Borrowed Things

"She is so colonized," Kezia said.

"Maybe she ate too much of those weeds — what do we call them, terere — for so long during her childhood years that she has no other way of looking at life," Kaitoni said.

They walked past Mrs. Josiah's place. She had a front gate that opened to a long, murram driveway lined with kei apple hedges, and at the end of that driveway was another gate — the real gate — that opened into her inner compound where the house stood. It always amazed the two girls, and even though they never said it out loud every time they passed, they both silently prayed their future homes would look exactly like that.

Kezia, the only girl in her home, had four brothers. She was fortunate enough to...