Jesus Freaks: The Prodigal (Jesus Freaks #2)(21)

“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 say. 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 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.