Jesus Freaks: Sins of the Father

by Andrea Randall

  I offer them a polite wave, but speak only to Roland. “Can we go outside for a second to talk?” My voice sounds startlingly tired.

  Amidst various vocal protests from Jahara and the three wise men, Roland takes my hand and leads me to a back porch I didn’t know existed.

  “Thank you,” I whisper, sitting on a porch swing. “I need a minute.”

  “Of course.” Roland nods and leans against the railing, facing me.

  “Mom’s on her way.” I don’t say my mom, and I don’t have the energy to correct myself.

  “I know,” he replies. “We’ve been texting.”

  “She’s pissed.”

  “I know. So am I. Kennedy,” Roland drops his hands to his sides and lowers his head, “I’m so sorry. I never meant for things to spiral out of con—”

  I put up my hand, stopping him. “This isn’t your fault, Roland. You didn’t have Joy spy on us or make that vile poster. If anything, I’m sorry. I should have let you tell people about me. About us. Maybe I should have been honest with everyone from the start.”

  Roland gestures to the space on the swing next to me and I nod, allowing him to sit. “You were doing what you thought was right, Kennedy. I don’t blame you. You were protecting yourself.”

  “I did a bang-up job of that.” I look up to see the stars, but am greeted with a roof and some ceiling fans. Only in the south would there be ceiling fans outside. “So, what now?” I sigh. “What do Jahara and all the suits say?”

  “Well,” Roland takes a deep breath, “we need to come off the property at some point. The good news is Thanksgiving break is next week, and then school is only in session for three more weeks after that before winter break. So everyone thinks we should just make a joint statement and try to make it through till the end of the semester with as little commotion as possible.”

  I laugh. Hard. It’s completely appropriate but, honestly, it’s the most absurd thing I’ve heard in a while.

  “Seriously?” I barely squeak out between the laughter. “That’s the plan?”

  Roland chuckles nervously. “Do you have…something better?”

  “Anything. Anything is better than that. This story, as big as it already seems to be, won’t die down just by us ignoring it. And we certainly can’t ignore it for the next month. Here. Look.” I open the Facebook app on my phone and hand it to Roland, allowing him to scroll through my page.

  “I know,” he mumbles without looking. “I’ve seen it. Jahara told me not to respond to any of the comments.”

  “Well, that I agree with.” I stand and walk back inside, Roland trailing me by a few paces.

  Before I say anything else, Jahara waves her cell phone in the air. “And that, guys, was The Today Show.”

  “Shooooot,” Matt sounds out slowly. I know he was dying to say the other word.

  “What’d you tell them?” I ask.

  Jahara eyes me curiously. It’s the first thing I’ve said to her since she showed up. “That we’d be in touch.”

  I turn to Roland. “Let’s do it.”

  His eyes widen. “Kennedy…”

  “Go big or go home is what I always say.” I’ve never once in my life said that. “Look what school I’m at, for the love of…” I trail off, sensing the elder church members staring at the back of my head. “My point is, let’s cut out all the middle men and go national from the get go. I can’t believe they’ll do more than send a reporter out here for a filler piece.”

  “Actually,” Jahara steps in, “they want you in New York. A headline interview.”

  My eyes shoot to Matt, who is engaged in a heavy exhale that puffs out his cheeks. “Fantastic,” I mumble. “Why is this so big? What is the big deal?”

  Everyone goes to answer at once, but Matt’s deep voice bellows over them all. “If I may…” he trails off until everyone quiets down. “I think I can best fill Kennedy in on what the big deal is.” He puts air quotes around my phrase. “Roland, can I take her to your office and use your computer?”

  Roland nods. “I’ll work with Jahara on preparing a statement to go out to the New Life congregation. They’re the ones I have to answer to. Then we’ll produce something for Carter.”

  I follow Matt back into Roland’s office, looking over my shoulder to see Roland diving into business mode, preparing a statement to be delivered to his congregation. I wonder if they’ll be forgiving regarding his omission of my identity—even as I sat among them most Sundays over the last couple of months. Regardless of my emotional issues with Roland, I never intended to negatively affect his career.

