Summary

In Chapter 12, “The Collapse,” Adah went to her doctor and told him she wanted to terminate her pregnancy. The doctor gave her some pills and she took them. She did not tell Francis about the pregnancy or the visit to the doctor. She wished she could go to church, but she did not enjoy going to the churches in the U.K. as she did in Nigeria. Nevertheless, she felt the presence of God with her. Adah grew closer to her co-workers at the library, including a man named Bill, who was fond of Black writers and introduced Adah to the work of James Baldwin. She and Francis continued to have violent quarrels, and it gradually became clear that the pills the doctor had given her did not work. Adah was sitting at a park crying one day when she was approached by...