Keeping Faith

by Jodi Picoult

  Gently he peels one away from her hand. "Holy shit," he breathes. Then he gathers Faith into his arms and runs as fast as he can to Mariah White.

  The doorbell is ringing as she wraps a towel around her wet hair, cinches her robe at her waist, and flies down the stairs. It is ten-thirty at night, for God's sake. She has a child who's asleep. Who would have the nerve to bother them now?

  As she reaches for the doorknob, the person on the other side begins to knock harder. Her jaw tight, Mariah swings open the door and finds herself staring at Ian Fletcher. But all her bluster dies the moment she notices that Faith is lying limp in his arms.

  "Oh..." Mariah's voice trembles, and she falls back to let Ian enter the house.

  "She was in the woods." Ian watches Mariah touch Faith's temples, her cheek. "She's bleeding. We need to take her to the hospital."

  Mariah covers her mouth, holding back a sob. She rucks up Faith's sleeve, expecting to find a cut across her wrist, but Fletcher tugs down her glove instead. "Come on!" he says. "What are you waiting for?"

  "Nothing..." Mariah runs upstairs and dresses in the clothes that have already been thrown into the laundry hamper. Then she rips her car keys and purse from the Shaker pegboard beside the front door.

  The far edge of the front yard is stirring with curiosity, most of the reporters having risen from their bored stakeout to notice Ian Fletcher, of all people, carrying the girl up to the house. Video cameras begin to whir, flashbulbs pop like firecrackers, and above all this is the thready refrain of people calling out to the unconscious Faith for help.

  Mariah opens the back door of the car for Ian, and without a word of communication he climbs in with Faith, cradling her in his lap. Mariah gets into the driver's seat, hands shaking on the wheel, and tries to back out of the driveway without hitting one of the onlookers who insist on touching the car as it passes.

  Mariah meets Ian's eyes in the rearview mirror. "How did this happen?"

  "I don't know." Ian brushes Faith's hair from her forehead; this action is not lost on Mariah. "I think she was already hurt when I found her."

  Mariah brakes down the long curve of a hill. Has Faith misguidedly been trying to kill herself? She does not ask Ian Fletcher what she wants to: Why were you with her? Why didn't my own daughter come to me?

  She pulls into the Emergency entrance of the Connecticut Valley Medical Center. There, she leaves the car at the curb and precedes Ian into the building, toward the triage nurse. Mariah is ready to fight for Faith's priority as a case, but the nurse takes one look at the unconscious child and the blood on Ian's coat and immediately calls for a gurney and a doctor. Mariah can barely keep up with them as Faith is whisked away.

  She does not think to ask Ian to follow her, but she isn't surprised to find him coming, too. And she is barely aware of how her body sways when the remaining glove is cut from Faith's fingers, of how Ian's hand reaches out to steady her.

  "Vitals?"

  "BP one hundred over sixty, thready pulse."

  "Let's drop a line and get bloods. I want a type and cross, a CBC, tox screen, 'lytes." The doctor glances over Faith's still form. "What's her name?"

  Mariah tries to make her voice work, but she is unable to speak. "Faith," Ian offers.

  "Okay, Faith," the doctor says, his face inches from hers. "Wake up for me, honey." He glances up at a nurse. "Get pressure bandages," he orders, and looks at Mariah. "Did she get into some pills? Drink something from under the kitchen sink?"

  "No," Mariah whispers, shocked. "Nothing like that."

  Ian clears his throat. "She was bleeding when I found her. Wearing the gloves, so I didn't realize it at first. And then she passed out." He glances at his watch. "About thirty minutes ago."

  A resident runs his hands along Faith's foot. "No Kernig's or Brudzinski's signs."

  "These don't look like punctures to me," a nurse says, and the doctor in charge takes up a position beside her and begins to press against Faith's upper arm. "Bleeding's not slowing. I want a hand-surgery consult stat." He looks at Ian. "You the father?"

  Ian shakes his head. "A friend."

  To Mariah they seem like great vultures, swooping down on Faith's small body to get whatever untouched piece remains. A nurse lifts Faith's right hand, pressing hard on her upper arm at the brachial artery, and for a moment Mariah is able to see a pinprick of light through the wound--a tiny, clean tunnel passing right through the palm.

