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

matters most is we’re here now. At this point.”
    Greg Mauer’s smile grows broader and he leans forward. This can’t be good.
    “Once you found Jesus, Roland, why didn’t your life-changing transformation include fighting to get your daughter back in your life? Especially once you became a pastor—literally working for God.”
    Running my tongue over my teeth, I carefully consider my response. “There would be nothing Godly about ripping a girl out of her safe, loving home to come live with a stranger, Mr. Mauer.”
    He’s fishing. Fishing for one of us to falter. To offer some sort of “gotchya” moment to somehow wave in front of the nation as an example of “Christians Gone Wrong.” Why we can’t just have a simple interview and be done with it is beyond me.
    “Kennedy,” he changes direction, “what were your thoughts when you learned that your birth father was the Roland Abbot ? ”
    She clears her throat and uncrosses her legs, settling for re-crossing them at her ankles. “When I first met him he wasn’t the Roland Abbot,” she chides. “He was just my birth father who happened to be a pastor.”
    “Was that strange for you?”
    I have to admit, I’m listening closely to her responses. To questions I’ve always had, but lacked the opportunity to ask without seeming probing. I’ll leave the probing up to the Today Show.
    Kennedy shrugs. “Not any more so than any other job he could have had, I guess. It just kind of came with the package.”
    “Now, your stepfather adopted you after he and your mother got married. You have his last name.” Greg tilts his head to the side, as if considering his prey before sinking his teeth in.
    Kennedy simply nods.
    “How does he feel about everything that’s gone on for the last couple of days? Including you identifying yourself as Roland’s daughter, despite bearing the last name of another man?”
    My cheeks burn all the way to my ears as a surge of protectiveness extends from me to Kennedy. She’s being challenged on choices she had little-to-no say in. Being born to a single mother, adopted by another man, and not raised as my daughter. All plot points in a story she’s been forced to live out, but given no pen with which to alter the arc.
    Until now.
    “Dan has been amazingly supportive. I think …” Kennedy pauses, causing me to look over at her. Her eyes fall for a moment, eyebrows scrunching in as if working out a problem for the first time. Finally, she looks up and continues. “I think that he has more in common with Roland than me or my mother do. He’s a father, and I think he understands something about what Roland might be feeling, or has felt over the past eighteen years. It’s given him a perspective of heart that none of the rest of us can have.”
    A lump forms in my throat. I’ve only met Dan Sawyer once in person, and only just learned that he was the author of the letter that set the stage for changing my life, but Kennedy is spot on. In the wisdom that’s far beyond her years, I sense deep in my own heart that as a father, Dan was able to reach out to me in a way no one else would have been able to.
    Greg smiles warmly, a smile that finally reaches his eyes as he stares at my daughter in slight wonder. “You’re an incredible young woman, Ms. Sawyer. A lot of people in your position might run and hide or use their new found fame to promote an agenda, but that doesn’t seem to be your goal . ”
    “No,” she answers calmly. “ It ’ s not. My goal is to learn where I came from and decide where I want to go. Running won’t fix that.”
    My eyes volley back and forth, following their conversation. Repressing the urge to dash in and save her, I sit back. Kennedy doesn’t seem to need saving in this moment.
    “Your father and this school—Carter University—they’re quite different from the Episcopalian churches you’ve attended in your life. In form and function.”
    “They are.”
    “What do you think about