Jesus Freaks: The Prodigal (Jesus Freaks #2) (16 page)

Matt:
Oh good, I was worried :) How’s home
?

Me:
Amazing. You?

I wince a little after sending the text, realizing that, while I don’t know the whole story, I do know things are dicey with him and his dad.

Matt:
Meh. My mom picked me up at the station in Atlanta last night and I went to bed right when I got home. Spent most of today watching TV in my room.

Me:
Avoiding reality?

I decide to push it a little.

Matt:
For as long as possible.

Me:
Good luck with that. Any fun plans with friends this weekend?

Matt:
Homecoming is Friday. As last year’s King I’m expected to be there, I guess.

My jaw drops open, and I press the button to call him.

“Hello?” he answers, sounding surprised.

“Yes,” I reply in my
m
ost proper, upper-crust accent, “I’d like to speak to His Majesty.”

He grumbles in to the phone. “Come on!”

“You come on! Homecoming King? How have I gone all this time and
never
knew this.”

“Because my plan to never have you find out worked until just now.”

I click my tongue. “Tsk, tsk. I can’t believe you held out on me.”

“What about you? Aren’t you prom queen, or something?”

“Ha! Yeah, that’s me. Are you drunk right now?”

“I wish,” he answers a little darkly. “Do you have plans this weekend?”

I sigh. “I don’t know. There’s this freakin’ party at my ex-boyfriend’s house that
everyone
is going to. Whatever. I don’t know.”

Matt is silent for a few seconds. “Wouldn’t that be weird?”

“Yep. I’d have a bunch of friends there, though.”

“Alcohol?”

“Huh?” I ask.

“Is there going to be alcohol there?”

I shrug, as if he can see me. “Probably.”

“Watch your six, K. Sawyer. Remember that bull
’
s
-
eye you talked about? Bet it followed you home, too.”

My throat tightens, because I’ve considered the same thought. “Do you think for real?” I ask anyway.

“Just be careful, okay?”

“I will. Talk to you later. Have a good day tomorrow. And Friday,
King
.” I giggle like a damn schoolgirl.

“You, too. Night.”

“Night.”

“Who was that?” Mom startles me as she stands in the doorway.

I jump, sliding my phone onto the bed next to me. “Matt.”

“Wells?”

I nod.

She crosses the room and sits on the edge of my bed. “You light up when you talk to him,” she says
in a scientific tone
.

I shrug. “He’s nice to me. I feel safe with him.”

Mom’s eyes move carefully over my face. “Do you like him?”

“Mom,
please
.” I roll my eyes. “Even if I did, what business would I have dating a preacher’s son?”

She narrows her eyes. “Why not?”

She doesn
’
t point out the fact that I
’
m a preacher
’
s daughter.

I stare at her for a while, tilting my head to the side. “Why not?” I state for clarification.

She shrugs. “It might be good for both of you, don’t you think? He’d be an upstanding, safe, respectful guy, and you could teach him about the real world.”

Rolling my eyes, I move so I’m sitting next to her, my legs dangling over the side of my bed. “He’s from Rome, Georgia, Mom. He’s not a hillbilly. It’s more of a city than this place.”

“Still,” she says, wrapping an arm around me, “I know his dad, and—”

“About that,” I cut in. “Do you know, like, what
happened
to his dad over the last few years?”

Mom looks confused. “No, what?”

“I don’t know.” I shake my head. “But it was something. I
do
know
he got burnt out and stopped pastoring his church for a while. I don’t even know if he’s pastoring right now, at all. And, Matt’s made some weird references to sex and alcohol and stuff … I don’t know.” I briefly wonder if I should have mentioned any of this to her at all, because without a doubt she’ll have answers before I do.

“Listen,” she says softly. “I knew him a long time ago, but he was an upstanding guy with a lot of character. If he fell into a hard time, I trust he’ll work through it.” Her confident tone does little to calm me.

Actually, it pisses me off.

“You trust he’ll work through it?” I stand, facing her with my hands on my hips.

“Kennedy,” she says, standing next to me, “what’s the matter with you?”

“Why didn’t you trust that Roland would
work through it
? Huh? If it was a hard time he’d fallen on, why’d you let him walk away so easily?” This unplanned emotional outburst stings my eyes with tears.