  “Okay,” Matt says, opening Roland’s laptop. “Here’s the big deal.”

  Over the next forty-five minutes, Matt leads me to blog after blog in the teenage evangelical community. I don’t know how I never stumbled upon these in my prep for coming to CU. They’re filled with amazing entries of young people on a journey to Christ and the roadblocks they face along the way.

  It’s not the blogs themselves that have Matt so interested. It’s that every single one of them has more than one post on Roland. Since his rise to national fame, adolescents for Jesus all over the country have expressed either their excitement or nervousness about a relatable man of God, one who seemed more like their friend than fire and brimstone preacher. Once Roland started preaching on me, however, the posts looked more like detective blogs.

  Posts spanning the last four years highlight great speculation over my identity and even my existence.

  What if he’s making this all up for ratings?

  Where is this so-called kid of his? Why can’t she be seen?

  What if she hates him and she’s a drug-using stripper?

  “Charming,” I muse about the last entry.

  “They’re not all bad,” Matt assures.

  He leads me, finally, to a slew of bloggers who support my anonymity. A lot of them are Preachers’ Kids who wrote about how they wished they could stay nameless and faceless in their own communities, let alone on a national stage.

  “Leave Baby Abbot Alone” is the title of one post that makes me feel weird, given that’s not my real last name.

  Another begs to keep my identity a secret with the headline “Don’t Out Her!”

  “What’s the big deal with being a PK?” I ask Matt, who I recently learned is the carrier of such a title. “I thought it was kind of a badge of honor, or bragging, or something?”

  Matt growls and runs his hand over his face a couple of times before closing Roland’s laptop. “That’s what everyone on the outside thinks. Like it makes us some teacher’s pet for God or something.”

  “Doesn’t it?” I ask, trying to take the attention off of me for a moment.

  Matt’s eyes focus on a spot on the desk. “We all start off thinking that way. Like, when we’re really little we like the attention and the prestige or whatever. It’s nice to always have people going out of their way to make your life easy. Giving you extra cards or presents on your birthday, taking interest in your life or how you’re doing in sports, or whatever.”

  “But,” he continues, “we grow up some and realize it’s not about us. No one gives a shit,” he whispers. “It’s about getting close to the pastor, so they think they can touch God or something. That’s not everyone,” he’s quick to add. “But that’s not the only thing…”

  I shift in my seat, tucking my knees into my chest. I still have my lip ring in, so I suck on it. “What do you mean?”

  Matt sighs. “I don’t know…”

  “Yes, you do,” I challenge.

  “Fine. This isn’t for everyone, I guess, but…home life isn’t… It’s not church life, let’s just say.” The muscles in his forearms flex as he makes a fist and relaxes it.

  “I thought Sunday people and Monday people were a secular Christian thing,” I tease softly and think about the old women in my church at home who sing with the best of them on Sunday and gossip like old biddies in their offices come Monday.

  That Wen
dy Sawyer shouldn’t be lobbying for that cause…

  Matt’s mouth twitches into a grin, but it falls away as quickly as it came. “In church we’re this family. This God-fearing, Jesus-loving family that prays together and worships together. That uses God to get through anything together.”

  “And at home?” I question in a near-whisper.

  “At home it was me and my mom and my two sisters, getting through life while my father attended to the spiritual and emotional needs of the congregation. The ones God asked him to serve.” Matt looks up at me with the eyes of a six-year-old. “He was never home. We might see him for breakfast if we were lucky, never for lunch, and rarely for dinner. He did important work, I get that…I do. But he missed a lot of football games and dance recitals. He’d make sure he was there for the important stuff, like holidays and birthdays, but…he was never really available.”

  “Past tense?” I ask.

  “Huh?”

  “You said was never home. Attended to the spiritual needs…”

  Matt licks his lips. “Then came the best part of having a pastor-parent,” he says with thick sarcasm. “Burnout.”

