Keeping Faith

by Jodi Picoult

  Joan whispers to Mariah, "She's good."

  Metz feels his client's eyes on him, and shrugs. He doesn't know jackshit about GALs in New Canaan, New Hampshire. Manchester is one thing, but for all he knows Kenzie van der Whatever is Joan Standish's sister. "We think that's fine, Your Honor," Metz announces in a strong, clear voice.

  "We do, too," Joan adds.

  "Marvelous. The custody hearing will begin Friday, December third."

  "I have a conflict," Metz says, poring over his calendar. "I'm scheduled to be taking a deposition in the case of a boy who's divorcing his parents."

  "Is that supposed to impress me, Mr. Metz?" Judge Rothbottam asks. "Because it really doesn't. Find someone else to do it. You're the one who wants this case tried expediently."

  Metz folds the leather binding of his Filofax. "I'll be here."

  "Joan?"

  "I don't have any conflicts."

  "Excellent." The judge pushes the earphones into place. "I can't wait."

  Joan pulls into the driveway and touches Mariah's arm. "Remember what I told you. This isn't the end of the world."

  Mariah's smile does not quite reach her eyes. "Thank you. For everything." She folds her hands in her lap. "I was impressed."

  "Girl, you ain't seen nothing yet." Joan laughs. "I might have taken on this case for free, just to stand up to Malcolm Metz. Now, you go on inside and play with your daughter."

  Mariah nods and gets out of the Jeep, flinching at the questions hurled from distant reporters, and at the sight of a tremendous poster of Faith's face held by a large group of women. She feels fragile, an ornament made of spun sugar, but she steels her composure while she climbs the porch steps. As soon as she opens the door, her mother and Faith come running into the parlor. After a searching look at Mariah's face, Millie turns to her granddaughter. "Honey, I left my reading glasses on the arm of the couch. Could you get them?"

  As soon as Faith is out of hearing range, Millie closes in. "So?"

  "In five weeks we have to go to court."

  "That son of a bitch. I knew you--"

  "Ma," Mariah interrupts. "Don't do this now." She sinks down on the stairs and scrubs her hands over her face. "This isn't about Colin."

  "It's not about you, either, Mariah, but I'll bet five weeks from now it will be."

  "What's that supposed to mean?"

  "That your Achilles' heel, unfortunately, is a target as big as a barn. And that Colin and his fancy lawyer are sure to strike there."

  "By then Joan will have come up with something," Mariah says, but she knows she is trying to convince herself as well as Millie. What court would pick her as the better parent?

  Maybe Colin's right--maybe it is her fault. She has made poor choices before regarding Faith; this could be yet more proof of her inadequate parenting: one rash decision, one selfish move, one conversation that took root in Faith's imagination and brought her to this point. There have been times, after all, when Colin questioned Mariah's judgment with good reason.

  "Oh, no you don't," Millie mutters, pulling Mariah upright. "You go right upstairs and steam that look off your face."

  "What--"

  "Take a hot shower, Clear your head. I've seen you get like this before, all full of doubts about whether you've got the good sense God gave a beetle, much less a competent mother. I swear, I don't know how Colin does it, but the man's a Svengali when it comes to your mind." She pushes Mariah up the stairs as Faith comes into the parlor with her grandmother's eyeglasses. "Oh, good," she says to the girl. "Let's go see if we can find Sunday's comics."

  Aware of Faith's eyes following her, Mariah smiles with every step. She deliberately shoves aside the thoughts that batter away at her: what Joan will say in court, what the judge will make of Mariah's hasty escape to Kansas City, what Ian will say and do now that they have returned. She undresses and turns the shower on so that a white mist fills the bathroom. Inside the stall, the water pounds heavy and hot, but Mariah cannot stop shivering. Like the survivor of an accident, the close call hits all at once, and she is by turns frightened and stunned. What if, five weeks from now, her daughter is legally removed? What if, once again, Colin gets his way? Mariah slides down to the tiled floor, arms crossed tight, and lets herself fall apart.

