Summary

In Chapter 3, “A Cold Welcome,” Adah and the children arrived in England and she did not find Liverpool very welcoming. Francis came to greet her and took her to their home, which she found disappointing. It was a single room in a row house full of other Nigerian immigrants. They quarreled and then Francis initiated sex, which felt to Adah like “an attack” (40). Adah got a job at a library but realized soon after that she was pregnant again. She had to get a physical for her new job and managed to distract the doctor so he failed to notice her pregnancy.

In Chapter 4, “The Daily Minders,” Adah started work and left the children with Francis, however, he refused to look after them permanently, insisting he had to study. The narrator notes that most Nigerian women sent their children to “foster-parents” (45) in the...