  Burnout. I think about all the ways I’ve heard that word used in my life. I think about workaholics and students and even athletes, when thinking about my stepdad’s work. “He burnt himself out in the gym,” Dan would say while shaking his head at the MRI images of a college basketball player’s knees. Also, I think about drug addicts.

  “Turns out,” Matt shrugs, “pastors are humans too. They can’t guide the needs of the community without ignoring those of their families or, especially, their own. Eventually there aren’t enough hours at the end of the day or days left at the end of the month. If they feel the burnout coming, some will turn to alcohol…or worse. If they don’t, sometimes their kids will.”

  “Are you kidding? Of all the people in the world I’d think immune to drug and alcohol use, it’d be pastors’ kids. I mean…right?”

  Matt chuckles darkly. “That’s perfect. See? You’re the most cynical person I’ve met here, and even you think we’re squeaky clean.”

  “I never said that. I just assumed your secrets and dark spots were in your relationship with God, or your belief at all. What happened to your dad?”

  “Everything.” His eyes drift far away. “Look, I don’t want to get into it right this second. This isn’t about me.”

  I tilt my head to the side and put my hand on his forearm. He doesn’t flinch. “Isn’t it? Isn’t that why you dragged me in here? To tell me this part of your story and why you don’t, I guess, want it to be a part of mine.”

  Finally, Matt pulls his arm from under my hand and stands. “I’m happy you got to eighteen without any of this crap, Kennedy. But now? Now you’ve got to dive in with both feet. You’re basically the daughter of the King of Modern Evangelical Christianity.”

  “There’s that hero worship,” I tease half-heartedly as I stand.

  Matt holds out his hands. “We’re all imperfect. We all fall short. There was one perfect man who ever walked this Earth. The trick is, it was God, so…the rest of us are screwed.”

  Matt Wells is officially the most complicated kid I’ve met—not just at Carter, but in my entire life. It’s clear to me now that he did come from a devout family, what with his in-depth biblical knowledge and all. But it’s also clear he’s got something bigger brewing in him.

  “If I knew how to pray the right way, I’d pray with you right now,” I blurt out in unguarded honesty.

  In an apparent unguarded moment of his own, Matt pulls me into a tight hug. “You’ve got a big chance here, Kennedy,” he says, pulling back slightly. “The word is out now. Everyone is going to want a piece of you and your thoughts. Like it or not, you’re a PK now and I hate to break it to you, but we’re counting on you. To stand up for us.”

  His words make about as much sense as those lists of names in the Book of Kings. Except the PK part. And I’m not so sure I’m ready to identify as a Preacher’s Kid. I’m not his kid.

  “Stand up for you? For what? Can’t you guys tell your tales?”

  Matt shakes his head. “No one listens to us, especially if our parents have a breakdown. Just like they took care of us when they wanted to get close to our parents, they throw us out with the bathwater when they wash their hands of them. Just…please don’t keep your mouth shut. You’ll make mistakes in what you say, but that’s okay. Don’t pretend to be…don’t pretend to be one of them.” His voice is strained and his eyes are pleading.

  I bite the inside of my cheek. The whole semester I’ve been tortured by this concept. And, worse, looking at Matt, I wonder… What if I do feel like I fit in with them? Will I lose him as a friend?

  “Is it really us versus them? Who are us? Who are them?”

  Matt steps forward and places his finger under my chin, lifting it and brushing his thumb slowly down my lip ring.

  “Those who see through the bullshit,” he whispers. “And those who buy it.”

  I should be processing his words, but all I can think of is the proximity of our lips. All I can feel is the anticipation of his lips against mine. We can’t kiss. Especially not in Roland’s house or under these circumstances. I wonder if Matt feels the same pre-kiss tension, if it really is tension at all. Maybe I’ve been programmed by secular media to think this is the perfect pre-kiss moment. A tense situation, the boy who’s suddenly my closest friend…

  “I don’t know what’s bullshit and what’s not, Matt,” I admit, stepping back and breaking the spell.

