The author was inspired by these words in writing the title and this novel and gives thanks to THE ONE above.

Chapter 24: Meaning of Darkest Night

The chapel at St. Bartholomew's Episcopal Church was empty at 3 AM, its stained-glass windows dark against the November night. Beau sat alone in the front pew, his clerical collar loosened, his hands folded in his lap as he stared at the simple wooden cross that hung above the altar. He had been there for two hours, wrestling with questions that seemed to have no answers, praying to THE ONE whose love he had proclaimed so confidently in that courtroom months ago.

Where were you? The question echoed in the silence, directed at the divine presence he had felt so strongly during his testimony, during the moment when he had been certain that truth would triumph over prejudice. Where were you when the appellate court ruled that discrimination was acceptable as long as it was dressed in religious language? Where were you when my sister's love was classified as evidence of moral failure?

The cross offered no response, no sudden revelation, no comfort for the crisis of faith that had been building since the appellate court decision three weeks earlier. Beau had returned to his parish in Virginia after staying with Delores for a week, but he had brought the defeat with him like a wound that refused to heal.

His congregation looked to him for answers about THE ONE's love, for reassurance that justice would prevail, for hope that their authentic lives were blessed rather than cursed. How could he offer them certainty when his own faith felt as fragile as spun glass?

Three hundred miles away, in the apartment that had once felt like home, Delores sat at her kitchen table staring at a bottle of sleeping pills. Not with any intention of harm—she wasn't suicidal, just exhausted beyond measure—but with the desperate desire to sleep for more than the two or three hours that had become her nightly maximum.

The pills promised eight hours of dreamless oblivion, eight hours without thinking about the appellate court decision, without wondering where Serina was sleeping, without calculating how long her savings would last now that the inheritance was gone. Eight hours without being Delores Morrison, the woman whose very existence had been legally classified as a moral failure.

She had been alone for seventeen days. Seventeen days since Serina had left to "think," seventeen days of silence broken only by well-meaning calls from friends and family that she couldn't bring herself to answer. The apartment felt like a tomb, filled with the ghosts of conversations and laughter and the kind of ordinary happiness that now seemed as distant as another lifetime.

Maybe they were right, she thought, turning the pill bottle over in her hands. Maybe I am just Timothy Morrison in disguise, a man so desperate for acceptance that he convinced himself he was someone else. Maybe my parents saw something I couldn't see, something that made them write those clauses to protect the family from my delusions.

The thoughts were poison, she knew that intellectually. Dr. Martinez had warned her about this kind of spiral, had given her tools for recognizing when grief was transforming into something more dangerous. But knowing something intellectually and feeling it emotionally were different things, and right now, the emotional truth felt like drowning.

The text message arrived at 3:47 AM, jolting both siblings from their separate dark nights. It was from Craig, sent to both of them simultaneously:

"Dad's birthday tomorrow. Thought you should know I'm having the house appraised for sale. Time to move on from the past."

The casual cruelty of it—the reminder that their father would have been seventy-three, the announcement that the family home was being sold, the dismissive "time to move on"—hit like a physical blow. This was the house where they had grown up, where Christmas mornings had unfolded, where their parents had lived and loved and made the thousand small decisions that had shaped their children's lives.

Now it was just another asset in Craig's portfolio, another piece of property to be liquidated for maximum profit.

Beau called Delores immediately, both of them needing to hear another voice in the darkness.

"Did you see—" he began.

"I saw it." Delores's voice was flat, emotionless. "He's selling the house."

"On Dad's birthday. He couldn't even wait until after the anniversary."

"Why would he? He got what he wanted. The money, the legal precedent, the validation that his prejudices were actually moral principles." Delores felt something breaking inside her chest, something that had been holding together through sheer force of will. "He's erasing everything, Beau. Not just me, but all of us. The family, the memories, the idea that we were ever anything more than a legal dispute over money."

