29 Chicago
Barack met his younger sister, Auma. She came to meet her brother in Chicago. she was wondering about all his life from the beginning. so Barack told her about Chicago and New York, his work as an organizer, his mother and grandparents, and Maya. Auma called their father the old man. it sounded right to him, somehow, at once familiar and distant, an elemental force that isn’t fully understood. She told him about a German boyfriend. And sometimes she thought it was just impossible for her to trust anybody completely. She thought of what her father made of his life, and the idea of marriage gives her shivers. Also, with her boyfriend, they would have to live in Germany, She started imagining what it would be like for her, living her entire life as a foreigner. She didn’t think she could take it. After Barack heard her thoughts, he told his story with Regina to her. He was the one who knew how to live as an outsider between the two of them. He eventually pushed her away. They started to fight and thinking about the future, and it pressed in on their warm little world. He said to Auma, no longer smiling, “whenever he thinks back to what his friend said to him, that night outside the theater, it somehow makes him ashamed.” -P.212, October 4, 2021