“That’s different,” she states flatly.

“How?”

“I don’t have children with Buck Wells, Kennedy. I don’t know what his wife is, or was, going through.”

“Shouldn’t someone trust more when it’s the father of their children at stake?”

Mom’s voice drops to a near-whisper. “Things were different back then. I was different, and Roland was different. I was too close to the situation, and you are too young to understand.”

“Oh, am I?” I challenge. “I’m, what, two years younger than you were when you got pregnant with me?”

I’ve only seen my mom cry a few times in my life, but it looks like I’m about to again. Her eyes water and she looks to the ceiling. “Matt’s dad hasn’t walked away from the family, has he?”

“I don’t know,” I admit. “I mean, they all live together …”

“Your father walked
away from you
, Kennedy.”

“That’s old news, but thanks for rubbing it in. Why’d you let him
?
”

“I was hurt, Kennedy. I loved him
very
much. He was my first love …” she trails off, sitting again on the edge of
the
bed. “I know Dan told you what he thinks,” she says out of nowhere.

I sit next to her. “Thinks about what?” I feign ignorance.

Mom looks at me and rolls her wet, teary eyes.

“He told you that he talked to me?”

She nods. “Yes. Believe me, we fought about it for days.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t call me with some ranting explanation.”

“Even though he involved you, it really was between Dan and me. Bringing you in would have just made things worse.”

“Is he right?” I ask timidly.

Mom’s head jerks toward me, and I watch her lips tremble as she considers my question.

“It’s okay,” I whisper, placing my hand over hers. “I just … I really need to piece together where I come from, Mom.”

“I did love Roland, Kennedy.
Very
much.”

“And, is it like they always say about your first true love? Does it stick around in your bones?”

Her nod is slow at first, but as her tears fall more rapidly, so does her nod speed up.

“You still love him?” I ask in a shocked whisper.

Mom sniffs, rubbing her sleeve on her nose. “It’s not the kind of love that would make a relationship now. It’s hard to explain. But, yes, a piece of me will
always
love Roland. I mean, how could I not? He gave me you.”

I smile, allowing her to pull me into a hug. “It’s not just about me, though, is it? I mean, if you hadn’t gotten pregnant with me, would you have tried to stick it out with him a little longer? Like, if there wasn’t an infant about to be involved, would you have tried to save him?”

She takes a deep breath, her tears drying almost instantly. “I don’t know, sweetie,” she admits, almost sadly. “But what I do know is, Dan and I love each other with an intensity that I
know
will stand the test of time. I never had that certainty with Roland. It was all fire and gasoline.”

“So why do you … I don’t know … reminisce about it?”

“Roland told me about the first outburst you had at his house. When you yelled at him for not being there for you when you were little.”

I’m not surprised anymore about the interactions these two have. Seems like they’re a lot chattier behind the scenes than I gave either of them credit for.

“Okay,” I say, prompting her.

“That’s how I feel every single time I see him. I see the life we could have had flash before my eyes and I get angry, resentful, and hurt. It’s like losing the charismatic basketball captain all over again.”

I grin, needing some levity. “What if he took the same path?” I ask. “What if you stuck with him and he still felt Jesus calling him into ministry? I mean, you were a Women’s Studies major who went into public policy. At some point, it would have given out, don’t you think? Or would you have been his wife? A
pastor’s
wife,” I reiterate for emphasis.

Mom takes a cleansing breath and lets out a satisfied moan. “And, that’s where my trips down memory lane always lead me. We were star-crossed in some ways, I guess. Never meant to be.”

In one swift sentence, my church-going, Episcopalian mother downplays the importance of the role Roland plays to thousands of people every single day. She could sit in the pew, but doesn’t, somehow, believe
enough
to have maybe married her true love, when he was called to God?

What does she even believe? If you’re not all in, why wade around?

My internal thought, a line from one of Roland’s most recent sermons, startles me.

“Are you okay?” she asks, standing again.

I nod, quickly, not wanting to challenge my mother’s spiritual beliefs at this point in time. “Just tired.”

She stands and places her hands on my shoulders. “Thank you for being the kind of mature, rational daughter with whom I could have a conversation like this.” She smiles, and it reaches her swollen, tired eyes.

I nod, kissing her on the cheek. “Of course.”