  Suddenly Faith strikes out with her foot, catching a resident in the chin. "Noooo!" she cries, trying to yank her arms away from the nurses who are pinning her down. "No! It hurts!"

  Mariah takes a step forward, only to feel Ian's hand on her shoulder. "They know what they're doing," he murmurs, as the doctor gentles Faith with his voice.

  "How did you hurt your hands, Faith?" he asks.

  "I didn't. I didn't hurt my--Ow! They just started bleeding and the Band-aids wouldn't stay on and--Stop! Mommy, make them stop!"

  Shrugging off Ian, Mariah runs toward the gurney, her hand falling on her daughter's thigh before she is yanked away. "Get her out of here!" the doctor shouts, barely audible over Faith's shrieking. But the farther she's dragged from Faith, the more the sobs intensify, and it takes several moments in Ian's embrace before Mariah realizes that she is the one who's crying.

  There is an insular peace to hospitals in the middle of the night, as if beneath the moans and sighs and muted beeps those people still roaming the halls or sitting at bedsides are united in purpose. You can meet a woman in the elevator and, just like that, know her sorrow. You can stand beside a man at the coffee-vending machine and tell he's coming off the high of having a baby. You find yourself asking for a stranger's story; you feel a connection to people you would ordinarily pass on the street.

  Mariah and Ian stand like sentries at the foot of Faith's bed in the pediatric ward. She is sleeping easily now, her bandaged hands fading into the white sheets. "Q-tips," Ian murmurs.

  "Excuse me?"

  "Her arms look like Q-tips. It's that puffy thing on the end."

  Mariah smiles, the movement so unlikely after these past few hours that she can feel her face crumple as it happens. Faith turns and settles again on the bed, and Ian points to the door, his brows raised in question. Mariah follows him outside and begins to walk down the hall, past the quiet patter of the nurses' station and the elevator portal. "I haven't thanked you for bringing her to me." She crosses her arms, suddenly chilled. "For not whipping out a camera and taking pictures of Faith when it happened."

  Ian meets her gaze. "How do you know I didn't?"

  Her mouth, her throat, is dry. She pictures Ian in the backseat of the car, holding Faith. "I just do," Mariah says.

  They have stopped in front of the neonatal nursery, where the newborns, pastel-wrapped and swaddled, sit side by side like grocery items on a shelf. One infant bats a hand from his blanket and unfurls the petals of his fingers. Mariah cannot help but notice that his palm is new and pink and whole.

  "Do you believe?"

  Ian is staring at the newborns, but speaking to her. It is not a question she should answer; it is not a topic to discuss with Ian Fletcher, who--for all his chivalrous behavior tonight--will still be the enemy tomorrow. But there has been a connection in the past few hours, something that makes Mariah think of spiders throwing the thinnest silken line across incredible distances, something that makes her wonder if she may just owe Ian an answer.

  "Yes. I don't know what Faith's seeing, I don't know why she's seeing it--but I do believe that she's telling the truth."

  He shakes his head almost imperceptibly. "What I meant is, do you believe in God?"

  "I don't know. I wish I could just say, 'Oh, yes.' I wish it was as easy as all that."

  "You have your doubts, though."

  Mariah looks up at him. "So do you."

  "Yeah. But the difference is, that if you had the choice you'd want to believe. And I wouldn't." He presses one palm to the glass in front of hi
m, staring at the babies. "'Male and female created He them.' But you can watch, under a microscope, an egg being fertilized. Y'all can take a tiny camera and watch cells dividing, or a heart being formed. You can see it happen. So where is God in that?"

  Mariah thinks of Rabbi Solomon in his hippie T-shirt, negotiating a path between the Bible and the Big Bang theory of creation for Faith. "Maybe in the fact that it happens at all."

  Ian turns. "But we're talking about scientific proof here."

  She considers the circumstances that led to her placement at Greenhaven. "Sometimes you can see things happen right in front of your eyes and still jump to the wrong conclusions."

  Their eyes lock for a moment. Mariah blinks first. "You probably want to go home. Get some sleep."

  He massages the back of his neck and smiles faintly. "Do I ever," he agrees, but he makes no move to leave.

  Mariah finds herself cataloging Ian Fletcher the way another woman might: the silky black hair, so straight that it spikes across his forehead; the reach of his spread fingers on the glass; the light behind his pale blue eyes. "What were you?" she blurts out.

