One of the darkest times of their lives had been when Eli did time for misdemeanor drug possession. It was the nineties back then, when the war on drugs should have been renamed the war on Black men. There seemed to be a bounty on the head of every brother. It made no sense that Eli was there, even if only for a few weeks, in the same place with murderers awaiting trial. Side by side with guys who had put bullets through people’s heads. They’d expected Eli to serve a much longer sentence—two years—and Mama had moaned day and night that her grandbaby couldn’t live in a cage another day. Get back, devil, get back. Only you, God, can break the shackles and set him free. Through some miracle and maybe Mama’s petitions to the Lord, Eli got out fast, but Ruth always wondered what scars lingered inside her brother, invisible ones he never talked about.

Mama never took her eyes off Eli’s photo. “He was back in jail just a few years ago.”

Her words shot straight through Ruth’s chest. “What are you talking about?”

“Don’t you dare bring this up to your brother. He should never have brought out that gun, even if he was just trying to keep the peace.”

“Gun?” Ruth shouted, finding it impossible to believe Eli would get himself involved with guns.

“Nobody got hurt. It’s over now and I don’t want to talk about it.” To emphasize her point, Mama got up, put on her coat, and left the house, claiming she had errands to run.

Mama never said it, but Ruth knew she’d wrestled with her own regret over Eli’s not having a man to look up to after Papa died. She tried and failed to be mother and father to him and overcompensated for that failure.

So many times, Ruth had wanted to scream, What about me? She knew Mama loved her. Deeply. But as much as folks refused to admit it, mothers loved their children differently. Even before Papa died, Mama made a distinction between her grandchildren.

When Eli threw a football through the living room window as a kid, Mama laughed at the shattered glass and seemed almost triumphant, as if some milestone of raising a boy had been reached. A few years into Papa’s ALS, he asked Ruth if he could just that once pour his own milk over his bowl of Raisin Bran. He was too weak, trembling too much, to hold the carton steady. It was hard to believe this was the same man who had taught her and Eli how to hold and fire a gun during hunting season. But Ruth hadn’t wanted to deny her grandfather that sense of control. She handed him the carton and he dropped it, spilling milk all over the kitchen floor. Look what you’ve done, Mama yelled at Ruth, accusing her of using poor judgment. Those memories stayed with Ruth, and yet reflecting on these slights years later seemed small and petty. There was no fairness scale that could right the wrongs from childhood.

Shortly after Mama left the house, the doorbell rang. When Ruth opened the door, she found Pastor Walter Bumpus standing in the doorway. He was wearing a long black overcoat, dress slacks, and a wide-brimmed hat he lifted from his head in a show of greeting. As a short man who wore everything oversized, he often looked like a child playing dress-up in his father’s clothing. A blast of cold air rushed in behind him.

The pastor’s face betrayed him, a brief look of shock flashing there at the sight of her. He hid it quickly, though, with a toothy grin that exposed his blue-black gums.

“Ruth Marie Tuttle. It’s been a long time.” No one called her by her whole name, except for Mama, and it usually meant she’d done something to earn some reprimand as a kid. In spite of his small stature, the senior pastor of Friendship Baptist Church consumed every room with his rich baritone, which could fill a stadium with no amplification necessary.

“Good morning, Pastor. It’s good seeing you again.”

After removing his gloves, he took both of her hands in his, and they were cool, yet soft as a flower petal. “I haven’t laid eyes on you since the day I married you and Xavier. In the Bible, even the prodigal son came home to a forgiving father and a huge feast.”

Ruth bowed her head, shamed. She knew preachers were just men and women, mere flesh and blood, with no greater connection to God than anyone else. But if the Lord had called this man to ministry, maybe He had anointed him with divine understanding. As a little girl, he had submerged her cloaked body in the baptismal pool, and she couldn’t count the many times he had come to their table for Sunday dinners.

Sliding her hands from his, she wondered what he could see beneath the shield of her skin. Did he already know her teenage sin?

They walked to the living room and he sat on the sofa, patting the empty spot next to him. She chose the love seat opposite him, irrationally worried that he could see her sin and it would reveal itself more in the morning light streaming through the window.

“Mama’s out for a bit, but I’m sure she’ll be back soon,” Ruth said, glancing at her watch.

Pastor Bumpus stretched one arm across the back of the couch and crossed his legs. He was obviously in no hurry. “Never mind that. You know we take care of the widows at Friendship, so I just stopped by to say hello to Ernestine like I always do. It’s a pleasant surprise to see you here. I am glad you made it home for Christmas and that we get to talk.” After a beat, his lips curled into a small smile. “My, my, my. You look more and more like Joanna every day. Beautiful.”

At the mention of her mother’s name, Ruth cringed. They shared genetic material—DNA floating in their blood—but she wanted the similarities to end there. “With all due respect, Pastor, you’re wrong. We’re actually nothing alike.”