That morning, she was wearing an orange cotton dress; she looked like a burning sunset, and Chika knew immediately that his story would end with her, that he would drown in her large liquid eyes and it would be the perfect way to go.
-- Narrator (chapter 2)

Importance: This quotation describes the first time Vivek’s father Chika sees Kavita, the woman who eventually becomes his wife and with whom he has Vivek. In the text leading up to the quotation, he has gone to see the company doctor at his workplace, Dr. Khatri, “about a cough” (7), and encounters Kavita, who is the doctor’s niece, at the front desk. The imagery Emezi uses here, comparing the orange of Kavita’s dress to a burning sunset, emphasizes the intensity and the immediacy of Chika’s feelings while also establishing the color orange as a symbol of beginnings and spontaneous love or attraction. The sentence...