It was a peaceful Wednesday afternoon, and for once I was on my own in the house. My twenty-one-year-old daughter Jessica was on holiday with four of her friends in Hawaii. My nineteen-year-old other daughter Faye was in Wichita with her boyfriend. They had jam-packed social lives, but also enjoyed spending time with me and my husband.

I was idly flicking through the television channels. I reflected upon the fact that, no matter where you lived, programme choices during the day were always terrible. I had lived in America for twenty-three years and little had changed except the size of the screens.

For a few years now I had been wanting to leave Summer Springs and move someplace else. It had been a lovely city in which to bring up the girls but I’d always dreamed of living somewhere livelier, with more going on. Jess was exactly like me- she hadn’t chosen to go to UCLA for nothing. She thrived on busyness and excitement.

A couple of hours later, I was in Costco. It was the largest supermarket in Summer Springs and the one closest to where I lived. Although we weren’t at all poor, it was cheap and good for barbecues, which were almost mandatory for July 4th. Only Faye would be with my husband and me on the day, but I was comforted by the fact that Jess would be happy with friends. She was an independent soul.

It was while I was in the meat aisle that I spotted them. Four women in a group around one deep trolley. One of them carried a camera. As I watched, the one with the darkest hair picked up a pack of something- beef perhaps- and the camera-carrier took a picture.

I raised a sceptical eyebrow. Who the hell took photographs in Costco, for God’s sake? Especially posed ones?

I took a closer look. Despite the warm weather outside, all four were wearing long skirts and sported long hair. The girl who’d held up the pack of meat turned around to grab something else. Despite conceding to the weather by wearing a multi-coloured pastel shirt, she was wearing a hot pink t-shirt underneath that went up to her neck.

Hang on a second. I’d seen that shirt somewhere before. And I swore I could’ve recognised that girl’s face.

As I turned into the dairy aisle, it hit me.

It was the Taylors.

Kansas is a solidly Republican state. It was another (albeit smaller) reason I wanted to leave; it sounds stupid to some, but I wanted to live somewhere where I felt my vote really counted. Having a Republican in charge was alright for the likes of the Taylors, but since James and I disagreed with so many of their policies, we were itching to leave.

I have still spent the (now slight) majority of my life in England. Although ostensibly a Christian nation, there was nowhere near the number of religious weirdos as there were stateside. Sure, you got the occasional screeching madman in say Piccadilly Circus or Oxford Street, but you didn’t get the proselytisers and the tracts.

I had first become aware of the Taylors seventeen years ago. On the hunt for a drink at the county fair, I’d spotted a sign proclaiming free sodas. My suspicions had been aroused when I’d spotted a group of people in almost identical outfits; the women in white t-shirts and denim jumpers, the men in white polo shirts and blue jeans. The cue that had led me to giving them a wide berth was hearing one of them ask about the Ten Commandments. My friend Sandra had told me about the family and that what they were doing was “proselytising”- trying to get people to convert- and that the little slips of paper they were handing out were called tracts. I had looked at the youngest girl- who must’ve been only a shade older than Faye- in her long skirt and sighed. That poor little girl. During summer, Jessica and Faye lived in shorts, or else skirts or dresses that came above the knee. Later in life they became very sporty and I just knew that Jessica’s track times would’ve been impossible in a long skirt, and that Faye wouldn’t have been able to ice-skate anywhere near as well as she did. It must’ve been boring for that little girl to hang around not understanding what was going on. Even if I was the kind of person to go out proselytising, I wouldn’t drag along kids that age.