by Jodi Picoult
Judge Rothbottam turns to Joan. "You have anything to say, Standish?"
She looks at Metz, then at the judge. "This is bullshit, Your Honor. In the first place, unlike Mr. Metz's client, who clearly is putting his own interests first, the reason my client isn't here is because she needs to be at her daughter's bedside. That merits a commendation, not a restraining order. In the second place, Mr. Metz is trying to divert attention from my client's devotion to her child with this new disease-of-the-week ploy. I don't know what this syndrome is; I don't even know how to spell the damn thing. This trial is starting in less than a half hour, and I'm ready to go, but out of nowhere Metz waltzes in with this obscure clinical diagnosis--not that I remember him getting a degree in psychology, come to think of it--and I'm going to need time to research it and make a rebuttal."
"M-U-N--" Metz says slowly.
"Go jump in a lake."
He raises his hands in mock affront. "Just trying to help you 'spell the damn thing.'"
"I'm not done yet, Metz." She turns toward the judge. "He can't pull in a witness from thin air the day--no, correction--the minute the trial starts. That's totally unfair."
Judge Rothbottam turns to Metz. "If you cut out all the soliloquies I'm sure you've budgeted into your directs, how long will it take to run through your other witnesses?"
"I don't know. Possibly into tomorrow."
Rothbottam considers for a moment. "All right. I'll grant the restraining order for now. Let's play it by ear. We'll start the trial, and, Mr. Metz, you'll put your Munchausen expert on last. When it comes to that, we'll adjourn to chambers and see if Ms. Standish needs more time to prepare her cross."
"I think it would be beneficial if everyone could hear testimony on the disorder first--"
"You're lucky I'm letting you put the guy on the stand, period. This is what we're doing. I like it--the child is safe, Joan gets at least a day to prepare, and frankly, Metz, I don't care what you think at all." The judge cracks his knuckles and gestures toward the door. "Shall we?"
Early that morning Father MacReady walks into Faith's room. He stops for a moment at the threshold, taken by the sight of Faith, intubated and deathly still, of Mariah holding her daughter's forearm and dozing. Perhaps this wasn't the time to bother them; he'd just heard from one of the parishioners that the girl had been taken off in an ambulance the night before, and he wanted to pay a call. He backs up toward the door quietly, but the sound of his boots on the linoleum makes Mariah startle awake.
"Oh," she says huskily, then clears her throat. When she realizes who the visitor is, she becomes visibly upset. "Why are you here?"
Father MacReady puts two and two together, realizes that for some reason Mariah thinks he's been summoned for last rites. It would never happen, since Faith is not a Catholic child, and yet that hasn't stopped his interference in her life before. He sits down beside Mariah on a chair. "I'm here as a friend, not as a priest," he says.
He gazes at Faith's small, pinched face--so tiny to have caused so much controversy. "It was her hands again?"
Mariah nods. "Now it's her fever, too. And her dehydration. And the screaming and the fits." She rubs her hands over her face. "It was worse than the first time, much worse."
"Fits?"
She shudders. "Colin and I--we could barely hold her down. The first time this happened, she was unconscious. But this time...this time she hurt."
Father MacReady gently strokes his palm along Faith's cheek. "'Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani,'" he murmurs.
The words make Mariah go still. "What did you say?'
Surprised, he turns. "It's Hebrew, actually."
Mariah thinks back to the previous night, when Faith called out for Eli. She cannot be sure of the other unfamiliar syllables, but they could have been what Faith was moaning, as well. She tells this to the priest.
"It's a biblical verse," he says. "Matthew twenty-seven: forty-six."
"Faith doesn't speak Hebrew."
"But Jesus did. That was his language. The words translate to 'My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?' Saint Matthew tells us that Christ didn't go gently into that good night. At the last moment, he wanted to know why God was making him go through this." He hesitates, then looks at Mariah. "The bleeding, the pain, that phrase--it sounds like Faith was in ecstasy."
"Agony is more like it."