They talked until dawn, their conversation meandering through grief and anger and the kind of existential questioning that came with watching everything you believed in crumble. Beau told her about his crisis of faith, about the way his congregation looked to him for answers he didn't have. Delores told him about the sleeping pills, about the thoughts that scared her, about the way she sometimes felt like she was disappearing entirely.

"I keep thinking about that hymn," Beau said as the first light of dawn began to filter through their respective windows. "The one that inspired your memoir title. 'Love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all.'"

"What about it?"

"I used to think it was about sacrifice—about giving up what you wanted for what THE ONE wanted. But now I'm wondering if it's about something else. About demanding that we live authentically, love openly, claim our place in the world regardless of what institutions tell us we're worth."

"That's a beautiful interpretation, but it doesn't change the fact that the legal system just ruled that my authentic life is evidence of moral failure."

"No, it doesn't change that. But maybe it changes what we do with that ruling. Maybe it changes how we respond to institutional failure."

Delores was quiet for a long moment, processing the idea that their defeat might be a beginning rather than an ending.

"I don't know how to respond to this, Beau. I don't know how to find meaning in such complete failure."

"Neither do I. But maybe that's okay. Maybe not knowing is the first step toward finding a different way forward."

Later that morning, Delores found herself standing outside the house where she had grown up, staring at the "For Sale" sign that Craig had already planted in the front yard. The house looked smaller than she remembered, more ordinary, as if the weight of memory had inflated its significance in her mind.

She thought about the little girl who had once lived here. The child who had known she was different but hadn't yet found the language to explain how. The teenager who had counted down the days until freedom, until the moment when she could stop pretending to be someone else. The young woman who had come back for holidays and family gatherings, always hoping that this time would be different, that this time her parents would see her truth.

All of those versions of herself had walked through that front door, had sat at the kitchen table, had slept in the bedroom that overlooked the backyard where she had played as a child. Now, all of those memories were being reduced to a real estate transaction, another line item in Craig's financial portfolio.

Her phone buzzed with a text from an unknown number. For a moment, her heart leaped with the hope that it might be Serina, but the message was from a reporter asking for comment on the house sale.

"Ms. Morrison, how does it feel to watch your childhood home being sold after losing your inheritance battle? Do you have any regrets about challenging your parents' will?"

The question felt like salt in an open wound. How did it feel? It felt like watching her entire history being erased, like seeing the physical evidence of her existence being liquidated for profit. It felt like the final confirmation that she had never really belonged anywhere, that her place in the family had always been conditional, temporary, subject to revocation.

She drove to Serina's apartment—their apartment, technically, though it hadn't felt like home since Serina had left. She sat in the parking lot for an hour, staring at the windows of the unit they had shared, wondering if Serina was inside, wondering if she was thinking about their relationship or if she had already moved on to imagining a life without the complications that loving Delores seemed to entail.

Finally, she worked up the courage to knock on the door. Serina answered after a long moment, her face showing surprise and something that might have been relief.

"Delores. I wasn't expecting—"

"I know. I should have called. But I needed to see you, needed to know if there's anything left between us worth fighting for."

Serina stepped aside to let her in, and Delores was struck by how different the apartment felt. It was the same furniture, the same layout, but it felt hollow somehow, like a stage set rather than a home.

"How are you?" Serina asked, though her eyes already showed she knew the answer.

"Terrible. Lost. Questioning everything I thought I knew about justice and love and whether fighting for what's right is worth the cost." Delores sat on the edge of the couch, afraid to get too comfortable, afraid to assume she was welcome. "How are you?"

"The same, mostly. Trying to figure out how to rebuild from this defeat, how to find meaning in what feels like complete failure."

They sat in silence for a moment, two people who had once been so connected that they could finish each other's sentences, now struggling to find words for the chasm that had opened between them.

"I got a text from Craig this morning," Delores said finally. "He's selling the house. On what would have been Dad's birthday."

"I'm sorry. That must be incredibly painful."

"It is. But it's also clarifying, in a way. It confirms that he never saw this as a family dispute. It was always just a business transaction to him. The house, the inheritance, even our relationships—it was all just assets to be managed for maximum profit."

