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The second pew, where Whitlock sat every Sunday, is empty. So is Curtis Lindner's seat at the end of the front row, where the church board sits. Nobody's carrying the collection plate down the fourth pew in his place.

Delilah doesn't sit. She stops at the front, below the pulpit, and turns around to face the congregation and the board.

"Most of you heard I ran off," she says. "I didn't. Deacon Whitlock had me taken out of the Cattle Guard lot. He kept me in a cell under his winery. I'm going to tell all of it under oath, so I won't tell all of it here."

The sanctuary goes so quiet I can hear the air conditioner kick on.

She turns and looks up at her father.

"Daddy owed Whitlock a gambling debt," she says. "The night they took me, I told Daddy at supper I was going to the Cattle Guard. After supper he picked up the phone and told Whitlock where I'd be. Whitlock told him he'd only keep me a day or two, until Daddy found the money. Daddy never found it. When Whitlock told him I'd run off, Daddy chose to believe it. He never filed a report. He told this whole congregation I ran off, and he let all of you believe it for a year."

Elias's mouth opens.

"You preached obedience at me my whole life," she tells him. "You don't get to preach it at me anymore. You have no claim on my life, and you'll never have my obedience again. It belongs to me, and I'll give it to who I choose."

Nobody moves.

At last the oldest man on the board's row stands up. He's in a brown suit older than I am, and his hands shake on the back of the pew.

He walks up the steps to the pulpit. "Elias, you'll step down from this pulpit today," he says, loud enough for the back wall. "The board meets Wednesday about whether you stay on as pastor. Go on home."

Elias looks out at his congregation. All down the pews, heads drop.

The board walks him down the side aisle and out the side door they leave open. Through it, I watch them cross the yard toward the parsonage. Nobody from the pews gets up to go with him.

After the sanctuary empties, Delilah goes out to my truck and comes back with what she asked me to load this morning. It's a gallon of brown paint close to the color of the oak, a brush, and a screwdriver, with the can's wire handle hooked over her good wrist.

She sets the can on the top step and pries the lid off one-handed. I don't offer to do it, and she hasn't asked.

I lean on the stair rail at the bottom of the church steps, where I can see her and Main both, and watch every truck that slows down.

It takes her most of the afternoon. She keeps her splinted hand against her chest and works the brush with her good one, slow, back and forth across every letter.

Every so often she sits down on the top step and rests with her face tipped up to the sun. Then she gets up and keeps going until no pink shows anywhere on either door. When she's done, she sets the brush across the can and steps back to look.

She taps the lid back on with the screwdriver handle. I carry the can around the side of the church to my truck, because she lets me. As we pass the parsonage, a curtain moves, and Elias's face shows in the window before it falls shut.

Nobody's left in the sanctuary. I follow her in as far as the last pew.

The piano bench is where she sat every Sunday before she was taken, and she sits there now. She keeps her splinted hand in her lap and plays with her good one alone.

It's the hymn she hummed to Sadie on Tuesday morning. She plays it slow, all the way through.

When the last note fades, she sits with her good hand on the keys. "'Leaning on the Everlasting Arms,'" she says without turning around.

She closes the lid over the keys, and we drive home with the windows down.

That night she knocks on my back door instead of punching in the code. She's never knocked on it before.

When I open the door, she walks past me into my kitchen with a fresh carbon receipt book from the feed store under her arm, a pen clipped in its spiral. She sets it on my table, sits down, and unclips the pen.

I sit across from her and wait.

"I called Torres on Raven's phone yesterday," she says while she writes. "I'm taking my mother's name. Calder. Torres is sending a victim advocate from her office to help me file it with the court, and she says she'll see the paper through herself."

"Delilah Calder."

"Delilah Ruth Calder." She keeps her eyes on the page. "Whitlock called me the preacher's girl. Daddy told the whole town I was restless. I'm done answering to either one."