20. AUGUST

IT TURNED OUT Sadia had not graduated from high school.

She kept it a secret: She had failed math—and was supposed to retake it in the summer. But she was distracted that summer and failed it again.

Zahara was furious when she found out: Sadia should have studied, passed math, and gone to MVCC in the fall.

Her two older girls had tried when they were at Proctor.

“Mana was a B student,” Ralya explained. “I was a C student. My mom never complained.” Zahara was proud that Mana was a manager at Walmart, and that Ralya worked full time in the store’s bakery.

“My mom has ambitions for Sadia,” Ralya added. “She treats each kid different, the way they need to be treated.”

Zahara saw Sadia—who was babysitting—as wasting her life. And Sadia, feeling shunned, was angry. Her face closed; she had a faraway look in her eyes. And she said little at home.

But she still felt passionately about her mother. “I’d do anything for my mom,” she said. “If I had $50, I’d give her all of it.”

Sadia heard about a young movie star who bought herself a house in LA but refused to help her mother, who lived in public housing. Sadia was genuinely shocked.

She had admired this actress. “Now I hate her,” Sadia said. “If I saw her, I’d spit in her face.”

On a hot August day, Sadia dragged a garbage can to the curb. Her mother had asked her to help clear out the yard. She was elegantly dressed for such a dirty task in a long, flowered skirt, a tight top with a shirt knotted over it, and a cream-colored head wrap.

Blue plastic gloves covered her hands and forearms.

She was trying to please her mom but looked daunted. She started pulling old, falling-apart cardboard boxes from the can. Her close friend Ayuong, a tall, thin girl from Sudan, similarly dressed in a long skirt and head wrap, looked on.

Then Sadia tipped the can: Water bugs skittered out in a slosh of black water—and she caught the water in a garbage bag. It stank.

Hurrying out of the house, Zahara looked on, critically, “Why are you pouring that in a bag?”

She ignored Sadia’s friend.

“I can’t dump it in the backyard,” Sadia said.

“You’ll have to wash that out,” Zahara said, indicating the can.

“I know,” Sadia said, calmly. Pointing to the girl, she said, “Mom, this is my friend, Ayuong.”

Looking suspicious, Zahara slowly shook the young woman’s hand.

A few weeks later, Sadia moved into her grandmother’s house. She did not ask her permission: Halima was used to her grandchildren showing up and staying for a while.

Sadia was not getting along with anyone in her immediate family. “Nobody was talking to me,” she said. “My sisters were like, ‘Just do it, if it’s right for you.’ Only my mom was mad that I moved out.”