"What does that mean for you? For us?"

Delores looked at the woman she loved, seeing the exhaustion in her eyes, the way the legal battle had worn away at her usual optimism. She thought about the question Beau had raised, about what it meant to demand your soul, your life, your all in response to amazing, divine love.

"I think it means I need to stop trying to win approval from people who were never going to give it. I think it means I need to stop measuring my worth by legal victories or family recognition or institutional validation."

"And what do you measure it by instead?"

"By the love I've found with people who see my truth. By the courage I've shown in living authentically despite the cost. By the community I've built with people who understand what it means to fight for the right to exist."

Serina was quiet for a long moment, and when she spoke, her voice was careful, uncertain.

"Where does that leave us? Where does that leave our relationship?"

"I don't know," Delores admitted. "I know I love you. I know that what we built together was real and beautiful and worth fighting for. But I also know that I can't ask you to sacrifice your peace, your privacy, your sense of safety for a battle that might never end."

"What if I want to sacrifice those things? What if I've realized that a life without you isn't really living at all?"

The conversation that followed was the most honest they had ever had. They talked about the toll the legal battle had taken, about the way their love had been weaponized against them, about the fear that their relationship might always be subject to public scrutiny and legal challenge.

But they also talked about the alternative—about what it would mean to give up, to let Craig's victory destroy not just Delores's inheritance but also the love they had built together. They talked about the other LGBTQ+ individuals who were watching their case, who needed to see that authentic love could survive even institutional failure.

"I've been thinking about what you said that first night," Serina said as their conversation began to wind down. "About choosing to exist authentically and alone rather than inauthentically with people who couldn't see you."

"What about it?"

"I think I was wrong to suggest that those were the only options. I think there's a third choice—existing authentically with people who choose to see you, who choose to love you, who choose to stand with you regardless of what institutions say about your worth."

"Even if it means more legal battles? Even if it means more public scrutiny?"

"Especially then. Because that's when love matters most—not when it's easy and private and safe, but when it's challenged and scrutinized and you have to fight for the right to claim it."

As the sun set over Atlanta, painting the sky in shades of orange and pink, Delores and Serina sat together on the couch they had once shared, holding hands and talking about the future. Not the future they had planned before the legal battle, but the future they could build from the ashes of their defeat.

"I want to come home," Serina said as the evening deepened. "I want to rebuild what we had, but stronger this time, more honest about the challenges we face."

"Are you sure? Because this isn't over. Craig might find new ways to attack us, the media attention might continue, the legal precedent might inspire other families to pursue similar battles."

"I'm sure. Because I've learned something in these weeks apart—that I'd rather face those challenges with you than face a safe, comfortable life without you."

That night, as they lay in bed together for the first time in weeks, Delores felt something shifting inside her chest. Not hope exactly—hope felt too fragile, too dependent on outcomes she couldn't control. This was something deeper, more fundamental—the recognition that her worth didn't depend on legal victories or family recognition or institutional validation.

She was real. Her love was real. Her truth was real. And those realities existed regardless of what courts decided, regardless of what families accepted, regardless of what society validated.

The darkest night was ending, not because the external circumstances had changed, but because she was finally understanding what Beau had meant about THE ONE's love demanding her soul, her life, her all. It wasn't about sacrifice. It was about authenticity. It was about living so truthfully, loving so openly, existing so completely as herself that no institution could diminish her worth.

Tomorrow would bring new challenges, new opportunities to either surrender to despair or find ways to rebuild. But tonight, she would rest in the knowledge that she was not alone, that love had survived institutional failure, that truth was stronger than legal precedent.

The dark night was ending. The dawn was still hours away, but she could feel it coming—not the dawn of legal victory or family reconciliation, but the dawn of understanding that her worth was inherent, unshakeable, beyond the reach of any court or family or institution that tried to diminish it.

She was Delores Morrison. She was real. She was worthy. She was loved.

And that was enough to build a life on, even in the aftermath of devastating defeat.

The darkest night was ending, and the light, however faint, was beginning to return.