It’s Sunday morning, and you all know what that means!

That’s right, it’s time for church again. I gotta say, Zoe’s departure has really thrown off my usual routine. Usually I walk with her from Sunday School to the sanctuary, and then when the sermon starts, I’d repeatedly make jokes throughout it, and Zoe would always laugh at them, but then tell me to be quiet. If I manage to make her laugh so hard that Mom and/or Dad shushes us, that means I win! But it’s just not the same now that she’s gone. Derrick always just ignores my jokes, or gives me like a pity smile and a nod. That’s not nearly as much fun.

I walk past the choir room to see that Mr. Palmer has just finished giving his blessings to the choir, and the members of said choir are nearly done filing out of the room. Mr. Palmer catches my eye, and to my surprise, he beckons me to come inside.

“Collin, may I have a word this morning before service starts?” he asks me.

“Uhhh, sure,” I reply. Shit. This can’t be good.

He motions for me to take a seat in a chair by the front of the now empty choir room, and I sit.

“Now… I take it that you are still in contact with your sister against your parents’ wishes?” He asks bluntly.

“You can’t prove that,” I reflexively reply. Maybe I shouldn’t have said that, though, they might search my phone again.

“I do remember what it’s like to be young, Collin,” he tells me in a fatherly sort of way. “Anyways, I want to make sure understand that neither I nor your parents would ever do anything to harm your sister.”

“Uh, it’s a little too late for that,” I spit out before I can stop myself.

He sighs and purses his lips. “Well… it is true that much of this could’ve been avoided. It’s a pity…”

That’s not what I expected him to say. “What do you mean by that?” I ask, curious.

“How do I explain this to someone so young?” He takes a full breath, and starts to speak more articulately, like he does when he’s preaching. (I don’t even think he’s doing it consciously.)

“When I child is young, he or she is generally obedient to his or her mother and father,” he explains. “However, when a child reaches the teenage years, her or she may become rebellious and reject the rules and morals of the parents. Parents will typically react by either simply letting the child be, withdrawing and no longer involving themselves with the teenager’s life and personal decisions; or, the other extreme, ‘declaring war’ against their child by setting stricter rules and enforcing them more severely; or, most commonly, the parents will randomly oscillate between the two.”

“Guess there’s just no way to be a good parent, then,” I remark.

“There is a way; but it takes strength, patience, and faith, all working together as one. Anyways, sometimes, the teenager doesn’t rebel, at least not at first. He or she will spend years silently resenting his or her parents, and one day, that resentment will suddenly, unexpectedly, spill out all at once. I fear that this is what happened with Zoe.”

I shake my head. “With all due respect… that’s not what’s going on with her. Zoe doesn’t have a rebellious or resentful bone in her body. She was just trying to tell our parents the truth!”

“I believe that she told what she thought was the truth. And I believe that how your parents reacted made the problem far worse. But at the end of the day, we are all accountable for our actions. The sooner we get your sister to realize this, the better.”

I want so badly to keep on arguing with him, but I better hold my tongue or I’ll get in trouble again. Man, he really just doesn’t get it. He doesn’t get that someone like Zoe would never choose to do something so contrary to her upbringing. Well, hopefully somebody will talk some sense into him, but it’s not gonna be me.

“I know that this is an upsetting situation… but bear with us,” he tells me, evidently misinterpreting the look on my face. “It’s best if we head downstairs… I still need to start service.”

So, we exit the choir room and head down the stairs. By this point, most people have already made it into the sanctuary. However, when we reach the bottom of the stairs, we see a couple coming in through the side door… Ashley’s parents! -Dramatic sting-

When he sees them, Mr. Palmer’s eyes briefly bulge out of their sockets, but he quickly regains his composure. “Ah… It is good to see you,” he says congenially. “We have much to discuss…. But let us do after service. I’d rather not make a scene.”

“I’d rather not make a scene either,” Mrs. Davis says, nodding in agreement. The couple looks unusually dour today. What on earth are they doing here?

