spades

His voice is comfortable with itself, the kind of calm authority you develop when people count on you to say the right thing. He is a reverend, and the food has just been set down, and we are new friends so he looks up from across the table and asks, "I'd like to say grace, if that's alright?"

I'm nodding my agreement before I think about it, yielding immediately to the gentleness in the ask. The prayer begins and I bow my head.

This is the first time since county jail that my food will have been graced by prayer.