Free Jesus Freaks: The Prodigal (Jesus Freaks #2) by Andrea Randall Page A

with each other for the past couple of days has been unsettling for me, but I can’t imagine the feeling s that must be bubbling through Wendy’s chest.
    As if she hears my thoughts, Wendy Hamilton looks in my direction.
    Sawyer, Roland. Her last name is Sawyer, now. You know this.
    It really does look like time stopped for her somewhere in our j unior year of college. Sure she’s got a little grey in her hair, but she always carried herself with a kind of intensity that would lead you to believe she’d been born with a grey streak. She’s just as beautiful, though. Especially given all I put her through. And am still putting her through. There’s a surprise in her face. One that looks as light as the night I asked her out for our first date, and one that’s as shocked as she sounded when I called her for the first time in eight years. Maybe it’s horror, not shock. Anyway, that was a decade ago, but feels like yesterday as I watch her face pale a little before returning to her conversation.
    “They’re ready for us,” I swear Wendy says, though her back is now to me and the voice is coming from my left. “Roland?”
    It’s only when I hear the voice again that I realize it’s Kennedy, not Wendy.
    “Are you okay?” she asks when I turn to face her. She arches an eyebrow while waiting for my answer.
    I nod, pulling my lips back in a smile so practiced it feels natural. “I’m perfect. Let’s do this, huh?”

    It took me five years of sobriety and three more of intentional practice to pull off the kind of composure Kennedy is demonstrating through this interview. The beginning of which covered a brief, sensational overview of my “rise to fame” as they called it, and the events surrounding Kennedy’s “outing” as my daughter.
    “But you did call Joy Martinez an unsavory word upon discovering the flyer, didn’t you?” That was one of the award-winning journalist’s first questions of my victim of a daughter in the whole mess.
    “I did,” she replied confidently. “I should have responded differently, but we all make mistakes sometimes.”
    “Couldn’t you say the same for Joy?”
    As if she’d anticipated this retort, Kennedy crossed her legs and smiled sweetly. “I can’t speak for her, but I do believe there is a deep difference between a mistake and a plan. Even the justice system follows that logic.”
    Now, though, the questions are getting deeper, and I’m nervous about how she’ll handle them. I’ve had years of public speaking experience. Given that having a poker face is half the game, though, I’d say she has a fair shot. And I don’t even play poker anymore.
    “So, Pastor Abbot, let me turn to you for a moment,” Greg Mauer says to me in a hopeful tone, as if his questions will be as such.
    I smile. “Please, call me Roland.” Although it’s been a few years, hearing the title in front of my name sometimes takes me by surprise. And I want him, and everyone watching, to know that I really do feel just like “Roland” , and “Pastor” is simply what I’m called to do.
    “First off,” he smiles, and I instantly recognize the facade. He doesn’t have any emotion behind what he’s about to s ay. I suppose he wouldn’t, because he doesn’t know us as well as his note cards likely tell him he does, “how does it feel to be sitting next to your daughter in public, and to be able to call her your daughter ? ”
    I take a deep breath, grateful that Wendy is in another room and I can’t see her face through the barrage of questions. “Greg, it’s unlike anything I could have imagined,” I admit, tears stinging my eyes. “But, I do want to clarify that Kennedy did grow up in a loving home with two very loving parents. My absence from her life did not preclude her from that.”
    “Might you say your absence protected her?” he presses. “Given your bout with alcoholism and the years you were unable to keep a steady job?”
    “You could,” I concede. “But, what