  After Faith is bathed and put to bed, Mariah walks into the living room to find Millie peering out from the edge of the curtains. "Like Yasgur's Farm," she murmurs, hearing Mariah come up behind her. "Look out in the field. You can see all those little flickering lights...What were they holding up back then--candles?"

  "Cigarette lighters. And how would you know about Woodstock?"

  Millie turns and smiles. "Don't underestimate your mother." She reaches for Mariah's hand and squeezes. "You feeling better yet?"

  At the simple, sweet concern, Mariah almost breaks down again. She lets her mother lead her to the couch and lays her head in her lap. As Millie begins to smooth Mariah's hair back from her brow, she can feel some of the tension ebb, some of the problems fall by the wayside. "I wouldn't say I'm feeling better. Numb is more like it."

  Millie continues to stroke her daughter's hair. "Faith seems to be holding up all right."

  "I don't know if she understands what's happening."

  There is a moment of silence. "She isn't the only one."

  Mariah sits up, color flooding her face. "What do you mean by that?"

  "When are you going to tell me the rest?"

  "I already told you everything that happened in court."

  Millie tucks a strand of Mariah's hair behind her ear. "You know, you look just the way you did when you stayed out with Billy Flaherty two hours past curfew."

  "It was a flat tire. I told you that almost twenty years ago."

  "And I still don't believe you. God, I remember sitting up in bed watching the clock and wondering, What on earth does Mariah see in him, with his brooding and his moods?"

  "He was only sixteen, and his father was an alcoholic, and his parents were in the middle of a divorce. He needed someone to talk to."

  "The thing is," Millie continues, as if Mariah has not spoken, "the other night I was lying in bed watching the clock and wondering, Why on earth is Mariah staying with Ian Fletcher? And you come home, and you've got that same face on all over again."

  Mariah scoffs and turns away. "I don't have any face on."

  "Yes you do. It's the one that says it's already too late for me to keep you from going over the edge." She waits for Mariah to look at her again, slowly, and with great reservation. "So you tell me," Millie says softly. "How hard was the fall?"

  A stillness settles over Mariah as she realizes that her mother is no more prescient than Mariah herself. All the moments she's awakened in the middle of the night a split second before Faith's cries fill the dark, all the times she has looked at her daughter's face and cleaved a lie in half with a single look. This is the codicil of motherhood: Like it or not, you acquire a sixth sense when it comes to your children--viscerally feeling their joy, their frustration, and the sharp blow to the heart when someone causes them pain.

  "Fast." Mariah sighs. "And with my eyes wide open."

  As Millie opens her arms, Mariah moves into them, drawing close the comfort of childhood with a great rush of relief. She tells her mother of Ian, who was not following her when she thought he was, who was not the person he made himself out to be. She describes the way they would sit on the porch after Faith went to sleep, and how they would sometimes talk and sometimes just let the night settle over their shoulders. She does not tell Millie of Ian's brother, of what Faith might or might not have briefly done for him. She does not tell Millie how it felt to have Ian's body pressed against hers, heat from head to toe, how even during hours of sleep, he held on to her hand as if he could not bear to let her go.

  To her credit, Millie does not act surprised or ask if they are speaking of the same Ian Fletcher. Instead she holds Mariah close and lets the explanations fall where they may. "If this happened betw
een you," she says carefully, "where do things stand?"

  Mariah glances through the gauzy curtains at the smattering of lights that attracted her mother. "With him out there and me in here," she answers, smiling sadly. "Just like before."

  Sometimes in the middle of the night Faith thinks she can hear something crawling under her bed, a serpent or a sea monster out of water or maybe the tiny, hooked feet of rats. She wants to toss off her covers and run into her mother's room, but that would mean touching the floor, and there's a very good chance that whatever is making the noise will wrap itself around her ankle and eat her with its rows of sharp teeth before she ever makes it into the hall.

  Tonight Faith wakes up, certain it's coming for her, and screams.

  Her mother comes rushing into the room. "What's the matter?"

