Another Brooklyn: Chapter 13 Summary & Analysis

August and her friends still haven’t seen Angela, but they tell each other she’ll be back soon enough. Angela’s dance instructor agrees, saying that something just has to come from a talent like Angela’s. But as time passes, they receive very little information, knowing only that Angela was placed in a foster home in either Queens or Long Island. It is around this time, too, that August’s father starts seeing other women again, sneaking them into the apartment at night and placing ice in their glasses as they drink whiskey. From her bedroom, August hears this and wonders where Sister Loretta has gone.

One day, Sylvia’s boyfriend goes to her house to see her, but Sylvia’s father stops him at the front door and puts a gun to his chest, saying that he’ll kill him if the boy ever comes near Sylvia again. Despite his efforts to keep Sylvia sheltered away, though, what her  father doesn’t know is that Sylvia has already had sex—something she tells August and Gigi about in private, saying that it hurt at first but then became bearable, though it didn’t feel good like everyone says it does. In August’s own relationship, she continues to avoid having sex, though Jerome becomes more and more persistent. When she tells Sylvia about this, Sylvia ignores her hesitations, urging her to give in and sleep with Jerome because he’s “too fine to let slip away.” Still, August refuses to give in, so Jerome leaves her. 

August’s brother manages to bring his father back to the Nation of Islam. Together, they pray and read the Qur’an while August applies herself to her studies, suddenly yearning to do whatever she can to escape Brooklyn by going to a college somewhere else. With this in mind, she focuses solely on schoolwork, saying almost nothing to her father when he speaks to her. Unsure of how to get through to her, then, August’s father brings her to Sister Sonja, who asks about her mother, though August is hesitant to discuss such matters.

While walking through the park one day, August comes upon Sylvia and Jerome and sees that they’re holding hands. She stares at them for a long time, feeling as if her entire world is falling down around her. Unlike the way August approached the loss of her mother, she realizes that she’s too old to simply deny reality, finding it impossible to forgive Sylvia. This makes her think about the fact that she used to tell her brother that their mother would surely return—something that she herself believed for a long time.