Asher didn’t know any lawyers so he chose the first one he found online and drove to her office on the square in Choctaw. In the waiting room he sat looking out the window at the tall war memorial topped with a Confederate soldier. The receptionist apologized that the attorney was late for their appointment; twice he caught her staring at him from behind the screen of her computer. She was playing music there—a string of country songs that all sounded like the same young man singing about fishing, and his truck, and his girl. The receptionist looked too young for this job—like she had just graduated from high school—and spoke with a babyish voice, her eyelashes spidery with clumped mascara. The lawyer hustled in, wiping her hands on a paper towel and still chewing the remnants of her lunch.

She shook Asher’s hand. “I’m Jane Fisher, but you can call me Fisher,” she said, then belched quietly into the cup of her palm. “Let’s go on into my office.”

She settled herself behind her desk and offered no small talk. “So tell me what’s going on, Mr. Sharp.”

“I’m terrified I’m going to lose my son,” he said.

“Why would that happen?”

He told her all about Jimmy and Stephen, being fired from the church, the video. She kept her eyes on him and listened silently until he was finished, then perched her reading glasses on her nose and tapped at her laptop’s keyboard, hunting and pecking. She watched the screen for a moment before speaking.

“Well, they’re going to say the video proves you had a nervous breakdown—”

“But it’s just tears in my eyes, just a plea to the congre—”