  "They're biting me!" she cries. "The things that live under the bed!" But even as she speaks, the world comes back to her, strange black shapes turning into lamps and dressers and other ordinary things. She glances down at her hands, still fisting the covers, Band-Aids covering the small holes beneath the knuckles. They don't hurt at all now. They're not bleeding either. They tingle a little, as if a dog were pushing his wet nose into them.

  "You okay?"

  Faith nods.

  "Then I think I'll go back to sleep."

  But Faith doesn't want her mother to leave. She wants her to be sitting here, on the edge of the bed, thinking of nothing but Faith. "Ow!" she cries impulsively, clutching her left hand.

  Her mother turns quickly. "What? What happened?"

  "My hand hurts," Faith lies. "A big, sharp, needle pain."

  "Here?" her mother asks, pressing.

  It doesn't hurt at all. It feels sort of nice, actually. "Yes," Faith whimpers. "Ow!"

  Her mother crawls into the bed, gathering Faith into her arms. "Try to rest," she says, her own eyes closing.

  In the dark, Faith falls asleep smiling.

  October 28, 1999

  Clearly, her mother has been eating like a pig.

  That's the only explanation Mariah can come up with to make sense of the absolute dearth of food in the house. Having been gone for a week, she'd have expected the fruit and the milk to go bad, but there's no more bread, and even the peanut-butter jar is empty. "God, Ma," she says, watching Faith pick at a dry bowl of Rice Krispies. "Did you host a party?"

  Affronted, Millie sniffs. "That's the kind of gratitude I get for keeping house?"

  "I would have expected you to replenish the pantry, that's all. For your own comfort."

  Millie rolls her eyes. "Oh, and of course the vultures out there would have just waved politely as I went on my merry way."

  "If they harassed you, you could have harassed them right back." Grabbing her purse, Mariah strides to the door. "I'll be back in a little while."

  But eluding the reporters is not as simple as Mariah expects. Inching out of the driveway, she nearly hits a man who pushes his daughter's wheelchair in front of her car. Police notwithstanding, hundreds of hands pat her windows, her bumpers, her trunk. "God," she breathes, astounded by the sheer numbers of people, gratefully picking up speed a quarter mile past her own driveway.

  She believed that, without Faith in tow, there was less of a chance that she'd be pursued, but three cars tail her as she makes her way into the grocery store in a neighboring town. Keeping careful track of them in the rearview mirror, she deliberately takes side streets instead of main roads, hoping to lose them before she reaches her destination. Two of the cars are gone by the time she leaves the outskirts of New Canaan. The third follows her into the parking lot but turns in a different direction, leading Mariah to realize sheepishly that this might have been a neighbor or ordinary citizen, rather than a reporter on her trail.

  In the grocery store she keeps her head ducked, reaching for melons and lettuce and English muffins and not making eye contact with other shoppers. She rounds the aisles with grim determination, set on making it through the checkout line without being noticed. But she has just reached into a frozen-food locker when a hand closes around her wrist and pulls her behind a tall display of ice-cream cones.

  "Ian."

  He is dressed down in jeans and a tattered flannel shirt, a baseball cap pulled low over his face. He has not shaved. Mariah touches his cheek. "This is your disguise?"

  His hand slides from her wrist to her shoulder. "I wanted to know what happened in court."

  A small light goes out inside Mariah. "Oh."

  "And I wanted to see you." Ian's fingers curl around the soft skin of her inner arm. "I needed to."

  She looks up at him. "We go back to the judge in five weeks." She can just make out his eyes beneath the bill of his cap, pure Arctic blue and focused with the most singular intensity, pinning her like a butterfly.

  Another shopper rounds the corner, toddler twins hanging on either side of her cart like docking buoys. She glances dismissively at them, then continues down the aisle. "We can't be here like this," Ian says. "One of us is bound to get recognized." But he makes no move to leave, and instead strokes his fingers under her chin, making her arch like a cat.

  Just as suddenly, he steps away. "I'll do anything I can to make sure Faith stays with you."

