“I don’t know what could have got into Mama,” she said.

“She gave you no clue at all she was going to do this?”

“None.”

Dawson leaned back with his eyes closed and rubbed his forehead, trying to work away the throbbing in his skull.

“She’s been phoning me all afternoon,” Christine said, “and she called again just now while you were with Hosiah.”

“To say what?”

“She’s in a state, a complete mess. Crying, saying she’s sorry again and again, begging me to let her come over. I told her we should postpone that for now.”

“I’d like to talk to her, though.”

Christine was surprised. “You would?”

“Yes, I would,” Dawson said.

He got up and slipped on a pair of tennis shoes from the rack by the door.

“Where’re you going?” Christine asked nervously.

“To see your mother.”

“Don’t you think we should wait until we’re a little calmer?”

“I am calm.”

“But I know how angry you are inside, Dark, and sometimes you snap and that’s what I’m afraid of.”

“Don’t worry,” he said, “everything’s under control.”

“Dark, please.”

But he was already gone.

He knocked softly on Gifty’s door. She opened it and expressed no surprise that he was there.

“Come in,” she said resignedly. “Christine rang me to warn-to say you were coming.”

She was makeup-free now, although still wearing one of her many posh wigs. Her eyes were red and puffy from crying. She asked Dawson if he would like to have a seat.

“No,” he said, “I won’t be staying long. I just want to know what happened.”

Gifty’s face creased with pain. “I would never want to hurt Hosiah, you know that. I just wanted the best for him. We’re all one big family, and I love him so much.”

“Why didn’t you tell Christine or me that you were planning to do this?”

“I wanted it to be a nice surprise, to please you, to help you out because I know it’s so hard to save the kind of money needed for that operation. And I wanted to help little Hosiah too.”

“No, none of what you’ve said is the reason. Shall I tell you the reason?”

Tears began to roll down her cheeks, and she turned away from him. “I don’t know. Do whatever you like.”

“Look at me, Gifty,” Dawson said sharply. “I’m not going to talk to your back.”

She turned around again but could not meet his gaze.

“I said, look at me,” he said.

Her gaze fluttered jerkily to his face, eyeballs twitching and bouncing.

“Here’s the true reason,” he said. “You want to compete with me. You never liked me that much, and you want to steal my son in revenge for taking your daughter.”

“No, it’s not that. You don’t understand.”

“I do understand. When you took Hosiah to the zoo, you knew I had been planning on it. You wanted him to think Granny is much better than Daddy because she took me to the zoo first. And now you wanted to be solely responsible for curing his heart disease so again he would look at you as his heroine and give you all the credit. Granny is better. I love Granny more.”

Face in her hands, Gifty began weeping uncontrollably. Dawson put his arms around her, and she flinched. “Don’t hurt me, please.”

“I’m not going to.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m so very sorry.”

“You can’t compete with me for Hosiah,” Dawson said, squeezing her more tightly, “and as long as I’m alive, you will never steal him away no matter what you fantasize. Now, you won’t be seeing him at all for a while. Christine and I will let you know when you can.”

Her crying grew louder, and Dawson felt a stab of anger at her sniveling. She disgusted him. He held her even more firmly as he felt her trying to push away from him. His fist closed slowly over her wig, and he wrenched it off her head. She shrieked and made a grab for it, but Dawson easily moved it out of reach. Gifty’s real hair, which Dawson had never seen, was short, thick, and gray. She suddenly seemed vulnerable, weak, and much older. She made another unsuccessful dive for the wig, then tried to hide her head with her hands.

“Be yourself for a change, Gifty,” Dawson said. “Look in the mirror, see the real you, and stop hating yourself.”

He dropped the wig on the sofa and walked out.

When Dawson returned, Christine was reading in bed, or appearing to be.

“Hi,” he said.

She didn’t reply. Dawson began to get undressed and then sat on the edge of the bed next to her in his underwear. “For the record, I didn’t hit your mother, if that’s what you were worried about. I wouldn’t do that.”

She kept her eyes on the page.

“You’re ignoring me?” he said.

Still no answer.

He tried again. “You’re annoyed because you thought I should wait and I didn’t?”

She put the book down. “This is a family affair, Dark. She’s my mother, you’re my husband, and Hosiah is our son. This is the worst crisis we’ve ever had. To exclude me from a discussion between you and my mother is just wrong. It’s disrespectful and very, very upsetting. You’re supposed to be this modern, progressive man-equality of women and all that-but in the end it’s the same old male supremacy rearing its ugly head, isn’t it?”

He stared at the floor without seeing it. She went back to her pretence of reading.

“You’re right,” he said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t listen. I was angry.”

“I seem to remember saying something to that effect.”

“Yes. You did.”

Christine put her book down again. “I see you driven by anger so often, Dark. You can’t continue like this. It makes you so irrational, so… crazy… ”

“I get it from my father.”

“Oh, come on. You’re a better man than he is. So rise above it for God’s sake and stop blaming him.”

He nodded. “But what you said about male supremacy? I want you to know that it didn’t enter into this. Anger, yes. Hardheadedness, yes. But not male supremacy. Please.”

“All right,” she said. “I accept that.”

Dawson stood up. “I’m going to take a shower.”

“Okay.”

He kissed her on the cheek. “You know I love you, right?”

She sighed. “Yes. For better or worse, I know that.”

“You still love me?”

“No, not at all. Go away and have your shower.”

“Really? You really don’t love me?” He nuzzled her neck. “Not even a little bit?”

She was unbearably ticklish in that spot, and she squealed trying to hold her laughter back. When she attempted to get away, he followed her until they were stretched out on the bed together.

“You really don’t love me?” he said, kissing the top of her forehead. “Mm?”

He kissed between her eyes, and she closed them. He kissed the tip of her nose. When he got to her lips, she didn’t resist. She wrapped her arms around him.

DAWSON COULD NOT SLEEP that night. At two, he got out of bed and went to check on Hosiah. He was sleeping peacefully. Dawson went to the kitchen for a drink of water. He was aware of the battle within-seething over what Augustus Ayitey had done to Hosiah, but also trying to not let his anger “drive him,” as Christine had put it.

While she slept like a baby, Dawson silently put on some clothes and left the house. When he got into the car, he hesitated just an instant as an internal voice told him to do the right thing-go to the police as a regular citizen, report what happened to Hosiah, and let them handle it. But he didn’t want to do it that way. It was too passive. He turned the key in the ignition and started the engine up.

The sound of the car cut through the silence of the night, and the headlight beams slashed the dark as Dawson dodged Madina’s potholes. He knew eventually he would find Ayitey’s place just by cruising around, but he was lucky to spot a lone night watchman standing outside the locked gates of a house. In Accra, if you had some money and any semblance of a luxurious home, two vital accessories were a private watchman and decorative but functional bars on all the windows.