“Yes.” McBride’s eyebrows arched. “A chocolate cake. She had brought it to the church. I ate some of it, and the next thing I knew . . .”

“She had tied you up,” Troy said.

Quiet, McBride nodded. He hooked his thumb behind him. “Right back there in my office. Strung me up like a hog . . . got on top of me.” His eyes got misty.

Troy wondered if the old man had enjoyed the kinky sex. He didn’t dare to ask, lest the pastor thump him again with the cane.

McBride blinked. “I know what you’re thinking, son. Did I enjoy that sinful experience? I may be a man after God’s own heart, but I’m still a man, imperfect flesh, and that flesh is . . . weak.”

“I wasn’t going to ask,” Troy said.

“Over the years, my memory has begun to fail me in many aspects, son. But for many reasons, that day is crystal clear in my mind. I saw things I can’t explain with logic.”

“Her tongue?”

“Is it some kind of deformity?” McBride asked with a quizzical frown. “I’m not a man of science. You’re a physician.”

“I haven’t found any recorded cases that would explain it,” Troy said, thinking again about Grace’s DNA results: foreign material. “I checked.”

McBride shuddered. But he continued to speak.

“When Grace turned up pregnant, she told Lily I was the father, merely to be spiteful, no other reason. Lily wouldn’t believe my story.” His lips quivered. “She quit this church, wouldn’t speak to me again. She didn’t want me involved with the baby. I’m sad she’s gone now, that she died believing I purposefully did such a horrible thing.”

The pastor lowered his head and sobbed quietly. Troy slid his arm around the man’s frail shoulders, pulled him close.

He wasn’t surprised that Lily had kept secret the truth of Monica’s paternity. Lily had been of an older generation of ultraconservative, southern Black folk that didn’t believe in sharing scandalous information, particularly when the church was involved. The woman had taken the secret to her grave, even when Monica had every right to know the truth. It was infuriating, but he understood.

“Lily is gone now,” Troy said. “But you’ve got a grown daughter out there who needs to know who her daddy is. Now, more than ever, she needs you. Both of us do.”

“I want to tell her.” McBride sat up, blew his nose. “You think she’d be accepting of me?”

“First, we’ll have to get around Grace. She’s having a powerful influence on my wife. Monica’s in a bad place right now.”

“I can’t be in that jezebel’s proximity for one minute,” McBride said with a firm shake of his head. “Heed my advice, son, and get that woman out of your family’s home.”