PUMFPH TA-THUMPH go the tires and they cross the bridge over the Cumberland River and they are back home again, just like that. The trees, bushy and dark green, lean in on either side of the road with their big old limbs. Asher has missed the trees most of all.

All at once he’s shaking so hard he can’t drive anymore and he pulls to the gravelly shoulder so he and Luke can switch seats. He looks down at his hands, which are trembling.

“Let’s go back, right now,” Justin says.

Asher fastens his seat belt and looks straight ahead as Luke pulls back onto the highway.

“Please don’t do this!” Justin cries out, as if he has been wanting to say this all the way across Florida and Georgia and Tennessee. “You should’ve let Uncle Luke bring me back. They would have never found you.”

“It wouldn’t work that way—”

“He could have just dropped me off at Granny’s and driven away and they would’ve never found you!” He is yelling to keep from crying. “They would’ve never known.”

“I have to own up to this, Justin,” Asher says, turning to face him. “I was wrong—”

“But she was, too. Why won’t she get punished?”

“That’s just not how it works,” he says, feeling numb, feeling as if he isn’t in his own body. “She went by the books—”

“That’s bullshit!” Justin cries out, causing Luke to look back at him as if he might chastise the boy, but he doesn’t. “Please go back.”

“Hush now,” Asher says, twisted around in his seat so that his seat belt is strangling at his neck. He puts his hand on top of Justin’s. “We’re going to be okay. I promise you.”

Luke doesn’t say a word. He keeps his shoulders square and drives. There has always been something about Luke that has made Asher feel safe. Asher knows how hard this must be for him, to come back after all these years of exile. Luke is holding on to the gearshift and Asher caps his hand over his brother’s.

They have been gone almost three months but it feels like ages, like everything has changed, even though every single thing is exactly the same. They pass the Dollar General where the parking lot is always full, and the Cumberland Valley Church of Life with its short white steeple and blue door. A yellow sign sits on cinder blocks out front. The smaller letters at the bottom used to spell out asher sharp, pastor but they have been replaced with the name Caleb Carey. The sign’s message today is repent sinner for lo the last days are nigh.

They pass pastures and hills and little groves of oak trees where Asher knows the shade is the best kind of sweet-smelling cool. Cows stand in ponds with still, brown water.