“Get some sleep,” she says when she reaches my door. “I love you.”

“Love you, too.”

Several minutes after the door closes, I find myself still standing in the center of my room, wondering what the
hell
just happened. My mother admitted she would always love my father, but, honestly, it’s only
her
version of him that she’ll always love. That part makes me feel a little better, I guess, now that I don’t have to worry about her leaving Dan to get back together with Roland. Which, according to her own words, she wouldn’t do anyway, because she’s dismissive of his career. One on which he’s staked his life, and the lives of all he preaches to. Even hers.

I fall into a fitful sleep. As I feel my heart softening toward my friends at CU, and to God if I’m being honest with myself, I can’t help but wonder how far down this road I can travel before Mom’s heart hardens toward me.

When will she think I’ve “done the Jesus thing” long enough for her comfort? Politics aside
,
how long will it be before my relationship with God challenges my relationship with my mother?

Thanksgiving Day is here, and I’m so hungry for my grandfather’s cooking. This is the second Thanksgiving since my grandmother passed away, and we’ve taken to holding the holiday feast at our house. My grandfather still insists on bringing the turkey, which he puts the finishing touches on once he arrives at our house. Within minutes, the whole house smells like the turkey’s been cooking here over night.

“Gramps this smells
so
good. How do you do it?” I hover in front of the oven and take a deep breath.

He puts his hand on my shoulder and offers a dry chuckle. “What, they don’t feed you at that fancy school of yours?”

“Oh, I eat just fine, trust me.”

Gramps hasn’t said much about my attending CU. He’s
well
aware of Roland and all the ugliness there, since Mom lived with him and my grandmother while she was pregnant, and for a short time immediately following my birth. But, oddly enough, he hasn’t said anything about my choice to be closer to Roland. Faith wise, I don’t really know where he stands. As is typical for most New England families, we don’t really
discuss
feelings, other than anger and resentment, so aside from his annual petitions of grace over our holiday meals, I’m not sure where he stands with God.

Especially after my grandmother was killed in a car accident last year. Sometimes, if I catch a glimpse of him when he thinks no one is looking, I swear I can still see the fresh terror in his eyes. They’d been together since high school, and to have their time on Earth ended by a frazzled mother who ran a red light has been a hard thing to overcome.

For the first time since it happened, though, I’m wondering about the faith of it all. D
id
the woman who was driving the minivan believe in God? Does she now? Did she count it as grace that she and her children were spared in her few seconds of error, despite the fact that my grandmother, alone in the car, died at the hospital some hours later due to a severe brain injury?

“Gramps?” I ask after checking to make sure the rest of the family is out of earshot. “Why didn’t you ever sue the woman who hit Gram?”

A year ago I wanted to know based on the indignation I had that someone
did this
to my family. Mom told me not to talk about it with my grandfather. Ever. But, now, as I stare into the still-youthful eyes of my mostly jovial grandfather, I can’t help but feel like something more was behind it.

He hardly seems shocked by my question, but looks around just like I did to make sure no one is listening. “Come,” he says, walking through the kitchen and toward the side door, stopping to pour two cups of hot cider before leading me out onto the deck.

Grabbing my scarf on the way out the door, I unfold it to drape around my shoulders, warming my hands on the mug of cider.

“What?” I whisper, despite having
fewer
ears around than before we exited the house.

Gramps sets his mug down on the edge of the deck and looks out into the woods. “Your mother would kill you for asking,” he starts, matter-of-factly with a slight chuckle.

I chuckle back. “Yeah, I know. I’m sorry—”

He puts a hand up. “Don’t apologize. You have questions. Valid ones.”

“Okay …” My voice trembles as much from nerves as from the thirty-degree air.

Gramps takes a deep breath, keeping his eyes trained on something in the distance. Something that isn’t really there, perhaps. “Losing your grandmother has been the hardest thing I’ve ever had to go through. I know there aren’t any guarantees in life, but I was sure I’d go first. Men usually do.” He shrugs and smiles sadly.

Staring at him, wide-eyed, I don’t have anything to say. We don’t usually have these kinds of conversations … ever. I don’t have a script.

“Anyway,” he continues, “you can figure
out
that your mom wanted to sue the pants off the woman that caused the accident.”

“She did?” I don’t recall Mom being particularly rabid during that time last year. The grief was too thick.

