AT 6:20 SATURDAY MORNING, Dawson woke up to the sound of Hosiah and Sly moving around in the sitting room. Two grinning faces appeared around the door. He smiled at them, and they took that as their invitation to invade. They clambered on top of Dawson, bouncing and giggling while he tried to make them keep their voices down. They had arrived with Christine last night much later than Dawson had wanted or expected.
She was sleeping beside Dawson on the rather narrow bed. She groaned, lifting her head with one eye open. “Why do you boys wake me up like this every Saturday?” she complained bitterly. “If you want to play, go outside. Goodness.”
Her head flopped onto the pillow, and she went back to sleep.
“Come on,” Dawson whispered to the boys. “Let’s go. And stop making noise.”
He put Sly over one shoulder and Hosiah under his arm and took them writhing to the sitting room, where they had a wrestling match-two children versus one adult. Dawson marveled at how Hosiah’s vigor was already returning to normal. Nevertheless, he kept the play to only fifteen minutes, at the end of which the kids declared victory.
“Next time I’ll finish both of you off,” he warned to their hilarity. “Okay, time to go and get ready.”
“Where are we going today?” Sly asked.
“Cape Three Points.”
Hosiah wrinkled his nose. “What’s that?”
“It’s the most southern part of Ghana. There’s a nice beach there. Uncle Abraham and Auntie Akosua will take us.”
Excited, the two boys rushed to the bathroom to wash up.
“There’s a water shortage,” Dawson warned them, “so use what’s in the buckets and don’t waste it, you hear?”
ABRAHAM DROVE HIS 4 × 4 Toyota with Dawson beside him in the front passenger seat and Christine, Akosua, Sly, and Hosiah in the rear. There was no room for Chikata, so he followed them with Baah in the taxi. Once out of Takoradi’s city limits, it was thirty minutes to the turnoff at Agona-Nkwanta, where aggressive vendors swarmed their vehicle. Abraham didn’t stop, turning onto the left branch off the central roundabout. They enjoyed the paved route for another fifteen minutes up to the right-hand junction to Cape Three Points. There, the dirt road began, winding ahead like a meandering serpent. It was potholed and bumpy in spots, but the Toyota handled it easily. On the other hand, trailing behind in the taxi, Chikata and Baah were having a rough time of it.