"It's not the word as you know it. Most accredited stigmatics experience periods of religious ecstasy. Without it, it's just bleeding from the hands." At that moment Faith shifts in her sleep, and the blanket falls away to reveal the wound on her side. Father MacReady draws in a breath. "This, too?" When Mariah nods, he knows that he is fairly glowing, that his response is inappropriate for the severity of the occasion. But the wound on Faith's right side falls almost exactly where Jesus was supposedly speared. It makes him dizzy, just to think of it.
Sobering, he calls upon his resources as a pastoral counselor. "Mariah, Faith isn't feeling pain of her own. From everything you've told me, she was simply reliving Jesus' pain, acting out his sufferings on the cross."
"Why her?"
"Why Him?" Father MacReady says quietly. "We don't know why God gave us His only son, to die for our own sins. And we don't know why God lets some people experience the Passion of Christ when others can't even understand it."
"Passion," Mariah spits out. "Ecstasy. Whoever came up with these names didn't go through it."
"Passion comes from the Latin passio. 'To suffer.'"
Mariah turns away from Father MacReady's earnest convictions. Passion. She repeats the word softly to herself, and thinks of Ian, of Colin, of Faith, wondering if all love--earthly or divine--is certain to hurt.
When the nurses come to take Faith for X rays again, Mariah says good-bye to the priest. She does not particularly care what happens to Father MacReady. She does not care if Faith is experiencing Christ's suffering or her own. She only wants it to go away.
Faith is sitting in a wheelchair, nodding in and out of sleep. Mariah's hand rests on her shoulder as the nurse wheels her into the elevator. They get out on the third floor and wait in the hallway while the nurse finds out which room they are headed to.
While they stay there, a man is rushed by on a stretcher, surrounded by a knot of doctors all working frantically en route to the ER. Mariah hears them yelling out things about defibrillation and operating room number three and she shudders, thinking of her mother's heart. The man's hand dangles off the stretcher, brushes Faith's knee as he is wheeled by.
But Faith, moaning softly, doesn't even seem to notice.
"Mariah."
When she doesn't answer, Millie grabs her shoulders and gives her a shake. "Have you heard anything I've been saying?"
"You go, Ma. I'll try to come later."
"You don't understand. If you don't get up and walk out this door, the police will physically carry you out." Millie leans over her. "If you don't come to the hearing, Colin will get Faith."
That one sentence spikes through Mariah's confusion. "He can't," she says, slowly getting to her feet. "He just can't."
Millie tugs her upright, sensing that she's started to make some progress. She folds Mariah into her coat with the easy motions of a mother. "Then stop him," she says.
"Call it." Dr. Urquhart In OR Three the cardiac surgeon strips off his gloves and balls them inside out, trapping the blood from his patient's chest within. He hears a nurse say "nine fifty-eight," and the faint scratch of her pen on the patient's chart. Urquhart's fingers are throbbing. Ten minutes of manual stimulation had not been enough to save the man, but then again, having cracked open the fellow's chest, Urquhart knows that another few rashers of bacon would have finished him off, too. At 80 and 75 percent blockage, respectively, it's a wonder that Mr. Eversly made it this long.
He hears one of the surgical residents readying to prepare the patient so that he'll be fit for a final viewing by family. With a groan, Urquhart realizes the worst is yet to come. There's nothing
worse than telling a relative a patient's died under the knife, right before Christmas.
He takes the patient's chart to sign off on the death, goes so far as to click his ballpoint pen, and then he's stopped by the voice of the resident. "Dr. Urquhart. Look at this."
He follows her eyes to the monitor--no longer a flat-line--and then to the open chest cavity of the patient, inside which a heart--healthy, unclogged--is furiously beating.
"All rise! The Honorable A. Warren Rothbottam presiding!"
The courtroom swells with the sound of feet hitting the ground and pocket change jingling as everyone stands. The judge stalks to his seat, one eye on the group of onlookers packing the gallery. Rothbottam has heard that so many people were trying to get in, the bailiffs had to hold a lottery for the open seats.
