The cross above the chapel hadn't changed.
Neither had the brick steps leading up to it, or the way the stained glass bled color across the front pews when the sun hit it just right.
But I had.
Ten years away had a way of doing that to a man.
I stood on the church's front walk with my hands clenched in my jacket pockets, staring up at the steeple like it might fall on me. Like maybe I deserved it.
"Ralph," my mother had said on the phone, "just come home for Easter. One Sunday. You don't even have to go inside."
But I had. And now I was standing here, back in his shadow. My father's. Reverend Stephen Whittaker. Shepherd of the flock. Condemner of the queers.
And still the man who never once said my name after I came out.
I was twenty-nine now. Leaner. Harder. A little colder around