  He laughs. "Before being reincarnated as an asshole, you mean?"

  "No." Mariah blushes. "Before you were an atheist. I mean, you were probably born something. Episcopalian or Methodist or Catholic."

  "Baptist. Southern Baptist."

  "You have the voice for it," Mariah says, before she can censor herself.

  "Just not the stomach." Ian leans his shoulder against the nursery's glass wall and crosses his arms. "I didn't take to the idea of Christ."

  "Maybe you should have tried Judaism or Islam."

  "No, it isn't the Messiah thing. It's the thought that any parent--including God--would make his child suffer intentionally." He stares at the babies, nestled in a line. "I can't worship someone who lets that happen."

  Mariah is so surprised, she is speechless. Put that way, how can she not agree? She is still trying to come up with a response when Ian smiles at her, scattering all her thoughts. "I'll tell you one thing I believe," he says softly. "I believe that Faith is going to be just fine." He leans forward, brushes a kiss against Mariah's cheek, and starts down the hall.

  SEVEN

  All hell broke loose.

  --John Milton, Paradise Lost

  October 15, 1999

  Two days later Faith is still in the hospital. As far as I'm concerned, she's fine, with the exception of the open wounds on her hands. But even these, she says, no longer hurt. Dr. Blumberg, the hand surgeon, has escorted in a parade of experts to confer on Faith's diagnosis. He won't give us a straight answer about that, and he won't discharge Faith until he does.

  I've tried to reach Colin, but his voice mail said only that he'd gone out of town, without specifying where. I've tried calling every few hours, but nothing has changed.

  My mother thinks I should worry about Faith, not Colin. She has spent every day here with us and wants to know why I'm in such a rush to get home. In the hospital, at least, none of the reporters or religious zealots can get to Faith.

  I have been home myself, of course, to shower and change. The number of people has not really changed--the cult's still there, and the Winnebago--although I have seen neither hide nor hair of Ian Fletcher. This doesn't surprise me. What does surprise me is that he's had a live broadcast since Faith was admitted to the hospital, yet he did not mention her injuries.

  "Ma," Faith whines, "that's the third time I've called you!"

  I smile at her. "Sorry, honey. I didn't hear."

  "No, you were too busy brooding," my mother mutters.

  I ignore her. "What did you need, Faith?"

  "One of those Popsicle thingies. The red kind."

  "Sure." Rather than bother a nurse, I'll get it from the refrigerator at the end of the hall. I open the door and find Ian Fletcher on the other side, arguing with the policeman who's been thoughtfully stationed to keep Faith from being accosted by any media that might slip past hospital security unannounced.

  "I'm telling you," Fletcher demands. "You ask her, and she'll let me in."

  "Ask her what?"

  He smiles at me and indicates a bouquet of roses. "I was hoping to see the patient."

  "My daughter isn't available right now."

  Right on cue, Faith's voice pipes up through the open doorway. "Hey, Mom, who's here?" She scurries to the end of the bed, spies Ian Fletcher, and blushes. "I guess I'm supposed to thank you for carrying me home the other night."

  Fletcher pushes his way into the room and holds out the roses to Faith. "No need. White knights like me are always looking around for damsels in distress."

  Faith giggles, and my mother takes the roses. "Aren't these just to die for?" she exclaims. "Faith, what should we put them in?"

  With an apologetic shrug to the policeman, I step back inside the hospital room and close the door. "I never did meet a lady who wasn't partial to flowers," Ian says.

  "They make my mom sneeze," Faith answers.

  "I'll have to keep that in mind, then." Fletcher turns to me. "So, how is she doing?"

  "Much better."

  His eyes remain locked on mine. "Yes," he says. "She looks wonderful."

  We are interrupted by my mother, who bustles between us with the water pitcher full of roses. As she settles them on the nightstand, Ian sinks down onto the edge of the bed. "Anyone tell you when you can go home?"

  "Not yet," I answer.

  "I want to go now," Faith says. "It smells bad in here."

  "It smells like a hospital," Ian agrees. "Like someone's always cleaning toilets."

  "Were you ever in the hospital?"

  A shadow falls across Ian's face. "Not for myself." He glances up at me. "Could I speak to you for a second?"

