“I’ve been studying on all this and I agree with you that we shouldn’t turn people away. But people don’t talk about sin enough anymore, Asher,” she said this time. “We can’t just go around saying that people can do whatever they want. Christian folks have to be lights.”

“You sound like you’re just repeating all that stuff your husband used to preach,” Asher said.

“I know my own mind. You’ve always accused me of just agreeing with whatever he said or Lydia said. But I study the Bible, too, you know. I have my own way of thinking. And I don’t want to be mean to anybody. I wouldn’t be. But I also don’t know if I believe in accepting this way of life these men have as easy as you can.”

“It’s not a way of life, Zelda. It’s just life. It’s their lives.”

He knew what it was like to be the minority. He remembered the arguments with his mother, trying to get her to be more accepting of Luke. But then it had become easier to just agree with her, to seek her approval. And so he had become a preacher who preached against his own brother.

“I know you feel alone right now at that church, to be one of the few who agrees with me—”

“No, honey, I’ve told you: I have my own thoughts on this. And Justin does need to know about sin. He does need to be shown right and wrong.”

Asher took a deep breath. Something in him had known it would come to this. That he would lose her, too. “I have to go,” he said.

“I do love you, Asher,” Zelda said, after a pause. “I always will. You know that. Like my own.”

He clicked off the phone.

Now he hadn’t heard from her in two weeks. He had called her but she hadn’t answered. On his breaks at work he checked the screen of his phone to see if it showed any missed calls from her.

Two days before the hearing, he went out back of the grocery on his break and stood where he could see the first hints of purpling of the redbud trees along the Cumberland River. He dialed Zelda’s number again and this time she answered. A great fumbling of the old rotary phone she had seen no point in replacing.

“Hello?” she said, always that question when she answered the phone since she still had a landline and no caller identification.

“You’re going to testify against me at the hearing,” he said.

“Not against you.”

“But for her. To say that I’m not fit to have joint custody. After all we’ve been through together, and as good as you know me, you’re going to lie for her.”