He nods. “She wanted to take everything.”

“Go big or go home,” I quip dryly. “How’d you talk her down?”

“I pointed out that not too long ago, that could have been her in the car. Tired, stressed, maybe worried about money, with loud, crying kids in the back seat. Racing from one job, to preschool pick-up, then to another job …” Gramps pauses to clear his throat. “It could have been any one of us behind the wheel that day. In either car.”

I scrunch my eyebrows. “So you cut her a break because of all the potential reasons she wasn’t focused on the road?”

Gramps shakes his head and looks at me, tears welling in his eyes. “No, love. I cut her a break because what she has to live with is painful enough, I didn’t need to have her separated from her kids if she ended up going to jail. Honestly, I wish she didn’t have to feel all of that guilt. There’s so much hurt in the world. I cut her a break because … because judgment isn’t mine to hand down. It’s just … not my job.”

Is he … is he talking about God?

I silently watch my grandfather as he sniffs and looks back into the woods. “Nothing I, or the justice system, could have put that woman through would have brought your grandmother back. I just trust that she learned a lesson is all. I don’t want her walking around guilty her whole life, but, maybe her side of the story can help someone someday.”

Yours could too, Gramps.

“So … when you talk about judgment … ” I prompt, nervous about the new level this conversation has the potent
ial
to reach.

Gramps smiles and turns back to me. “I think it’s good, that school you’re going to. I may not agree with everything I read about in the news, but the world could use a little less pain, don’t you think?”

“You know most of the kids that come out of there are card-carrying republicans with an agenda against most of the things you stand for, right?” I’m being honest with him, and also reminding myself of the realities of Carter University graduates.

With a broad smile and throaty laugh, Gramps gives me a firm pat on the shoulder. “So change their minds, girl.”

Now it’s my turn to laugh. “And how, exactly, do you propose I do that?”

He shrugs. “One student at a time.”

Suddenly, out of nowhere, I’m hit with Dean Hershel Baker’s words of warning.

You’re a threat …

“It’s a one-hundred-year-old institution, Gramps, with tentacles further than I can reach.” I turn for the door, but his voice stops me.

“Please,” he pleads through a ho
a
rse near-cry.

I turn to find him working furiously
trying
to avoid sobbing. “What’s wrong?”

Gramps shakes his head. “Don’t give up on that place, or them,
Kennedy
. You have a good, fierce heart. I see it in your eyes. It’s the same kind of look I had when I entered seminary.”

“
Hold up
,” I shout, walking back out onto the deck. “Seminary? I’ve been to church with you, like, once. When was this? You and gram were together since high school. What was your plan there?”

“Just after high school,” he admits plainly. “I felt like I was meant for bigger things. It was an Episcopal seminary, so my relationship with your grandmother wasn’t in jeopardy. Turns out, I didn’t have the spine for it.” There’s a long pause before he takes a deep breath. “I really liked Roland, Kennedy. I saw a lot of myself in him, and it was really hard on
me and your grandmother
when everything happened between him and your mom. It was just … inexplicable. When we tried to pray with your mom about it, she rejected it venomously, and told us when her baby was born
she
would be the one to filter God for her child. She wanted nothing to do with the God that I had a relationship with.”

I tilt my head in confusion. “But she raised me in the church.”

“She didn’t really have a Plan B, and we didn’t feed her told-you-so’s. She just kept herself at a distance and figured
out
along the way it was easier to let you make your own choices with God since, according to her, we never gave her that choice. But my point is, I see the same fire in your eyes that he always had. He wasn’t on a pastoral track back then—well
,
not one he was aware of.” Gramps laugh as if he and God are sharing a private joke. “Anyway, I don’t know what’s ahead for you, Kennedy, but I know you can’t give up. Not on the school, not on God, and not on yourself.”

I’m a bit dizzy from this new grandfather standing before me, talking as if we’ve always had these kinds of revelatory conversations. “Did you ever contact Roland after he and Mom split up?”

Immediately, Gramps eyes shoot to the ground. Guilty.

“Gramps …” I lower my voice, which is shaking again against the sinking feeling in my stomach.

He clears his throat and lifts his chin in the Hamilton Family way. “I trust your confidence in this,” he says, not asks.

I nod anyway.

