THE PRICE OF PARADISE

Enyinnaya had learned to read the hour off her father’s garden the way other people read a clock. At five the frangipani threw shadows that reached no further than the birdbath. By six those shadows had crossed the gravel and lay over the whole east lawn like something spilled, and the light coming through them turned the color of weak tea. Anything later than that belonged to her father, and she had known since she was nine not to walk into it without a reason.