The point of that story was not that it represented the unvarnished truth of the Mennonites during the Revolution. Gemma’s also heard the stories of Mennonites who took up guns and were slaughtered, of Mennonites who outfoxed and killed their share of soldiers, of Mennonites who were as courteous as could be to the soldiers and were raped and murdered for their efforts, of Mennonites who had become wealthy landowners by the time the Revolution came knocking and who perhaps were not completely innocent in the eyes of certain impoverished locals. Gemma’s no historian, but she guesses that time in her people’s lives was probably just as chaotic and complicated and horrifying as that of any community who found themselves tangled up in war. But of her grandmother’s story, the point to Gemma was this: Once they were over here, kindly taking the soldiers coats were the tales her people chose to tell. They had a smorgasbord of narratives available. That was the one everyone wanted.

The day Gemma came out to her dad, he lowered his head and said, “When they hear about you, everyone back home will finally know that I am garbage.”

When Gemma’s Oma in Mitchell died, Gemma discovered an old church charter in her things, from the late 1800s. It said evangelizing was unbecoming of a Christian, and it said the same about laughter.

Gemma is acutely aware, now, of the silence she has created. She has been thinking silently for some time. Olive had really seemed fascinated by the meeting-in-houses thing, so Gemma says, “‘For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.’”

“Christ said that,” she adds eventually.

Olive and Ava look at her. At that moment, Gemma remembers the trick from earlier, in the old video store basement. She did meet him in high school. She’d been at a house party and a guy was making himself a very complicated fajita in the kitchen. And he was also telling a story to some guys about his girlfriend, about how the girl really didn’t want to do anal, and he was like, “Holes are holes,” and that made everyone laugh, including Gemma. That was the same guy from earlier today. The guy had gotten on Facebook years back and was excited to announce he was having a kid and—

“It’s from Matthew,” Gemma says, desperately now.

“I’ll do the dishes later.” Ava puts on music and opens another bottle of wine. “Let’s go sit.”

Olive sits on the corduroy recliner, Ava and Gemma on the bottle-green couch. Gemma rests her head on Ava’s shoulder, Ava’s body furnace-like as ever. “They ever fixing the A/C?” Gemma says absent-mindedly.

“Someone’s coming tomorrow,” says Ava.

“Seems like this place’d be okay to ride out winter,” Gemma says. She is so tired. She is so very, very tired. But she very much loves the feeling of sitting here next to Ava’s body, and she is grateful for the rest.