and utterly destroyed in the center of her own kingdom.
The echoes of Mama Agnes’s traditional praise songs vibrated through the high-volume glass walls of the living lounge, but to Sandra, the sound felt as though it were traveling through deep, pressurized water. Everything moved in a sickening, slow-motion clarity.
Edward, a man who had built his reputation on an unyielding, rigid adherence to Western logic and courtroom decorum, a man who prided himself on never bowing his head to anyone but a federal judge, collapsed. His knees hit the polished marble floor with a heavy, unvarnished thud. He did not care about the sharp crease of his designer trousers or the red village dust that Mama Agnes had tracked onto the imported Persian rug.
He threw his hands into the air, his eyes tigh