“I know Dan has already accepted responsibility for it, but …”

Blood rushes through my ears and I can barely hear the next words out of his mouth. I know what they’re going to be.

“I sent that picture to Roland, Kennedy. When you were five. It wasn’t Dan. He didn’t even know about it until your mother called him all crazy back several weeks ago.”

My mouth hangs open like a broken screen door. “But … the handwriting. It was Dan’s … wasn’t it? Wouldn’t mom have recognized
your
handwriting?”

Gramps looks unfazed. “Sometimes when people are looking for an explanation, they’ll see things that aren’t really there. It helps them protect themselves. Dan called me after he talked to your mother that day. His hunch was right. I sent it. He agreed to take the heat for it, because he knows your mother about as well as I do and knew she’d be in a fit if she found out it was me.”

“Why?” I ask breathlessly.

He smiles the sweet Christmas morning smile he has year-round. “He did deserve to know. He deserved to know that you were healthy and happy and being taken care of. And, I’d been in contact with his parents only two or three times before that, but I knew his life was in the pits. But, I remembered that fire. The one in his eyes that was there every
single
time I saw him. I
know
that fire, Kennedy. When you’ve seen it once, you know it anywhere. I was hoping, beyond hope, that seeing that picture of you would rekindle what I
knew
was in him.”

“God,” I state flatly.

He nods. “God.”

“So you’re responsible for … all of this?” I wave my hands, meaning to indicate Roland’s life, my attending CU, and my brand-new status as a PK.

“You know better,” Gramps teases, wrapping his arm around my shoulders and leading me back toward the door.

“God,” I mumble.

“God,” he whispers into my ear, opening the door with the silent understanding between us that that conversation is to stay out on the deck where it happened.

“Everything’s different now.” I stretch out on Mollie’s bed as the sun sets, and my Thanksgiving meal still fills my stomach.

“That’s an understatement. I can’t
believe
your Gramps sent that picture. Or that he was going to be a
priest
. Or that damn sack-of-shit Hershel Baker.”

I roll onto my stomach, growling into her pillow.

Yeah. It’s been quite the afternoon at Mollie’s. I told her everything. After spending most of this semester feeling guilty about keeping most of Roland’s life a secret from her, I’ve decided that honesty is, without a doubt, the best policy. And, she’s the only person I can fully trust with everything. She’s the only one who won’t overreact and sue the school, like my mom would if she caught wind of Dean Baker’s behavior, and the only one who won’t spread rumors. I still don’t fully trust my friends at CU. At least not the way I should.

I need to pray to let go of my suspicions and judgment of them, but it’s hard. I could probably trust Matt with the Dean Baker stuff, but the
y
did seem awfully chummy the other day.

“Was it weird at Thanksgiving lunch today?” she asks, mindlessly braiding my hair as I continue to l
ie
facedown on her bed.

I shrug. “Probably not for anyone but me. Gramps was his usual self, Dan and Mom ignored all the stress of the last few weeks and actually enjoyed their meal—”

“And wine?” Mollie cuts in.

“And wine,” I confirm. “And Jenny and Paul were their normal lovey-dovey selves before they headed off to her mom’s.” Jenny has always been diligent about splitting holidays between her two parents. A “problem” I’ve never had to deal with.

Until, maybe, now.

“Crap.” I sit up, allowing the unbraided half of my hair hang in my face. “Am I, like, supposed to spend holidays with Roland too, now?”

Mollie shrugs. “Do you want to?”

I shrug back.

“Maybe if we keep shrugging,” she teases, “we’ll find our answer?”

Pushing all of the family drama aside, I offer the first non-CU, non-Roland piece of conversation since I got off the train yesterday. “Are we going to Trent’s tomorrow night?”

Mollie cracks her hand against the side of my butt. “
Yes!
” she cheers, nearly orgasmically, “I was
waiting
for you to bring it up. We’re
so
going.”

I tuck some hair behind my ear. “Do you think it’s a good idea?

She grins, her pixie-cut hair sitting a little shaggy across the top of her head. “I think it’s a goddamn
fantastic
idea. He needs to see the new,
famous
you, and then you can rub
h
is stupid rich nose in it.”

I laugh, tying my hair back in a loose bun. “I don’t think Trent is awestruck in the least. He’s probably thankful that he’s no longer in a relationship with a preacher’s daughter, given the things he begged to do with her on a regular basis.”

