“Yes. The chicken’s beak is tied so that your sakawa victims can never say no to you. They will try, but they won’t be able to resist, no matter how much money you ask them for. So, you must stand on a grave and have no fear.”

Nii tried not to appear flustered, but his legs were shaking the entire time he stood on that gravestone, and it seemed an eternity before Ponsu allowed him to get down.

“Within two weeks,” the priest declared, “you will see the money start to flow.”

ELEVEN

January 18, Washington, DC

Gordon Tilson was on Facebook Messenger with a man called Frank, who, like Gordon, was a widower. But unlike Gordon, Frank’s loss was recent—only a month or so—whereas Gordon had lost his Regina to cancer thirteen years ago. The Facebook page, Widows & Widowers, was a forum and support group.

Gordon had never loved a woman more than Regina—except his mother, that is. He had met her while on Peace Corps duty in Ghana in the 1980s when he was twentyish and both black and white Americans were flocking to that West African country for entirely different reasons.

Gordon fell for Regina hook, line, and sinker. Her skin was a deep, resilient black while he, a redhead, invariably turned an uncomfortable pink in the pitiless equatorial heat and humidity. She wasn’t that impressed with his overtures at first. Culturally they were miles apart, but his comical antics (he was quite the prankster) and his decent attempts at speaking Twi, Ghana’s most commonly spoken indigenous language, amused and intrigued her. She enjoyed his deep interest in Ghanaian culture and his fervor to learn as much as possible about it. When Gordon’s Peace Corps assignment was up, he told her he wouldn’t leave without her. Besides, it turned out Regina was pregnant, and Gordon was certainly the father. Nine months later when the baby emerged crying at the top of his lungs, they christened him Derek with the Ghanaian middle name of Yaw, for Thursday. He was to be Gordon’s first and only child.

Regina’s slow, anguished death from ovarian cancer reached into Gordon’s soul and ripped out his beating heart like a bloodthirsty warrior. He didn’t think he could live without the woman he had called his Old Faithful. Now his Facebook friend was going through the same experience, and so Gordon was kind and supportive to Frank, who had just typed on Messenger: I keep waking up at night and looking over at the empty space in the bed expecting to see her. But she’s not there. It leaves me so desolate. Did that ever happen to you?

All the time, Gordon wrote.

How did you deal with it?

I won’t pretend it was easy.

A few moments passed before Frank said anything. Then, Sometimes I don’t want to get over it.

Yes. Guilt over starting to feel okay. I had that too. But it does get better. In fact, it will pass.