Summary

Uche, the first person narrator of this story, is a Nigerian woman in her twenties who is living in Houston. She asks for her father’s help to go and purchase a mattress, slightly ashamed that she needs the assistance. At the mattress store, Uche is surprised to see that her late mother is there, as a sort of ghost or apparition. Uche’s mother is, uncharacteristically, able to barter a better price for the mattress with the salesman.

As Uche and her parents return home, Uche realizes that her mother has “stepped out of” (87) a photograph from 1982. Uche recalls the mental breakdown she had had after her mother had passed, and quietly stays away from her mother as her father enjoys his late wife’s company. Uche’s younger sister, Udoma, comes home and gleefully greets her mother, and begins to fill...