Mr. Palmer leaves for the sanctuary, and I take the chance to go dude on Mr. Davis’s sleeve. “Hey! Where’s Zoe?” I ask him. “Did you bring her?”

“Hmm? Oh, good morning Collin. No, the girls are not with us this morning.”

“What? Why would you come here and not bring them?”

He turns to face me. “I very much hope I am wrong about this, but… Alyssa and I may not be here for very long this morning.”

Without further explanation, they make for the sanctuary as well. What a cryptic answer. I guess there’s nothing left to do, so I follow them in.

I dash right for the seat where the rest of my family is. I am expecting to be reprimanded for walking in at the last second (even though it wasn’t my fault,) but it turns out, my parents are quite preoccupied right now. They are furiously whispering among themselves.

“Uh… what’s going on?” I whisper to Derrick.

“Well… a certain couple has decided to re-emerge,” he says darkly. “Ashley’s parents.”

“Yeah, I know. I bumped into them on the way in.”

I crane my head to look at what Ashley’s parents are doing. They’re just casually walking to the back of the sanctuary. Not stopping to talk to anyone, or even really making eye contact with anyone. Though there are plenty of craned heads looking their way.

My parents are getting up from their seats!

“Hey, wait, where are we going?” I ask.

“You’re not going anywhere,” Dad says sternly. “Your Mother and I are going to go have an adult conversation.”

And they walk off towards the back. Well, I may not understand what’s going on, but you bet your ass I’m not missing the chance to watch some juicy drama go down. I get up from my seat, and try to discreetly scuttle off to where Ashley’s parents are. Derrick gives me a bemused look, but keeps his seat.

My parents position themselves next to Ashley’s, and draw themselves up to their full height. Most of the area nearby has hushed the usual chatter to watch. Ashley’s parents don’t seem to have noticed what’s going on yet; they’re seemingly talking about the program with bored expressions on their faces. I’m pretty sure they’re just intently ignoring everyone else.

“So,” my mother begins threateningly. “Since you were so bold as to come here, explain to us all what you are doing with our daughter.”

Mrs. Davis, who is closer to the aisle, doesn’t respond for a few seconds, but then looks up and finally seems to notice my parents standing over her. “Hmm… Oh, hello Marie. What were you saying?” she asks in a pleasant tone of voice.

Mom blinks, surprised, but then her expression hardens again. “What are you doing with our daughter?” she asks again.

Mrs. Davis leans back in her pew. “Oh, don’t worry, we’re taking good care of her. Feeding her… getting her to school on time… helping her with schoolwork… putting clothes from Goodwill on her back, since some people are stubbornly hoarding her possessions…” Oh snap!

“Given what you’re doing, you have a lot of nerve showing up here,” Dad chimes in.

“Refresh my memory… what are we doing, exactly?” Mrs. Davis responds.

“You’re allowing your child to practice filth. If that were not bad enough, you have taken one of our children into your home to do the same.”

“I don’t know… you haven’t been over in a while, but those girls keep their rooms pretty clean. And Ashley’s very good about doing her laundry in a timely manner. I sure as hell wasn’t that clean when I was her age. I had clothes all over the floor… drove my parents crazy…”

“You are avoiding the issue! Do you deny that you are allowing the practice of the homosexual lifestyle in your household, and in fact, may even be teaching it?”

“Oh, that’s what you’re talking about. You should’ve been more clear!” Mrs. Davis gives off a strange smirk. “Well, first of all, I don’t know how Gregg and I would be teaching it. We don’t exactly know anything about such a lifestyle…” She chuckles to herself, seemingly at her own private joke. “And anyway… we’ve been doing a lot of research recently. Lots of studying, lots of thinking, lots of praying.”

“Oh really?” Mom interjects. “And would you like to share the findings of your ‘research,’ then?”

Mrs. Davis wasn’t in a hurry to get to the point. She took in a deep breath, sighed heavily, and started shuffling around in her seat, trying to get into a more comfortable position. I glance over at Mr. Palmer. He doesn’t seem in too much of a hurry to start the service either, so he must know that something’s going on.