The use of the term “rich” is superfluous in the context I grew up in. Everyone here has money. We live in one of the wealthiest communities in the United States for G—cripes sake, but still kids will focus on
how much
their parents have, in an effort to develop some sort of pecking order
amongst themselves
.

But, as far as Trent is concerned,
everyone
considers him rich. His dad is some famous hair product mogul whos
e
creations are frequently touted on the red carpet as “the absolute
best thing ever.
” His mother is an entertainment lawyer who rubs elbows with Hollywood royalty on a regular basis. How we ever ended up together makes less and less sense to me the more time I have away from the relationship, but it was what it was.

I never asked to go to fancy parties with him and, honestly, I think that’s what he liked most about me. In spite of the fact that I refused to ever have sex with him, he knew I wasn’t dating him to get close to Hollywood big shots. It just never occurred to me to care, but he did have a history of dating girls who would do
whatever
he wanted them to do just so they could stay with him long enough to attend some gala, product launch, or other event. Then once they got what they wanted from entertainment royalty, or when they were rejected, they left him. He always made it seem like he was the one who ended the relationships, which was kind of true
i
f you look at the girls he got involved with. By choosing them at all he was essentially sealing the deal on their romance from the start.

With us it was different, though, which is why, I guess, he was so “different” once we broke up. I have no idea what he’s like now since we haven’t spoken
in person
more than a handful of words to each other since he graduated high school a year before me.

“Oh
,
come on,” Mollie begs, bouncing on the edge of her bed like a puppy with a full bladder. “Screw him.
Everyone
is going to be there. You know that because you went to one of those parties the year you guys dated, when he was a senior and his brother came home from college. The whole damn school goes. Everyone who’s graduated, anyway. And
we are those people now.
We’ve been
invited.
It’s Facebook official.” She’s so serious in her delivery that I have to laugh.

“Why do you want to go?”

“Because I want to be cool,” she admits unabashedly. “I want to rub my Ivy League education in everyone’s face in the classiest way possible.”

I roll my eyes. “Everyone we graduated goes to somewhere fancy, Moll.”

“Right,” her eyes glisten mischievously, “and only some of them actually
got in.
I’m one of them, and they know it. My parents are self-made wealth, Kennedy. There’s no old money there, and certainly no prestigious university.

She has a point. Her parents made a name for themselves in the catering world, working together to create sugar art like you’ve never seen. It’s a wonder that Mollie is only a hundred pounds soaking wet. Her parents met working at a restaurant in the city just out of high school. They were each attending community colleges nearby and started focusing on business classes. Once they honed their cooking and baking skills, and obtained their associates degrees, they opened up a little dessert shop in the Meat Packing District back when
no one
wanted to be there even when the sun was up.

I don’t have to spell out how that played out. They’re enormously successful with their brand stamped on bakeries up and down the Eastern seaboard. They cater celebrity weddings, bar and bat mitzvahs, and almost everything else you can imagine.

But, they didn’t buy their daughter’s way into Yale, which is not something every classmate of mine can claim. Mollie worked her a—butt—ass off to get there, and is loving every second of doing it on her own accord.

I narrow my eyes. “Fine,” I concede. “But
only
if you
don’t
wear any Yale clothing. Be nonchalant.”

“Yahoo!” Mollie yelps, arms raised overhead. “And, duh. I need to be classy about it.”

“Great,” I mumble. “Help me, too. I’m going to be a nervous wreck. Wait, who am I kidding? Who the
hell
is going to care that some Southern pastor happens to be my birth father?”

Mollie chuckles. “Most of them are Jewish anyway, so wouldn’t they just kind of feel bad for you, or something?”

I shake my head. “I’m sure that was offensive, somehow.”

Mollie slides into her walk-in closet to begin her wardrobe selection for our new plans for tomorrow night, and I take out my phone. I feel bad that I haven’t connected with my roommates in a couple of days.

Me:
Hey you, how’s your Thanksgiving going? Have you decided if you’re going to that party tomorrow night?

Eden:
Food is sooooo good :) And, I think I’m gonna go. I have some friends who don’t drink who are going anyway, so we’ll stick together and can leave if it’s lame. What about you?