Anna DeStefano - The Prodigal's Return

Memories or no memories, she had a job to do. She couldn’t turn her back on Neal’s father any more than she had on her own.

Better than anyone in Rivermist, she understood the pain still ripping at Nathan Cain. Pain she was more than a little responsible for. A responsibility that she wouldn’t ignore a single day longer just because she couldn’t handle remembering the boy her heart would never let go of completely, no matter how many miles and years separated them now.

“JENN, YOU’VE HAD BOYFRIENDS, right?” Traci Carpenter asked over the plate of fries she and Jenn were devouring. At seventeen, Traci probably saw Jenn’s twenty-four years as so far over the hill, boyfriends would be a distant memory.

“It’s been a while.” So much for putting Neal Cain out of her mind. “But I think I remember boys.”

The church’s youth activity that weekend was a trip to Freddy’s, Jenn’s favorite place to eat in Rivermist. She was the leader of this sprawling band of youth and energy, so she got to pick where they met. Freddy’s had a laser jukebox, cheap junk food and plenty of booths for the teenagers to commandeer. The perfect way to kill a few hours before a handful of the kids had to dress for that afternoon’s varsity basketball games.

She’d volunteered to revamp the church’s floundering Saturday activities after it had become clear there was no chaperoned place Rivermist’s teens would be caught dead hanging out in. The church leaders, fresh out of creative ideas, had agreed to let Jenn give it a try—as a lay leader only, they’d tripped all over themselves to point out.

Now under her leadership, the kids were opening up to the idea of being part of a crowd that had something more constructive to do than cruising or partying the weekend away. And the satisfaction of working with them had Jenn hooked in a way she should have seen coming.

Traci Carpenter had been shadowing Jenn for a couple of Saturdays now. Always there, always angling to sit closer. Always the last one hanging around when things wrapped up. The signals weren’t that tough to read. The girl had something to say, something to talk about. She just hadn’t worked up the nerve before now.

“So, how long did it take before your boyfriends…” The teen twisted the straw in her milk shake. At Traci’s insistence, she and Jenn were sitting several booths away from the rest of the kids. “I mean, once you’d gone together for six months or so…”

“Haven’t you and Brett Hamilton been dating for a lot longer than six months?” Jenn swiped a fry through the ketchup, using her best girlfriend voice. At least she was pretty sure that’s how girlfriends gossiping about boys sounded.

“This isn’t about me and Brett.” Crimson flooded Traci’s cheeks.

“Of course not.”

“I have this friend,” Traci whispered. “And she’s seeing this older guy. You know, older. More sophisticated.”

The fry halfway to Jenn’s mouth stalled. “And…your friend and this sophisticated guy are doing what, exactly?”

“Well, you know….” The girl’s nonchalance clashed with the way she nervously kicked the table leg between them. Blond and blue-eyed, she was wearing a high-fashion ensemble no doubt bought on one of her mother’s shopping excursions to Atlanta. “What do you think they’re doing?”

Jenn popped the fry into her mouth. Kept her expression free of anything but casual interest. The label of church leader fit her social-worker training like a sweater shrunk once too often in the dryer. But giving teenagers a back door into discovering what they believed was right up her alley.

This conversation, if nothing else today, she could handle like a pro.

Another look across the restaurant, and Traci leaned closer. “So, some of the girls and I were wondering. If my friend needed some advice, or maybe something like birth control, or…whatever…could she come to you?”

Jenn silently processed the complications and conflicts this conversation was headed for. Information, she reminded herself. Never make a decision without all the information you can get your hands on.

She cleared her throat. “Can your friend talk with her parents?”

“Not about stuff like this. Her parents are stuck in the dark ages. They’d never let her see this guy if they knew how old he is.”

“How much older are we talking?”

“He’s in college.” The plate of fries was the only thing Traci would look at now. “Well, he was.”

“He graduated?”

“Not…not exactly. He dropped out.”

Of course they were talking about Traci and not a friend, and her “older guy” was probably in his early twenties at most. But it still sounded as if she’d set herself up for some huge disappointments if Mr. Wonderful didn’t pan out. And something already had the girl worried. Teens didn’t just up and talk to adults about stuff like sex and protection. Jenn never had when she’d been in Traci’s shoes, not until it was too late.

“I’m not sure how much I can help your friend, since I don’t know her,” she reasoned out loud. “But I do know what I’d tell you or any of my girls if I learned you were getting into a relationship like the one you’re describing.”

Defensiveness crept across Traci’s expression. “If you’re going to tell me that good girls wait and that I’m…that my friend’s going to hell if she doesn’t, don’t bother. I’ve heard it all before.”

“No, I’d be the last person to preach that to you.”

Qualifying what it meant to be good was one of the most overused weapons adults wielded. Guilt and recrimination didn’t get the job done. That kind of moral certainty pushed kids away, instead of teaching them to honor themselves and the responsibility that goes along with making their own decisions.

When she’d been Traci’s age, hadn’t she gone out of her way to do the exact opposite of her parents’ by-the-book vision for her life? Culminating in getting herself pregnant in an alcohol-induced haze with a boy she couldn’t even remember.

Honesty. Information. Trust.

That’s what Traci needed from someone. And it looked as if Jenn had just been volunteered.

“I’d ask a good friend like you to be very careful.” She weighed each word before she said it. “Teenage boys, even older guys, don’t always see relationships the same way teenage girls do.”

“He’s not just interested in sex.” Freckles stood out in sharp contrast with the flush spreading down Traci’s neck. “He’s not that kind of guy. It’s just that…”

“All I’m saying is that he might not have as much at stake in this as your friend does. I’d want her to think carefully before she did anything she couldn’t take back.”

“And if she’s already thought it through?”

Traci’s certainty geared Jenn into action. “And she doesn’t want to talk with her parents?”

“Not a chance.”

“Then your friend has to protect herself. I’d like to have the chance to talk with her. Very real consequences come with what she’s doing. But nothing’s more important than making sure she protects herself.”

“What…what if her guy doesn’t want to use protection?”

“That’s a deal-breaker, sweetie.” Jenn’s hands curled into fists above her knees. She was advising the only child of one of her father’s senior deacons about safe sex. Nothing like jumping off a cliff without a parachute.

But conversations like this were exactly why she’d chosen the work she did. They were unpredictable. Priceless. Life-changing.

“That would leave you…” she began. “It would leave your friend unprotected from infectious disease. Things like AIDS.”