  “Good,” he says in relief. “No one does. Please, please don’t become someone who is so sure they know that they push others away from searching.”

  Suddenly, his confused words start to make sense. He hasn’t really been talking to me at all over the last five minutes.

  “Your dad did that to you,” I say, not ask.

  Matt’s nostrils flare and he clenches his teeth. “Still does.”

  “And you’re not searching anymore, are you?”

  He shakes his head. “God stopped searching for me.”

  “Matt,” I gasp, shaking my head. “That’s not true.”

  “Yeah? Do you know that for sure?” he challenges, taking on a snide tone.

  I lift my chin. “What I do know is that if God can relentlessly chase me and tackle me to the ground, He can do the same to you. People who are being followed rarely know it until it’s too late.”

  “Too late?”

  “Yeah.” I snicker and look down. “Too late. To change your mind. Change directions. God isn’t bullshit, Matt,” I say, making my way for the door to the living room, uncomfortable that these words are coming out of my mouth. But He’s not bullshit. “Don’t stop being my friend over that, please. I’m still trying to figure myself out in all of…this. But one thing I do know is I can’t pretend to know more than the creator of the universe. Does that make me someone who sees through the bullshit? Or someone who buys it?”

  Matt’s gaze falls to the floor, where he seems to be piecing together an imaginary puzzle. Looking up, just as confused, he shakes his head. “I don’t know anymore.”

  “Well, my guess is we’ll have lots of time to figure that out. But, for now, I’ve got to get back to Roland and the shitstorm that is our shared DNA.”

  Matt’s features remain soft as he follows me through the door. We cross into the living room, and Matt leans in to me. I can feel his lips against my ear.

  “Clean up your mouth before you open it again, K. Sawyer.”

  I hear the grin in his voice, and am grateful that, for now at least, he remains on my side.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  You Won't Relent

  You know that feeling you have when you wake up on Christmas morning? The anticipation from the night before shoots you out of bed and racing downstairs. Everything seems to be in Technicolor—a picture perfect representation of your own life. As you get older, you know that none of this is actual
ly happening, but you still hold on to those moments of perfect. The peaceful elation of something you’ve waited for all year.

  Waking up this morning was the exact opposite of that.

  With much reluctance on my part, and his, Matt went back to the dorms before we all fell asleep. Jahara insisted that we didn’t want any more problems with the media than we were already guaranteed, so the boyfriend needed to go. Matt and I half-heartedly fought the boyfriend angle, but Jahara was adamant that it didn’t matter. Matt was the one who rescued me from the throes of students and whisked me away to my birth father’s house. As far as anyone would be concerned for a long while—he was my boyfriend.

  Even if he wasn’t.

  Matt texted me when he got back to his dorm and said his floormates were eerily quiet. He suspected there was some sort of gag order placed on all of them in regards to asking questions. I thanked him for everything and was then forced to deal with the awkward question of where I’d sleep.

  I’m not one of those people who gets too stressed out to sleep. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. Stress exhausts me. I could barely keep my eyes open long enough to take my shoes off in the guest room Roland led me to before passing out into a deep sleep. I knew somewhere in my subconscious that my mom would be arriving in a few hours, but that was hardly enough to keep me awake. It likely made me fall asleep faster.

  When I peeled my eyes open this morning, everything was quiet. For a few seconds, I got to pretend that everything yesterday was a dream. That I could go to work tonight and enjoy a temporary lengthened leash from the constraints of CU or grab lunch with my friends in an effort to brush up on my evangelical dialect and study, pray, sleep, repeat. Yes, for a few blissful seconds this morning I got to be Kennedy Sawyer: weird, unsaved girl from Connecticut.

  When the tired yet businesslike sounds of Wendy Sawyer’s voice flowed from the kitchen to the first floor guest room where I’d been sleeping, it all came crashing down.