d just grab my phone as I’m talking to my friend. ‘Oh, what’s happening?’ ”

Her mother recently moved her kids into a new house she bought, not far from Rutger Street. They all liked the house. “But my mom only wants me here,” Sadia said. “ ‘Why do you want to go to your friend’s house?’ Even if I go visit my grandmother, she says, ‘What’s wrong with your own house?’ ”

Deeply stung, Sadia decided to stay at her grandmother’s house for the weekend. Her house had become a refuge.

Her uncle Yusef’s wife, Fartoum, 19, was staying there; she had recently given birth. “She didn’t want to be alone that weekend,” Sadia said. “She felt no one was helping her.”

Sadia did not pack anything. She already had clothes, a toothbrush, and deodorant at her grandmother’s.

Hearing Sadia’s footsteps by the door, Zahara called out, “Make sure you don’t go with them!”

“I’m not,” Sadia said, and softly closed the door.

It was hot for upstate, and Sadia holed up in her grandmother’s living room for the weekend, with the drapes closed and the fan on. She took care of Fartoum’s month-old baby girl and watched one of her favorite shows, Star, a Fox TV musical drama about three young singers. “Two of them came from poverty,” Sadia said.

Both teenage girls were in good spirits. “Fartoum got to shower, relax—she felt more peaceful.”

Sadia quickly got over the incident with her mother, and assumed her mother had forgotten it, too.

Sadia got home late afternoon the next day. Her mother’s car was not in the driveway. Sadia knocked loudly on the old front door; she had lost her key. Her sisters did not hear her: The TV was on too loud.

She waited on the front steps for her mother.

Zahara saw her as she pulled into the driveway. Still a bit heavy from Rahama’s birth, she made her way past the tricycles and old balls. Approaching Sadia, she said, “I told you not to go.”

“Ma, I didn’t!” Sadia said, looking up at her. “Ask Fartoum!”

“I don’t believe you. She’s going to lie, too.”

As Zahara passed her daughter, her long dress brushed the steps. “You can’t come in my house,” she said.

“What?” Sadia said, stunned. “What?” Her mother shut the door, then locked it.

“I just sat there,” Sadia recalled. “I was like—wow. This is your kid. You made this child! Don’t hold grudges!”

She thought her mother was having a fit—that soon she would open the door and say, “Come in.”

But the sun went down. It got dark.

“I went crazy,” Sadia said. “I thought, ‘I’m gonna quit. I just don’t want to argue with her anymore.’ ”

Sadia had no money with her. No clothes, except for the long printed skirt and jacket she was wearing.

As she stood up and started walking, the old block, with its two-story, slightly askew frame houses, was shuttered and quiet.