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

Chapter 6: Fractured Portraits

The photograph had been sitting on Delores's mantelpiece for three years, a testament to happier times that now felt like artifacts from someone else's life. Five faces smiled back from the silver frame—her parents flanked by their three children at Craig's law school graduation. She had been twenty-two then, just four years into living as herself, still hopeful that time and patience might bridge the gap between who she was and who her family could accept.

Now, as she dusted the frame with trembling fingers, a hairline crack ran directly through the middle of the glass, separating her from her brothers like a physical manifestation of the legal chasm Craig had opened between them. The crack hadn't been there yesterday. It must have happened when she'd slammed the door after returning from the lawyer's office, the vibration finally finding the weak point in something that had been under pressure for far too long.

Just like their family.

Delores traced the crack with her fingertip, remembering the day the photo was taken. Her mother had insisted on the family portrait, proud of Craig's achievement, wanting to capture what she called "a perfect moment." But even then, Delores could see the strain in her parents' smiles, the way they positioned themselves slightly apart from her, the careful distance that spoke of love complicated by disappointment.

"We're so proud of all our children," her mother had said to the photographer, but her voice had caught slightly on the word "children," as if she wasn't quite sure it applied to all three of them equally.

The crack seemed to be spreading as she watched, a thin line of damage that threatened to split the entire image in two. How fitting, she thought. How perfectly symbolic of what Craig's legal challenge would do to what remained of their family bonds.

She set the frame down carefully and moved to her desk, where she had spread out the legal documents again, trying to make sense of the maze of clauses and conditions that would determine her future. Her laptop was open to a search for estate attorneys, but the fees quoted on their websites made her stomach clench. Fighting this would cost money she didn't have, emotional energy she wasn't sure she could spare, and time that would be filled with depositions and hearings and the kind of public scrutiny that made her skin crawl.

But the alternative was accepting Craig's judgment that Timothy had been real and she was not. And that was a price she couldn't pay.

Her phone buzzed with a text from her friend Maria: How are you holding up? Want to grab coffee and talk?

Delores started to type a response, then stopped. How could she explain what she was facing? How could she make Maria understand that her very existence was being challenged in court, that her parents had found a way to deny her even from beyond the grave?

Instead, she typed: Rain check? Dealing with family stuff. Will call you soon.

Family stuff. Such a small phrase for such a large devastation.

Meanwhile, three thousand miles away, Beau Morrison was having his own reckoning with fractured family portraits.

The small wooden box that held his most precious possessions sat open on his narrow military cot, its contents spread across the rough green blanket like pieces of a puzzle he was trying to solve. Letters from Father Rodriguez, seminary assignments, prayer books—and there, at the bottom, a collection of family photographs that told the story of their slow dissolution.

The oldest photo showed all five of them at Christmas when Delores was still living as Timothy, still playing the role of the son their parents needed her to be. Even then, Beau could see it now—the way Timothy's smile never quite reached her eyes, the way she held herself slightly apart from the masculine energy of her father and Craig, the subtle signs of someone performing rather than simply being.

How had he missed it at the time? How had any of them missed the pain in those careful smiles, the way Timothy seemed to be holding her breath, waiting for permission to exhale?

The next photo was from Craig's wedding five years ago, when Delores had been living as herself for several years but the family was still struggling to adjust. She looked radiant in a flowing dress that complemented her figure, her hair styled in soft waves, her makeup subtle but expertly applied. She looked like herself—finally, fully herself.

But the family dynamics in the photo told a different story. Their parents stood stiffly beside her, their smiles forced, their body language screaming discomfort. Craig and his new wife maintained polite distance, as if Delores's authenticity might be contagious. Only Beau stood close to her, his arm around her shoulders, though even he looked uncertain, as if he wasn't sure what was expected of him.

The most recent photo was from their father's funeral six months ago. Delores had flown in from Atlanta, arriving just hours before the service in a simple black dress that was both respectful and unmistakably feminine. She had sat in the front pew with the family, but somehow apart from them, isolated by their collective inability to fully accept her presence.

Beau remembered that day with painful clarity. He had been on emergency leave, his mind still reeling from months of theological study that had challenged everything he thought he knew about faith and family. He had wanted to reach out to Delores, to bridge the gap that had grown between them, but he hadn't known how. His Southern Baptist upbringing had given him a vocabulary of judgment but no language for the kind of love that transcended traditional categories.

Now, looking at these photographs with eyes educated by seminary study and spiritual transformation, Beau could see what he had missed before. Delores hadn't changed—she had simply stopped hiding. The woman in the recent photos was the same person who had been trapped inside Timothy's performance, the same soul who had been waiting for permission to exist authentically.

THE ONE had created her exactly as she was. The tragedy wasn't her transition—it was the years she had been forced to live as someone else, the decades of hiding her true self to make other people comfortable.

