Summer of 1964

Hung thick over the Mississippi fields, the heat pressing down like judgment. Out past the parsonage, past the white clapboard church, the land stretched on forever—golden, wild, untamed. It was a cruel contrast to the life Guest lived, hemmed in by scripture and the sharp eyes of her father.

And then there was Micah McBride.

She saw him first from the church steps, his broad back bent over the rusted hood of his father’s truck, sweat darkening the collar of his shirt. He was the kind of boy her father warned against—grit under his fingernails, sin curled in the smirk at the corner of his mouth.

She knew better. She did.

That’s why she stayed away. Why she kept her eyes low when he passed, hands clenched in her lap when she heard the girls whispering about the things he did behind the grain silos.

today you were helping your father with setting up the church for morning service.