  Again he gestures to the hall. With a silent nod to my mother, I follow him out. This is where the other shoe is going to drop, I tell myself. This is where he will tell me that in spite of his exemplary behavior and yellow roses, I can expect a camera crew ready to record Faith's exodus from the hospital. "You wanted to talk?"

  He stands just a foot away, our shoulders leaning against opposite sides of the doorjamb. Ian clears his throat. "Actually--"

  "Mrs. White." The sound of Dr. Blumberg's voice startles me. "I'm glad you're here. I'd like to speak to you about Faith. Would you join me in the lounge at the end of the hall?"

  Although this is what I've been waiting for, I begin to tremble. Somehow I know it is bad news; doctors always want to talk about bad news when they invite you to sit down. If Faith were well, he would have come right into the room. He is going to tell me that Faith has cancer, that she has three weeks to live, that it is somehow my fault. If I'd been a more competent mother, I would have noticed something before now--a lump behind her ear, a slow-healing cut on her knee.

  "Mariah," Ian asks quietly. "May I?"

  He glances down the hallway, where the doctor has already begun to walk, and then back to me. He is asking a thousand questions, catching me at my weakest, and, at the same time, offering his arm so that my legs feel a little less shaky. He should not be privy to this--and yet he was with Faith when it happened; he has seen all there is to see. My need for support edges out my better judgment. "All right," I whisper, dazed, and together we begin to walk.

  Beside me, Ian is fussing with something, but I do not look. If it's a tape recorder or a notepad, I don't want to see. It is an effort to keep my eyes trained straight ahead, but when Dr. Blumberg asks Ian to borrow his pen, it sparks my interest. He pulls a plastic-wrapped package from his pocket. "You see this danish?"

  It's a tart layered with cherry filling and cheese. Dr. Blumberg takes Ian's pen and spears the danish, right through the Saran Wrap and all the fillings and out the other plastic-coated side. "This is a pretty good example of a penetrating trauma. A puncture wound." He hands Ian back his pen, now dripping and sticky, and points to the hole in the center of the danish. "See how the tart is ragged? How the layer of c
heese runs into the layer of cherry? And the cherry, it's oozing. A penetrating trauma to the hand tears and distorts tissue. There's skin torn in the periphery or pushed into the wound. Blood clots and mangled tissue from adjacent injured areas fill the wound. More often than not we find hematomas or shattered bones." Dr. Blumberg lifts his eyes to me. "Your daughter's wounds looked nothing like this."

  "Maybe they weren't...penetrating traumas," I suggest.

  "Oh, they were. Went clean through. The operative word there being 'clean.' X rays--I've got them in my office--showed these perfectly round little wounds, with perfectly round little gaps in the tissue and the bones...but no actual trauma."

  Now I am completely lost. "That's a good thing?"

  "It's an inexplicable thing, Mrs. White. I've spent the past two days, as you know, in consultation with colleagues regarding Faith's diagnosis. We all agree: There is no way an object can enter the palm and exit the other side of the hand without causing substantive damage, or at the very least tearing some tissue."

  "But she was bleeding. She passed out because of it."

  "I'm aware of that," Dr. Blumberg says. "Yet her hands were bleeding slowly. As opposed to a laceration, she hadn't lost enough blood to account for her loss of consciousness. Your daughter's wounds act like punctures...but don't look like them."

  "I don't understand."

  "Have you ever read of people who suffer head trauma and can suddenly speak fluent Japanese or French?" the doctor asks. "They crack their heads on a telephone pole, and for some reason they can understand a language they've never understood before. It's not something you see every day, but it happens. Medically, it's very difficult to explain." He takes a deep breath. "After careful consideration, several physicians and myself raised the question of whether Faith actually injured her hands with anything--or if she just started to bleed."

  Fletcher whistles softly beside me. "You're authenticating stigmata."

  "I am not conclusively offering that diagnosis at this juncture," the doctor heatedly insists; at the same time I say, "Stigmata?"

  Dr. Blumberg hesitates, clearly embarrassed. "As you know, stigmata are supposedly replications of the crucifixion wounds of Christ, Mrs. White, medically inexplicable instances where people bleed from the hands, feet, and side without any actual trauma to the body. Sometimes they accompany religious ecstasy. Sometimes these wounds vanish and reappear, sometimes they're chronic. They're almost always reported to be painful. There are apparently several historical instances where physicians have indeed gone on record with that as a diagnosis."