Beau picked up his phone and scrolled to Delores's contact information. His thumb hovered over the call button. She didn't know he was coming home, didn't know about his theological transformation, didn't know that he was returning as a different man than the one who had left. Maybe he should call her, prepare her for his return, let her know that he was finally ready to be the brother she deserved.

But something held him back. He wanted to see her face when he told her what he had learned about THE ONE's love, wanted to look into her eyes when he apologized for the years of conditional acceptance, wanted to be physically present when he finally said the words that had been trapped in his heart for so long: I see you. I accept you. I love you exactly as you are.

Instead, he pulled out his journal and began to write:

October 15th - Two days before departure

I've been looking at old family photos, trying to understand how we got to this place of fracture and pain. I can see now what I couldn't see then—that Delores was always Delores, even when we forced her to answer to Timothy. The signs were there in every photograph, every family gathering, every moment when she had to perform masculinity instead of simply being herself.

We failed her. I failed her. I let my own confusion and inherited prejudices keep me from seeing what was right in front of me—that my sister was dying a little more each day from having to hide her truth.

Seminary has taught me that THE ONE's love doesn't require performance, doesn't demand conformity to human expectations, doesn't come with conditions and clauses and fine print. THE ONE's love sees the heart, the soul, the authentic self that exists beneath all our pretenses.

If that's true—and I believe with every fiber of my being that it is—then Delores is exactly who THE ONE created her to be. Not a mistake to be corrected, not a test to be endured, but a beloved daughter whose authentic life is a gift to the world.

I'm coming home to a family crisis. Craig's messages have been vague, but I suspect it has something to do with the will, with the moral clauses our parents insisted on including. I remember those clauses, remember the conversations about "protecting family values" and "ensuring our legacy." At the time, I was too conflicted about my own faith to object.

Now I understand that those clauses weren't about protecting anything—they were about control, about fear, about the inability to love without conditions. They were about choosing comfort over courage, tradition over truth, human religion over divine love.

I won't make that mistake again.

Beau closed his journal and carefully repacked his photographs, handling them like the precious artifacts they were—evidence of a family that had once existed, proof of bonds that could perhaps be repaired if approached with enough love and courage.

Tomorrow he would begin the long journey home, carrying with him new understanding of what family really meant, new convictions about THE ONE's inclusive love, new determination to be the brother Delores deserved. He didn't know what legal battles awaited, what emotional challenges would need to be faced, what prices would need to be paid for choosing authenticity over appearances.

But he knew this: he was coming home as an ordained minister in a church that celebrated THE ONE's radical love. He was coming home with the theological tools to challenge the religious arguments that had been used to exclude his sister. He was coming home ready to see souls before shells, hearts before all else.

Back in Atlanta, Delores was making her own preparations for the battle ahead.

She had finally called the estate attorney whose website had seemed most promising—a woman named Rebecca Chen who specialized in inheritance disputes and had experience with LGBTQ+ discrimination cases. The consultation was scheduled for tomorrow morning, and Delores had spent the evening gathering documents, preparing her story, trying to organize the chaos of her situation into something that might make sense to a stranger.

The cracked photograph still sat on her mantelpiece, a reminder of everything she stood to lose and everything she had already lost. But as she looked at it now, she realized something had changed in her perspective. The crack didn't just represent division—it also represented the breaking point, the moment when something that had been under pressure for too long finally gave way.

Maybe that wasn't entirely a bad thing. Maybe some things needed to break before they could be rebuilt properly.

She picked up the frame and studied the faces of her family, seeing them now through the lens of everything she had learned about love and acceptance and the difference between human judgment and divine grace. Her parents looked tired in the photo, burdened by the weight of trying to love someone they couldn't fully understand. Craig looked ambitious and distant, already calculating his next move. And there was Beau, caught between loyalty and confusion, love and inherited prejudice.

But there was also herself—Delores, finally living authentically, finally free to be who she had always been inside. The crack in the glass ran right through her image, but it didn't diminish her. If anything, it made her more visible, more real, more present.

She was not going to let Craig's legal challenge erase her. She was not going to let her parents' final judgment define her worth. She was not going to disappear just because other people couldn't see her truth.

Tomorrow she would meet with the attorney and begin the process of fighting for her right to exist, her right to be recognized as an equal member of the family, her right to inherit not just money but acknowledgment of her place in the family story.

Tonight, she would remember who she was and why she was worth fighting for.

Delores carefully placed the cracked photograph back on the mantelpiece, positioning it so that the crack caught the light from the lamp beside it. The damage was visible, undeniable, but it didn't destroy the image. It just changed it, made it more complex, more honest about the reality of what families could be—broken and beautiful, fractured and whole, damaged and still worth preserving.

Just like her.

Just like all of them.

The photograph would stay on the mantelpiece, crack and all, as a reminder that some things were worth fighting for even when they seemed irreparably broken. Family was one of those things. Truth was another. And love—real love, the kind that saw souls before shells—was worth everything.

Even if it demanded her soul, her life, her all.