He glances at the defendant's table and sees Mariah White, thank the good Lord, just where she ought to be. Her hands are folded, her eyes trained on them as if they might at any moment fly up and betray her.
Rothbottam levels his gaze on the gallery. "Let's get this straight right now. I'm neither foolish nor naive enough to assume that the congestion of bodies in this courtroom has anything to do with my prowess as a judge or a sudden media interest in routine custody hearings. I know exactly who you all are and what you think you're doing here. Well, this is not your news station. This is my courtroom. And in it, I'm God." He braces his hands on the bench. "If I see a camera come in with one of you, if I hear you cough too loud, if anyone applauds or boos a witness--at the first sign of any crap, you're all out of here. And you can quote me on that."
The reporters roll their eyes at each other. "Counselors," Rothbottam says to the attorneys. "I'm going to assume no other emergency motions have cropped up in the past half hour?"
"No, Your Honor," Metz says. Joan shakes her head.
"Terrific." He nods at Metz. "You may begin."
Malcolm gets to his feet, squeezes Colin's shoulder, and adjusts the button on the jacket of his suit. Then he walks over to the podium beside the stenographer and angles it slightly, pointing it in the direction of the gallery.
"Mr. Metz," the judge says. "What are you doing?"
"I know it goes against the norm of a custody hearing, but I've prepared a short opening statement, Your Honor."
"Do you see a jury, Counselor? Because I don't. And I already know everything about this case that you do."
Metz stares at him evenly. "I have a right to give an opening statement, and I'm going to object on the record, Your Honor, if you don't let me."
The judge thinks, briefly, of what he could be doing if he'd retired five years early, as his wife wanted: watching the waves roll in on a Florida beach, driving a motor home into a national park, listening to Betty Buckley sing again on Broadway. Instead, he's stuck watching Malcolm Metz play to an audience, because the last thing he wants is for Metz to have grounds for appeal. "Ms. Standish," the judge says, resigned, "do you have a problem with this?"
"No, Your Honor. I'd actually like to see it."
Rothbottam inclines his head. "Make it brief, Counselor."
Malcolm Metz stands silently behind the podium for a moment, pretending to gather words that have been memorized cold for the past week. "You know," he says, "when I was seven years old, I used to go fishing with my dad. He taught me how to pick the best worm from the overturned earth...how to thread it on the hook just so...how to reel in a striper that was the most beautiful thing on earth. And after we went fishing, just the two of us, we'd go to the diner down the road from the pond and he'd buy me a root beer and we'd sit and count the cars that passed by on the highway.
"Then my dad and I would go home, and Mom would have a big lunch waiting. Sometimes it was soup, sometimes a ham sandwich...and while she set the table, I'd go outside and look under the porch for spiders, or lie on my back and stare at the clouds. Do you know what Faith White is doing at the age of seven? She's lying on a hospital bed, hooked up to intravenous tubes, getting blood drawn from a dozen different places on her body. She's in excruciating pain, both mental and physical. She has a battalion of nurses and doctors watching her around the clock, and people gathered outside the hospital doors waiting to hear about her welfare. I ask you: Is this any way to spend a childhood?" He shakes his head sadly. "I think not. In fact, this child has not been able to be a child for some time. Which is why her father--my client--has made a place for his daughter, ready to take her with open arms and protect her from the unsavory influences that brought her to the point where she is now...that continue to endanger her very life."
"All right," Rothbottam bellows. "Approach!"
Metz and Joan walk to the bench. The judge covers his microphone. "Mr. Metz, let me give you a tip: I'm not going to make a ruling based on what you say to the media reps here today. I highly recommend you wrap this up now, because you've started to piss me off."
Metz returns to his podium and clears his throat. "In conclusion, we're going to prove that--without a doubt--custody should go to Colin White. Thank you." He nods, and goes to sit behind Colin.
"Ms. Standish," the judge says, "do you want to make an opening argument, too?"
