At the hospital, the doctor told me that I was severely dehydrated, but also suffering from a migraine. I hit her with a million questions because I’d never even heard the word migraine before. She explained it to me, but said that she didn’t know why I got them in the first place, that it could be worry or certain scents or a number of other things that triggered them.

This terrified me. I couldn’t imagine a life where every time I even thought about something negative, my head would start to feel like it would crack open.

But the doctor just told me to take it easy, and Mama nodded. She had a plan to help me calm down; she’d make me attend church all week with the Browns. This would be my life until I started high school and replaced some of the church groups with things that I chose.

Precious spent most of her childhood at the New Hope Seventh-day Adventist Church in Hyde Park, where her mama flexed her bubbly personality and the church members worshipped her dad, who was the first elder. In small churches, this position had a ton of weight, since the first elder preached and ran the church when the pastor couldn’t be there. Her daddy’s family, the Browns, and Mama’s family, the Stevens, go way back to Jackson, Mississippi. We had this friendship our mothers put together, even though I found out that summer that they never really liked one another. Gail was right; my mama and Precious’s father used to date when they were students at DuSable. He met Ms. Patty at Oakwood University, then brought her back to Chicago. They didn’t want their kids associating with “project kids,” so they gritted their teeth and planned our playdates, putting their personal issues aside.

At first, I thought the Browns were crazy for going to church so much, and on Saturdays, not Sundays. And now, I couldn’t understand why Mama would make me go with them on a day cartoons ran all morning long, good cartoons too. It wasn’t even just church. I had to sing in the choir—that practice was on Friday nights—and attend prayer meeting on Wednesday evenings. Then she signed me up for the Pathfinder Club, a coed scout-like group that met on Sunday mornings. As if this wasn’t enough, at the end of July, the church erected this circus-size tent outside and had a service every weeknight! I felt like I was being punished, so I tried to hate it.