The revolution in Makoko was not sudden, an alteration of the very climate. The general fear that had gripped the slum began to fade, not because the risk was over—the poisoned water continued to flow, the filth continued to bubble—but because power had been woven into the community. The rows of sun-kissed water bottles along the rooftops were no longer newsworthy; they were a statement of defiance. The mission clinic, once a last hope, thrummed with a sense of focused purpose, as Chiamaka and several other teens functioned as Reuben and Anna's unofficial public health corps.
Reuben himself had changed. Guilt over the Johnson children was a wound that could not be healed, a block of hard lead in his stomach that he carried everywhere. But it no longer held him back. Instead, it fueled a r
