What It Means When a Man Falls From the Sky

The narrator of “Redemption” is a teenage girl who becomes enamored with the neighbors’ 13-year-old house girl, Mayowa. Mayowa’s nerve and boldness attract the narrator; for example, Mayowa throws a bundle of feces at the narrator’s house after the narrator’s mother openly tells Mrs. Ajayi, Mayowa’s employer, that she will be trouble. The narrator starts to spend more time outside and at Mrs. Ajayi’s in hopes of seeing Mayowa. The narrator enjoys Mrs. Ajayi’s stories, and those about Mayowa’s mischief make her like Mayowa even more. She tries to figure out how Mayowa is brave enough to stand up to her mother.

The narrator’s mother criticizes her for not wanting to join youth pastor Brother Benni for Sunday school. A few years earlier, Brother Benni molested the narrator. She told her parents, who informed the pastor. However, when Benni said that she was a liar, the adults believed him, and the narrator’s mother cites this as the reason her father left to live with his lover.

The church periodically takes donations for a fund for widows and orphans; in a show of trust, a member always takes this money home in a red bag to return the next week. The narrator’s mother is chosen to do so for the sixth time.