  "The only way the judge is going to let me keep her is if he thinks her life's perfectly normal," she says evenly. "So the best thing you could do, Ian, is leave." She grants herself permission for one more glance at him, one more touch of his hand. "The best thing for Faith, and the worst thing for me." Then she reaches for the handle of her shopping cart and continues down the aisle, her heart tripping, yet her face as serene as if she'd never seen him at all.

  The telephone rings when Mariah is nearly asleep. Groggy and dazed, she reaches for it assuming that Ian is on the other end, and too late realizes that even before dreams descend, he has already claimed a part in them.

  "I am so glad to hear that you're still answering the phone."

  "Father MacReady," Mariah says, sitting up in the bed. "Isn't it a little late?"

  He laughs. "For what, exactly?"

  "Calling."

  There is a beat of silence. "I've been led to believe that it's never too late for a calling. Sometimes they just catch you behind the knees and knock you down like a linebacker."

  She swings her legs over the edge of the bed, pleats the edge of the top sheet. "You're twisting my words again."

  "For what it's worth, I prayed for you," Father MacReady admits quietly. "I prayed that you'd be able to take Faith and get away."

  "Your hotline is apparently a little rusty."

  "It may be, you know. Which is why I wanted to talk to you. Your mother had the pleasure of turning away a colleague of mine today who'd like to take a look at Faith."

  "My daughter isn't the Catholic Church's lab specimen, Father," Mariah says bitterly. "Tell your colleague to go back home."

  "That's not up to me. It's his job. When Faith starts saying things that don't match up with two thousand years of teachings, they have to come evaluate it."

  It makes Mariah think of that old adage--if a tree falls in the woods and no one's there to hear it, does it make a sound? If you do not want religion, do you have the right to send it away?

  "I know you're not going to want to hear this," Father MacReady says, "but I'd consider it a personal favor if you'd allow Faith to speak with Father Rampini."

  There are people at the edge of her property now who have gathered in the name of Christianity. She did not ask them to come; she would certainly like them to leave.

  The judge would consider it a mark in her favor if she managed to get them to leave.

  The simplest way to do that is for them to hear, straight from the mouth of their Church, that Faith is not who they would like her to be.

  But then again, it means exploiting Faith, and Mariah is not sure she wants to do that even if it leads to a greater good. "Faith and I don't owe you any favors. We're not Catholic."

  "Technicall
y," Father MacReady says, "neither was Jesus."

  Mariah sinks back into her pillow, feels it brush against the sides of her face. She thinks about those trees falling in the woods, silent and unobserved, until one day someone comes along and notices with a start that the entire forest is gone.

  October 29, 1999

  Father Rampini knows many ways to make a statue weep, none of which have anything to do with Jesus. You can rub the marble face with calcium chloride, which makes water condense from the air in false tears. You can press small balls of lard into the eyes, which melt when they warm to room temperature. You can even use sleight of hand, dabbing at the statue with a sponge to make moisture when your audience is distracted. He's seen fake magician's blood hidden up a sleeve, stigmata spontaneously bursting with a flick of the wrist. He's watched rosaries go from silver to gold, scientifically explicable metallurgic reactions.

  His gut feeling? Little Faith White is full of crap.

  He believed, at first, that it would be easy to discredit the child. A couple of discreet inquiries, a tearful admission, and he'd be back at the seminary before supper. But the more he learns about Faith White, the more difficult it is becoming to dismiss her out of hand.

  Yesterday he interviewed many of the reporters on the front lawn, trying to uncover a secret book deal the mother might have made or word of a TV exclusive. Historically, true prophets didn't profit--either by money, esteem, or comfort. Had he found even the subtlest hint of self-aggrandizement, he'd have been on the Mass Pike that afternoon.

  All right, so she wasn't trying to become rich and famous by acting like a visionary. But neither was there proof apart from Faith White's alleged vision--like the spring at Lourdes that cures ailments, or the picture of the Virgin not made by human hands, given to Blessed Juan Diego and still hanging four hundred years later in the shrine in Mexico City. He said as much to Father MacReady, who--maddeningly enough--barely looked up from the sermon he'd been writing in his office. "You're forgetting," MacReady said. "She's a healer."