Joan gets to her feet and fans herself with her hand. "Can you give me a minute, Your Honor? I'm still feeling a little emotional from that speech--the fishing and all." She takes a cleansing breath and then smiles prettily at the judge. "Ah. I'm better now. Actually, I don't think I have anything to say at this moment that could possibly top that. Tell you what, though: If I feel the need to pontificate, maybe I could do it at the beginning of my case?"
"Fine. Mr. Metz, you can call your first witness."
With an encouraging look at his client, Metz calls Colin White to the stand. Colin rises, managing to look sheepish and polished all at once. He steps into the witness box and turns toward the clerk of the court, who is holding out a Bible. "Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?"
"I do."
Malcolm approaches the stand and has Colin state his name and address. "Mr. White," he begins, "what's your relationship to Faith?"
"I'm her father."
"Just for background, can you tell us about the circumstances of this past summer?"
"I was having trouble with my marriage," Colin admits. "I didn't know who to talk to about it."
Metz frowns. "Why not your wife?"
"Well, she has a history of being emotionally fragile, and I was a little scared of what she might do if I told her I felt that the marriage was in trouble."
"What do you mean?"
"She was institutionalized seven years ago for depression, after she tried to kill herself."
"If you didn't confront her, then what happened to initiate the divorce proceedings?"
"Well," Colin says, reddening, "I sought the solace of another woman."
Beside her, Mariah hears Joan murmur, "Oh, for God's sake..." She feels herself root more firmly in the seat, afraid to breathe or move a muscle, because in spite of Colin's embarrassed admission, she wants only to sink through the floor.
"Then what happened?" Metz prods gently.
"One day this woman was at my house, and my wife found out about us."
"That must have been very uncomfortable for you, Colin."
"It was," he admits. "God, I felt terrible about it."
"What action did you take at that time?"
"I was selfish. I just knew that I needed to get my life together. I guess I thought that Faith would be all right with Mariah while I did...but in the back of my mind I understood that at some point I was going to want my daughter to come live with me."
"Did you ask her to live with you?"
"Not then," Colin says, grimacing. "I didn't think it was right to uproot her when her family had just broken apart."
"So what did you do?"
"I filed for divorce. I tried to visit Faith whenever I could. And I made it implicitly clear to my ex-wife--at least I thought I did--that I still wan
ted Faith to be a part of my life. After I...left, I tried to go back and see her. One time I practically got shoved out the door. But Faith wanted to see me then; I know she did."
"Colin, maybe you can share with us some special moments you had with Faith."
"Oh, we used to be very close. There are little things that stay with me...like brushing out her hair after her bath, or pulling up the covers when she was asleep. Having her bury my feet in the sand."
"What is your current marital status?"
Colin smiles toward the gallery, where Jessica gives him a tiny wave. "I've been happily married for the past two months, and in fact we're going to have a baby. Faith's going to love having a baby brother or sister."
"Don't you think people might wonder why, in two scant months, you've changed your mind about who should have custody of your daughter?"
Colin nods. "I'm not saying I've been perfect. I haven't. I've made mistakes that I wish I could take back. But I never changed my mind about Faith. I just wasn't willing to take her out of a familiar environment when the rest of her world had been turned upside down." He looks at Jessica. "I love my new wife, and I love the life we're making for ourselves. I can't be a father to this new child without being one to Faith. I need her. And from what I've seen, she needs me just as badly."
Metz crosses in front of the judge. "Colin, why are you here now?"
He swallows hard. "Well, not too long ago I turned on the news one night and my daughter was the feature story. She was hospitalized, and there was this insane story about her being a religious visionary and her hands bleeding, for God's sake. All I could think was that Mariah cut open her wrists once, and here she was alone with my daughter, and all of a sudden Faith was bleeding. I always knew my wife was crazy, but--"
"Objection!"
The judge frowns. "I'm not going to listen to what you just said, Mr. White. Please answer the questions as they are asked."
Metz turns back to his client. "What made you file for a change of custody?"
"I realized several weeks ago that Faith wasn't nearly as safe as I'd thought."
"Did you ever have any previous reason to believe that Mariah wasn't a fit caretaker?"