Mrs. Bailey swallows the bite of food she was chewing. “Do you know what righteous dominion is?”

We both shake our heads no.

“Well, in the Mormon church, men are charged with providing a righteous dominion over our families. Most Mormons are probably more like us, where Robert is the head of the household but we’re all involved. But in other homes … We have a growing problem with unrighteous dominion. Men who use neglect, or physical, emotional, or even sexual abuse, to rule their families. I counsel women who have to deal with unrighteous dominion.”

“How do you counsel them? What do you tell them to do?” Aisha asks, that edge still in her voice. I’m guessing she thinks that Mrs. Bailey tells them to endure it. I want to kick her under the table because, well, not that the question isn’t a good one. But these are our hosts.

Mrs. Bailey’s face is a mask of patience. “Well, it depends. Oftentimes, we’re teaching them to protect themselves. Some of these women are in danger, and we help them get themselves and their families out of harm’s way.”

Aisha doesn’t have an answer for that one. “Cool,” I say, covering for her.

Mrs. Bailey gives me a kind smile. “It’s a dangerous world out there. Here in the Mormon world too. Women can be victims, and they shouldn’t have to be.”

We all go back to eating for a bit. And then Aisha starts another conversation.

“You supported Prop Eight.”

“What’s Prop Eight?” Mr. Bailey asks.

“It made gay marriage in California illegal for a while. It was overturned,” Aisha says.

“Oh,” he says, like someone just poked him in the ribs.

“I’m a lesbian,” she says.

“Oh,” Mr. Bailey says again. “Okay. I respect your lifestyle choice. To me it’s a sin, but that’s between you and God.”

Aisha raises her voice. “I didn’t choose a lifestyle,” she says. “Did you choose to be Mormon?”

The table is quiet for a bit, but we can all feel the grenade under the floor.

“That’s not the same,” Mr. Bailey says.

“No?” Aisha says, scooping up a forkful of potato.

“My religion is my belief system. Yours is about who you …”

She looks directly at him. “Who I what?”

He shrugs. “Choose to love.”

Aisha shakes her head. “Right. Because who wouldn’t choose to be a second-class citizen?”

I want to disappear. I want to crawl under the table.

“We didn’t support that,” Mr. Bailey says, frowning. “That proposition.”

“Sure you did. The Mormon church funded most of it.”

“We’re not the Mormon church,” he says, his frown becoming more pronounced.

“Do you go to church? Do you give money?”

I realize that as rude as Aisha is being, she’s right. If the Mormons gave money to an antigay cause, anyone who gave money to a Mormon church also supported it, indirectly at least.

“You seem to think you know where I stand on issues based on my religion,” he says, his voice clipped and practiced. “Do I know where you stand on issues because you’re a lesbian?”

“No,” Aisha says. “I guess you don’t.”

“So maybe instead of telling me what my beliefs are, you should ask.”

Aisha doesn’t respond. She just grips her fork tight. Mr. Bailey doesn’t know what she’s been through, and I wish I could find a way to tell him to lay off, to let this all go. But I can’t.

“I have nothing against gay people,” he says. “And I don’t have a strong opinion about gay marriage. All people should be equal.”

“Don’t tell me,” Aisha says, her lips tense. “Tell your damn leaders.”

I stand up. “Can you excuse us for a second?”

“Hey,” she says to me. “You don’t have righteous dominion over me. I can say what the hell I want.”

“You’re right,” I say, my head buzzing. “But it’s rude. These people are our hosts.”

Aisha takes a deep breath and shakes her head. “I can’t ever do anything right.” She looks up at them. “I’m sorry. I apologize. Can I be excused?”

Mr. Bailey nods, and Aisha just about runs back to her room. I sit back down, but I don’t pick up my fork. I can’t. Earlier I chose hanging with Gareth over her. I can’t do it to her twice in a row.

I give a weak smile. “I’m going to have to —”

“Sure,” Mrs. Bailey says. “We understand.”

I go to Aisha’s room and close the door behind me. She’s on the bed, propped up, a pillow on the headboard behind her. She’s staring into space.

“I guess I should have seen this coming when they started with a prayer,” I say. “Sorry.”

She doesn’t look at me, but she also doesn’t seem about to explode, either. I sit down next to her, pick up a pillow, and put it behind me as I lean back.

“You know, I didn’t even mind the prayer,” she says, her voice soft.

“Me neither. I was surprised, but I didn’t hate it.”

“It’s the rest of it. They’re so nice, and they’re so perfect, and yet.”

I wait for her to finish. “Yet what?”

Her eyes are rimmed in pink. “This place is melting me.”

I don’t know what that means, but I nod and I put my hand on her arm.

“Wyoming melted you, and Utah is melting me.”

“Walking wounded,” I say.

Aisha nods, hard. “Right?” she says, turning toward me now. “I’m so mad, because. These people. They’re like my family was.” The tears are beginning to fall now. “My dad was always good to me, great to me. And then this thing. He couldn’t hack it. He saw it as his failure, and he’s not so good with failure. The religion thing, that made it easy for him not to deal with it. The church told him I needed fixing, so instead of working on accepting me as I’ve always been, he gives me an ultimatum. Be someone else, or be gone.

“So I’m sitting there looking at the smiling Baileys, and it hurts. I woke up one night at the zoo and it was raining, and I was alone out there. My dad decided it was better for me to sleep out in the fucking rain than to love me as I was. That hurts, Carson. It hurts bad.”

I don’t say anything. I just hug her. She hugs me back, and we lie down and look at each other. Her head is turned to the side, and her tears zip across her cheeks like they’re climbing a mountain and then falling off a ledge.

“It’s the hypocrisy. They preach love, but they’re selling fear. I hate that so much.”

“I hate it too,” I say.

“Do you? Because you don’t always seem to get it.”

“I hate that it hurts you.”

She squeezes my arm. “Thanks.”

“Thank you,” I say back.

“For what?”

I say, “For saving my life.”

She averts her eyes. “I didn’t save your life.”

“You kind of did. Before you, I never had any of this — friends, adventure. You saved my life because I never knew what life could be.”

She covers her eyes with her hands. “That may be the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me.”

“I mean it.”

“I know.”

We lie there facing each other for a little while longer, until her eyes dry and suddenly we’re just two happy kids on an adventure, looking at each other. Her eyes are playful, and kind, and they love me. Even if she doesn’t love me like a boyfriend, it’s more than I ever could have hoped for.

“So do we go back out to those awful people?” she asks.

“They’re not awful.”

She whispers, “I know. Come on. I’ll make nice.”

We do go back to dinner. Aisha apologizes again, and Mr. Bailey surprises me by spending ten minutes explaining that they’re liberal Mormons, actually, and they don’t agree with every position of the church, and take his wife, for instance, her work, and Aisha nods and nods until her neck gets tired. I drift off listening to the sounds of it, happy for the moment because there’s harmony, even if it’s awkward turtle harmony.

When I head off to my room for the night, I read more of my grandfather’s journal. I’ve never gotten to know anyone this way before, just from their writing. And it’s weird, because it’s kind of like seeing myself in the future. It’s like I’m finding me in another person. I flip through pages and pages with the header “Russ’s Book of Puns,” because I don’t feel like reading puns tonight. I stop at one of the final pages with writing on it.