By the time he had figured out that she had God and judgment all mixed up he had been preaching along those same lines for years. And then he had begun to realize that he had married a woman who did not disagree with her, who was not unlike her except for the abuse. If Lydia had ever laid a hand on Justin he would’ve kidnapped him long before now. At least she didn’t possess that kind of meanness.

They passed a scattering of small, tidy houses with red geraniums and hanging pots of wandering Jew, a collection of rockers and chairs on the porches.

Old couples hoeing corn in the gathering heat, their gardens rectangle-shaped wounds of rich brown soil among the green yards.

So far out across the fields they could not hear its engine, even if they had been standing still: an orange tractor bumping along the edge of a tobacco field.

Barns. Gray, red, white.

Abandoned houses with tiger lilies growing in the windows. Look how perfect, Asher. He had loved her even after she had pulled a gun on his own brother. He had become a preacher for her, to please her because Luke had not.

A small cemetery with plastic flowers on the graves, the tombstones wiped clean recently, most likely back on Memorial Day. Country folks still took that seriously.

Spaced out every few miles, cinder-block stores with good names: Daddy and Them Grocery. Lord God Almighty Hair Salon.

Occasionally: a Confederate flag hanging on a rusty pole, or draped over a porch banister.

Church after church after church. Asher had preached in so many just like them, back when he was doing revivals. He could conjure the smells of those little churches (musty, perfumy, the scent of plug-in deodorizers or soured mop water or acrid hair spray that lodged in the back of his throat). The people coming forward, asking for prayer, his hand capped over their foreheads, their lips trembling with the Holy Ghost, dotting oil on their temples, praying like a fever let loose. The drummers—almost always women—playing so hard and fast, pianos pounding. A church’s kind of rock ’n’ roll. The church people dancing, cloaked in the Spirit. The electric guitars and the singers and the tambourines shaking with their ancient sounds. He had believed in all of it with everything in him. He had believed and believed and believed.

All of the churches were small, some of them with names so long they didn’t fit properly on their signs.

little dove full gospel church in jesus name

the one true god gospel celebration church

holy ghost revival church of the new savior

Most of them with shelter houses nearby, filled with picnic tables. Most of them white, but a couple redbricked, all with crosses. Only a few possessed steeples, squat and fat.