Jesus Freaks: The Prodigal (Jesus Freaks #2)(86)

“Me too.” I roll my eyes and stretch my legs out straight.

“When Roland left school and came back home to unsuccessfully dry out, it turned our whole life upside down. Geoff was heartbroken to see his brother like that.”

I nodded. “I thought that had something to do with it.”

Julia scrunches her eyebrows, revealing deep “thinking lines”—as my mom calls them— just above the bridge of her nose. “It seemed to get worse when Roland turned around, though.”

My turn to scrunch. “That doesn’t make sense.”

Julia bites her lip. “Sometimes miracles aren’t as miraculous for those around the receiver, I think. Long story short? Roland’s healing didn’t heal the rest of us in the same time. Roland’s sobriety and subsequent success as a pastor gave all of us some relief but it didn’t really …” she struggles over her words.

“Heal anything?”

She nods. “Yep.”

“I get that. But, has he … or you … listened to any of Roland’s sermons? His wounds are still oozing quite nicely if I’m hearing correctly.”

Julia smiles. “There’s a tricky bit of envy that weasels through all of us sometimes. Geoff lets it hang around more than the rest of us do.”

My eyes glaze over. “He feels like Roland should somehow pay for all of that crap he put you guys through.”

“Yeah,” she says in a misty-eyed whisper.

I point one of my index fingers toward the center of my chest. “All this isn’t enough?”

Julia sighs deeply. “I think it makes things worse.”

“Getting me back, so to speak,” I state, as if we’re one person talking to themselves. Conversation with Julia, while scant, has been easy over the past few days. It’s clear that she’s 100% Nora’s daughter. Tim is a bit aloof, but I get it.

“Bingo,” Julia affirms.

I shrug. “Not a lot I can do there.”

“Nope.”

“I will say, though, I take issue with him telling me I got off easy by not having Roland around. Maybe that was true while he still bathed in eighty-proof, but after? I don’t see how I got off easy not having my birth father in my life.” As I say it out loud, I really hear it. “Oh … no love lost …”

Julia places her hand on my shoulder. “You’re an incredible young woman, Kennedy, you know that? On that note—something else you can’t do anything about—your similarities to Roland make Geoff uncomfortable. Your charisma, your ability to read people and think three steps past your own front door …”

“Will time fix that you think?” I ask hopelessly. If ten years of sober Roland has Geoff still tending his wounds, I can’t fathom how much time it’ll take for Geoff to view me any differently than he does now.

Julia’s sympathetic eyes mimic this thought. “I think Geoff might need to receive his own miracle there.”

“You really believe in miracles, don’t you?” I do too, I think.

She mists over, clearing her throat. “I can’t explain my big brother in any other way. And, frankly, if I had to go through all of that emotional pain with the family again, in order to see him where he is and to see you at all, I’d do it. I got some resilience during that time that I wouldn’t turn in for a million years. Well,” she says, snapping into a more business-like tone, “I’ve held you hostage long enough. I’ll let you enjoy time with your friend.” She pauses for a moment, then gives me a quick hug, leaning across the bed to do so. “I’ve enjoyed getting to know you over the last few days, Kennedy. I hope you’ll come back.”

“I will,” I answer. “I promise.”





CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE





Crazy Kids


Kennedy.




Packing the car with Roland the next morning, I offer Nora the same promise I gave Julia yesterday. That I’d be back. I don’t know how my mom’s head would stay intact if I told her I wanted to hide out at the Abbot’s Kentucky residence for spring break, but her curt text messages and tense phone calls over the last few days leave me little room to care. She’s behaving like a child, in my opinion, and I’m the one that needs a parent right now.

“So,” the present parent starts, closing the trunk, “you banished Jonah and Eden to the backyard quickly.”

“Yeah,” I answer dryly, “she’s gotta break up with him before we get in the car, because somehow that will be less awkward than any other option.”

Roland’s eyes bulge a little, and his mouth drops open in an uncharacteristic moment of being caught off guard. Especially by my honestly. “That’s … news.”

I nod. “Yep. It’s kind of a long, complicated story. Which, I’m sure you understand since you don’t seem to involve yourself in any romantic relationships.”

He shakes his head. “Still stuck on that, huh?”

“Do you know that when people on campus talk to me about you, after they get the whole is it weird he’s your dad stuff out of the way, they ask me why you aren’t married?” I rest my hip against the car, folding my arms across my chest.

“Is that so?” He grins.