“You’ve got 36,413 followers,” Justin said, like a little businessman, as he clicked off the phone and slid it back into the pocket of his jeans.

“I know the kinds of things people say on the internet, Justin. You ought not—”

“I’m nine years old, Dad,” Justin said, and his face was so serious and mature that Asher couldn’t find it in himself to negate that.

The cold rains set in. Then the sleet, the first dustings of snow, the thin ones that only last past noon on the most secret ridges. Fisher told him to be patient, the hearing was only three months away. But in those three months Asher thought he might lose his mind. He didn’t get to see Justin enough. Every night he thought of how he wasn’t being allowed to tell his son good night in person. Mornings he awoke and realized there was nothing but the plywood walls of the trailer to greet him. He stood at the window with a cup of coffee and watched snow sift down on the gray trees crowding close to the lake bank. Let there be light Genesis 1:3, he thought in the mornings when the sun arose, and in the evenings he thought: then, darkness came over the whole land Mark 15:33. He had to work consciously to keep a madness from growing in his mind.

At work one day Cherry came in excited and told him she had seen him in People magazine. “They did this thing where they asked a big bunch of celebrities what they thought about your video! Nicole Kidman talked about it, Pastor Sharp! And Dolly Parton! I about died! Dolly knows who you are!” She was laughing but he felt sick to his stomach. “They’re arguing about it on the news. And I was at the hair salon the other day and everybody in there was talking about it! I can’t get over it.”

“Well, neither can I, Cherry,” Asher said, and ran his box cutter along the top of another case of Premium saltines.

“You’ve got the whole country talking about this.” She grabbed hold of his hand, drawing his eyes back to hers. “And you know what, they need to be talking about it. They needed to hear a country preacher talking about it.” She let go his hand and put fists on her hips, the way she balanced herself these days as her belly grew bigger. “All these damn bigots.” She capped a hand over her mouth, her eyes large above her fingers. “I’m sorry to cuss, Pastor Sharp. But it makes me so mad. Why won’t they all just hush?”

Sometimes when Zelda and Asher talked on the phone, she said a prayer for him, her voice passionate and intent while he waited silently for her to stop.