I jump as his voice echoes off the walls and through my head. The crowd claps and interjects with choruses of “Amen” and “Hallelujah.” Just like that he’s vibrant Pastor Roland again. Did I expect him to continue the somber—honestly depressing—rhetoric of my absence from his life? After all, I am right here. By all accounts he should be rejoicing. I’m here, with him.
Thinking back to the sermons I’ve heard about the life he missed with me, I don’t know if I can recall a single time that he ever stated he wanted me back in his life. It seems he just accepted the living consequence that I never would be.
“Yes!” Roland claps his hands once and silence sweeps the crowd. “Yes, Lord. Thank you, Jesus, for seeing us through the darkest hours. No matter how long those hours might be. No matter if those hours turn to days, weeks, months, or many years. God will see you through to the finish line.”
Shifting in my seat, I beg the swirling nausea to stay in my stomach and not all over the carpet of New Life Church. Hand-dyed carpet, no doubt. People are expecting a lot out of me, according to Matt and the PK bloggers that have long coveted the knowledge of my existence. They’re expecting more than I think I can give. I don’t want to be the poster child for anything, let alone Evangelical children.
People will dig. And when they dig they’ll find the work I’ve done at Planned Parenthood, and anti-war rallies I’ve attended. And, never mind the gay rights protests I helped my mom organize. I squeeze my eyes shut. They’ll dig and they’ll throw my own dirt at me. Work I view as important, they’ll call dirt. Matt says the PK’s are anticipating that I’ll speak for them, somehow, but how many of them know what my words will be? Can they still stand behind me when they know of the liberal skeletons in my closet? When they realize I’ll never work for Focus on the Family?
There are so many theological questions I don’t have answers to, either. Evolution. Where does life begin? What happens when it ends? I just don’t know, and what opinions I do have, have absolutely zero basis in scripture.
I fear that once everything is brought to the surface, I’ll not only be demonized by the ultra-conservative people around me, but be left behind by the PK’s who have pledged their allegiance to me.
Offering Matt a small smile, I return my attention to Roland, who is fervently praising God with his charming grin. He catches my stare and offers a quick wink before launching into verses from the Bible that talk about God “coming through” for all of us.
The nausea is getting harder to hold back.
Has Roland’s victory become my darkest hour?
CHAPTER TWO
The Reason
Matt.
She did it.
Still out of breath listening to the end of Roland’s sermon, I can’t take my eyes off of Kennedy. I grin that she’s wearing a dress, since she normally pushes the dress code to the limit with her skirts with pockets and almost too-casual t-shirts.
This morning, though, she’s wearing this dark blue dress that stops a few tragic inches below her knees and she’s got a yellow sweater around her shoulders. Her hair is long and loose, not curly like her mom’s but dark brown like it. It’s a little wavy, I guess. Kind of like Roland’s, but I wouldn’t have ever drawn the connection based on their hair. Their eyes, however … that is scary unreal. Carbon copies that, when I saw Kennedy for the first time, stopped me in my tracks. I’m a guy, so I don’t wander around paying attention to other guys’ eyes, unless they’re replicated on a gorgeous girl. I would have known who she was the second she introduced herself since I knew her name, but when I saw her that day I went to Word with John and Jonah, I knew that I was looking at Kennedy Sawyer—long-lost daughter of Pastor Roland Abbot.
Today her face is pale, even for a Yankee, and she keeps wiping her hands on the front of her dress. I worry that maybe I was too intense when I begged her not to dog out on us. Us. The PK’s who have been looking for something—someone—to call our own. Someone who gets it. She doesn’t realize she gets it, but she does.
This semester, and her previous eighteen years have prepared her in ways she doesn’t yet understand. Seeing more of her father on TV, at church, or planned lunches is a typical day in the life for a PK, especially one with a popular dad like Roland or my father. Always just on the outside, in the shadows, Kennedy is the perfect person to put a face on PK’s and how most of us want to be represented because she hasn’t been indoctrinated the same way the rest of us have. She won’t harbor the same guilt the rest of us might by fighting against an institution two millennia in the making.
I know she’s a Christian, but we basically come from two different planets there. If I question it I’m “backsliding.” If she questions it she’s “learning.” I need her to keep questioning. To help give me a voice. Roland’s closing words pull my focus back to him.
“Let’s pray.” He takes a deep breath and clears his throat while the rest of us close our eyes. I bow my head to help me focus. “Father God, we ask that you …”