Sing You Home

deviant?”

“It’s entirely possible,” Pastor Clive says. “The Bible is just a general outline.”

“But the ones that are mentioned in the Bible as being sexually deviant-that, in your opinion, is God’s word? Completely and utterly inviolable?”

“That’s right.”

Angela Moretti picks a Bible off the defense table that has been littered with Post-it notes. “Are you familiar with Deuteronomy 22:20-21?” she asks. “Could you read this out loud to the court?”

Pastor Clive’s voice rings through the room. “If, however, the charge is true and no proof of the girl’s virginity can be found, she shall be brought to the door of her father’s house and there the men of her town shall stone her to death.”

“Thank you, Pastor. Can you explain the passage?”

He purses his lips. “It advocates stoning a woman who isn’t a virgin at the time of marriage.”

“Is that something you’d advise your flock to do?” Before he can answer, she asks him another question. “How about Mark 10:1-12? Those passages forbid divorce. Do you have any members of your congregation who are divorced? Oh, wait-of course you do. Max Baxter.”

“God forgives sinners,” Pastor Clive says. “He welcomes them back into His fold.”

Angela flips through her Bible again. “How about Mark 12:18-23? If a man dies childless, his widow is ordered by biblical law to have sex with each of his brothers in turn until she bears her deceased husband a male heir. Is that what you tell grieving widows?”

I hate myself for it, but I think of Liddy again.

“Objection!”

“Or Deuteronomy 25:11-12? If two men are fighting and the wife of one of them tries to rescue her husband by grabbing his enemy’s genitals, her hand should be cut off and no pity should be shown to her-”

Seriously? I had joined an adult Bible study at Reid’s suggestion, but we never read anything as juicy as that.

“Objection!” Wade smacks the table with his open hand.

The judge raises his voice. “Ms. Moretti, I will hold you in contempt if you-”

“Fine. I’ll withdraw that last one. But you must admit, Pastor, that not every decree in the Bible makes sense in this day and age.”

“Only because you’re taking the verses out of historical context-”

“Mr. Lincoln,” Angela Moretti says flatly. “You did first.”

14

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Where You Are (3:22)

ZOE

For the first five seconds after I wake up, the day is as crisp as a new dollar bill-spotless, full of possibility.

And then I remember.

That there is a lawsuit.

That there are three embryos.

That today, I am testifying.

That for the rest of my life, Vanessa and I will have to jump twice as high and run twice as fast to cover the same ground as a heterosexual couple. Love is never easy, but it seems that, for gay couples, it’s an obstacle course.

I feel her arm steal around me from behind. “Stop thinking,” she says.

“How do you know I’m thinking?”

Vanessa smiles against my shoulder blade. “Because your eyes are open.”

I roll over to face her. “How did you do it? How does anyone ever come out when they’re younger? I mean, I can barely handle what’s being said about me in that courtroom, and I’m forty-one years old. If I were fourteen, I wouldn’t just be in the closet-I’d be gluing myself to its inside wall.”

Vanessa rolls onto her back and stares up at the ceiling. “I would have rather died than come out in high school. Even though I knew, deep down, who I was. There are a million reasons to not come out when you’re a teenager-because adolescence is about matching everyone else, not standing out; because you don’t know what your parents are going to say; because you’re terrified your best friend will think you’re making the moves on her- seriously, I’ve been there.” She glances at me. “At my school now, there are five teens who are openly gay and lesbian, and about fifteen more who don’t want to realize they’re gay and lesbian yet. I can tell them a hundred million times that what they’re feeling is perfectly normal, and then they go home and turn on the news and they see that the military won’t let gay people serve. They watch another gay marriage referendum bite the dust. One thing kids aren’t is stupid.”

“How many people have to say there’s something wrong with you before you start believing it?” I muse out loud.

“You tell me,” Vanessa says. “You’re a late bloomer, Zo, but you’re just as brave as the rest of us. Gays and lesbians are like cockroaches, I guess. Resilient as all hell.”

I laugh. “Clearly that would be Pastor Clive’s worst nightmare. Cockroaches have been around since the dinosaurs were walking the earth.”

“But then Pastor Clive would have to believe in evolution,” Vanessa says.

Thinking of Pastor Clive makes me think about the gauntlet we had to run yesterday to get into court. Last night, Wade Preston had been on the Hannity show. Today there will be twice as much media. Twice as much attention focused on me.

I’m used to it; I’m a performer after all. But there’s an enormous difference between an audience that’s watching you because they can’t wait to see what comes next and an audience that’s watching you because they’re waiting for you to fail.

Suddenly nothing about Pastor Clive seems funny at all.

I roll onto my side, staring at the buttery light on the wood floor, wondering what would happen if I phoned Angela and told her I had the flu. Hives. The Black Plague.

Vanessa curves her body around mine, tangles our ankles together. “Stop thinking,” she says again. “You’re going to be fine.”

One of the hidden costs of a courtroom trial is the amount of time that your real life is entirely interrupted by something you’d much rather keep secret. Maybe you’re a little ashamed; maybe you just don’t think it’s anyone’s business. You have to take personal time off work; you have to assume that everything else is on hold and this takes precedence.

In this, a lawsuit is not much different from in vitro.

Because of this-and because Vanessa’s taking off just as much time as I am-we decide that we will spend an hour at the high school before we have to go to court for the day. Vanessa can clear her desk and put out whatever fires have sprung up since yesterday; I will meet with Lucy.

Or so we think, until we turn the corner from the school parking lot and find a mob of picketers, holding signs and chanting.

FEAR GOD, NOT GAYS