“It doesn’t add up!” Mrs. Davis finally says. “It just doesn’t add up.”

“What doesn’t add up?” Mom says, her expression getting a little fiercer.

“When Zoe came to you with that revelation… What basis did you have for your reaction?”

“You’re questioning our parenting?” Dad asks.

“Well… yes. I won’t tell you I know how exactly you should’ve reacted. We had no idea to react either when Ashley told us what was going on. But… to disown your own child? I found nothing in the Bible suggesting that doing such is an appropriate reaction to… almost any situation, really. Think of the father who welcomed his son home with open arms, after said son had squandered all his father’s wealth in wild partying. That father forgave his son for all of that, and yet… you can’t forgive your daughter…” She sighs, her eyes unfocused. “For being a lesbian.”

“Hmm. I knew not to expect any decent defense from you people,” Dad says. “You have resorted to fabrications… what proof do you have that we ‘disowned our child?’”

“Well, I wasn’t there. I don’t claim to know exactly what you said. But Zoe certainly felt that way after walking out of your house! That’s significant.”

“You should know that the word will turn believers against those in their own families,” Mom says. “Father against son! Son against father! Mother against daughter, daughter against mother! It is written.”

“That’s true. It is written so. But I don’t see why it should in this case.”

“You’re not serious,” Dad jeers.

Mrs. Davis’s eyes narrow, making her look annoyed for the first time. “Yes, I am serious! When there is scientific evidence that sexual orientation is set and unchangeable? And the more you look into the scripture, the more the evidence for current teachings on the subject seems… weak.”

“You’re being ridiculous. The teachings of the Bible are clearer than day!”

“Don’t take the words of Leviticus at face value. Look back further, into the original Hebrew. The fact of the matter is, the passage that now gets translated into a ban of male same-sex relationships… well, we can’t know for sure what it was originally referring to. Maybe it was a ban on all homosexual behaviors. Or maybe it was a ban on a specific type of prostitution, or a ban on pederasty. (Author’s note: If you don’t know what that word means, DON’T look it up!) Our lack of knowledge of the old language leaves it open…”

“Ah. Conveniently ignoring Romans 1, are we now?”

Mrs. Davis frowns. “Romans 1 is such a… weird chapter. The verses you’re referring to… they don’t relate in any way towards what he talks about before or after. In fact, in the very next paragraph, Paul makes a pretty comprehensive list of sins… but doesn’t include homosexuality, despite just mentioning it! He never even really clarifies what he’s talking about in the first place.”

“I see the route you’re going down,” Mom cuts in. “You’re trying to wriggle your way out of what you’re doing by pure technicality!”

“Um… Who’s the one wriggling here? I never claimed to know the answer. I’m trying to make the case that we don’t know. Because we don’t. We can’t, in fact.”

“Except we can- the word of God is absolute.”

Mr. Davis chimes in, speaking for the first time. “If God is infallible, and humans not so, what is the fate of the word of God written by the hands of humans?” He says.

Mrs. Davis nods appreciatively. “That’s what I’m getting at. We all put our trust in the Lord… nobody is disputing that. But what of the generations of translators and scholars, who, in a sense, act as gatekeepers to our current understanding of the word? Translation after translation… each passing through the hands of men, men with their own biases and agendas. It’s not unthinkable that every now and then, they may, either accidentally or maliciously, make an error in interpreting the holy text. All I ask… is that you just think about that.”

Mrs. Davis looks up at my parents again, making her lips into a smile. “We all come here in the name of following God… so I’m sure that we can have an honest conversation about this in the coming days.”

And there it is… the proverbial olive branch.

“Okay. I will be honest,” Dad says. “To come here, coming with nothing but blasphemous insults and excuses, is an attempt to stain the honor of the church. You should have known better than to think you would ever be accepted here again, and if you have any sense, you will never return.”

The mood in the room changes. While it was previously tense, somehow the air feels colder, the atmosphere hostile in a way which is difficult to fully explain. The only visible change, however, is that Ashley’s parents faces have changed from expressions of begrudging pacifism, to those of malice. They are fucking pissed.