“No, no,” Dazz said. “I saw the two of you embracing. In the garden there by the car park.”

“Sugar mummy, Edwin?” Courage said, winking at him. “How long, and how did you meet?”

Edwin eyed his two friends without a word.

“We’re not judging you,” Dazz said, “but we do want to know.”

“Why shouldn’t you get something out of fucking her?” Courage said with a shrug.

“Shut up,” Edwin said, his features clouding. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”

“Then what?” Dazz said.

“Mrs. Akrofi isn’t a ‘sugar mummy,’ as you call it,” Edwin said. “She’s my real mother. My biological mother.”

“What?” Dazz and Courage said together.

“Yes,” Edwin replied.

“Are you serious?” Dazz said.

“Of course, I am.”

“But you’ve never talked about it,” Courage said, incredulous. “I mean, this is not your ordinary mom who lives in some tiny village somewhere in the hinterland, this is an important lady around town. The IGP’s wife!”

“I don’t talk about it,” Edwin said, “because she doesn’t talk about it. And she doesn’t talk about it because her husband doesn’t know she had a child before she met him, and she’s always kept it from him.”

“But is it something to be so ashamed of?” Courage asked.

“Maybe not to you, but to my mother’s mother, yes. She said I was the product of sinful lust, so she sent me to Techiman in the Brong-Ahafo Region to grow up with my aunt—my mother’s sister. That way, I was out of sight, out of mind. It was only when I reached manhood that I returned to Accra. My grandmother was dead and gone by that time, anyway. But Mummy supported me even while her sister was bringing me up. She paid my school fees and used to send money to my PO Box at the post office. Sometimes, even, those wretched people at the post office would steal my cash. Once we got mobile money, Mummy used that method. So yes, she paid most of the rent due for this house. She loves me, but I think the real thing is she’s trying to make up for the guilt of sending me away.”

“Listen, chaley,” Courage said, “I’m sorry for what I said about . . . you know.”

Edwin dismissed it. “Don’t worry about it.” He seemed troubled about something else. “You know, my mother is complicated. In fact, her whole life is complicated. My half-brother, Kwame, has autism and he’s in an institution in the UK. Before Mummy sent him away, she took him to some fetish priest somewhere to see if he could cure Kwame. This was after she and Mr. Akrofi had taken the boy to several doctors who didn’t know what was going on.”

Dazz and Courage were silent as they tried to absorb all of this. It was a lot.