Keeping Faith

by Jodi Picoult

  The doctor looks at me thoughtfully. "I can't say," he admits. "I've seen flat-line patients in the OR sputter and come around. I've seen people in comas for months wake up and start talking like nothing's happened. I will tell you that your mother was clinically dead, Mrs. White. The paramedics said so in their report--hell, I said so in my own report. Is this a temporary recovery? I don't know. I've never seen anything like it before."

  "I see," I say, although I don't.

  "Her heart shows virtually no sign of trauma. Of course, we'll want to do further studies, but right now it seems as strong as a teenager's." He pats my forearm. "I can't explain it, Mrs. White, so I won't even try."

  "Will you just stop already?" My mother shrugs off my supportive arm. "I'm fine."

  She strides out of the ER, pushing ahead of me and Faith. The triage nurse crosses herself. The paramedic who drove the ambulance, gossiping now with the desk nurse over a danish, drops his Styrofoam cup of coffee onto the floor.

  "Excuse me," my mother says, stopping an intern. "Which way to the elevators?" The woman points, and my mother looks back at me. "Well? Are you just going to stand there?"

  She marches down the hall, right past Ian Fletcher, who is staring at us with such disbelief that, for the first time in hours, I laugh.

  While the phlebotomists poke and prod my mother, Faith and I sit in the waiting room on the patient floor. She looks pale and tired; purple smudges the size of thumbprints are just beneath her eyes. I don't realize that I've spoken my question aloud until Faith's small face lifts. "I did what you wished for," she whispers.

  I swallow hard. "You had nothing to do with Grandma getting better. You understand?"

  "You asked her," Faith murmurs. "I heard you."

  "I asked who?"

  "God. You said, 'Oh, God. God. Oh, my God.'" Faith rubs her nose on the shoulder of her shirt. "And she heard you. She told me what to do to make you feel better."

  I bow my head and stare at my daughter's sneakers. One is untied, the laces straggling on the linoleum like any other kid's. But my child has been talking to God. My child has apparently just performed a miracle.

  I fight the urge to burst into tears. This whole thing has been a prolonged nightmare, and before I know it Colin will shake me and tell me to roll over and go back to sleep. Children are supposed to go to school, play on swing sets, skin their knees. This is the stuff of TV movies, of novels. Not of everyday, ordinary life.

  My thumbs absently rub a callus on the inside of Faith's palm. "What's this?"

  Faith hides her hands in her lap. "From the monkey bars."

  "Not from..." How do I say this? "Not from touching Grandma? It didn't...hurt you?"

  Faith shakes her head. "It felt like being on the hill of the roller coaster, going down." She stares at me, confused. "Mommy, didn't you want Grandma to be okay?"

  I fold her into my arms, wishing I could take her inside me again and protect her from what is certain, now, to come. "Oh, Faith. Of course I did. Do. It just scares me a little that you might have been the one to make it happen." I stroke her hair, her shoulders.

  "It scares me a little, too," Faith whispers.

  Woman Dies, Comes Back to Life

  1 October, 1999; New Canaan, NH--Yesterday, at approximately 3:34 P.M., Mildred Epstein passed away. At 4:45 P.M., she sat up and asked what she was doing in the hospital.

  Epstein, 56, was visiting her daughter's home in New Canaan when, witnesses say, she clutched her chest and fell to the ground. EMTs on the scene performed CPR for over 20 minutes, but never managed to revive her. She was pronounced dead on arrival at Connecticut Valley Medical Center by Peter Weaver, M.D. "I've never seen anything like it," Weaver told reporters last night. "In spite of the corroborative stories of many witnesses and trained emergency medical personnel, tests prove that Mrs. Epstein's heart shows no indication of trauma, much less of having stopped for over an hour."

  Sources indicate that Epstein went into cardiac arrest after verbally sparring with Ian Fletcher, the teleatheist known for denying the existence of God. He was preparing a piece on Epstein's granddaughter, concerning the controversial claim that the child has been communicating with God. Neither Ms. Epstein nor Mr. Fletcher could be reached for comment.

  "You know, this doesn't count," Ian says, stretching back in his chair. "When I said fresh seafood, I wasn't talking about tuna casserole."

  "It was this or Donut King." James grins. "Crullers or Chicken of the Sea."

  Ian shudders. "Do you know how much I'd pay for a good cut of Angus beef right now?"

  "You could probably pilfer a whole cow from the dairy outfit across the road. There's so damn many I bet no one's been keeping count." James pats his mouth with a napkin. "At least you're in a restaurant."

  "That's like saying traveling in a Winnebago is similar to going on safari."

  "No--it's like going on a grassroots revival. Or so you told me several weeks ago." The producer leans forward. "C'mon, Ian, you're just picking up steam. The NBC Nightly News aired your segment with the grandmother buying the farm, and ran it hourly on the late-night editions." James lifts his coffee cup. "I have a good feeling about this one. The kid's the hook--people don't expect her to be making it all up. Which is only going to make it more spectacular when you draw back the curtain."

  Ian smiles faintly. "Worth suffering accommodations in steerage, at the very least."

  "Look at it this way: if this story puts you back in the game, you'll never have to look at an RV as long as you live." James reaches for the check, laughs, and pulls out his credit card. "I actually used to like camping, as a kid. Didn't you ever do that?"

  Ian doesn't respond. James's childhood was probably a bit different from his own recollections. "Oh, that's right. You were never a kid."

  "Nope." Ian smiles. "I sprang fully formed from the brow of my executive producer."

  "Really, Ian. I mean, we've known each other--what?--seven years? And all I know about you before you started in radio is that you got a Ph.D. at that inferior school in Boston."

  "That inferior school in Boston had the superior judgment to leave you to the likes of Yale," Ian says. Feeling the prick of unease, he pretends to yawn. "I'm beat, James. Better head back to the old homestead."

  James cocks a brow. "You? Sleepy? Like hell."

  For a moment Ian tenses. How could James know about his insomnia? How could he know that the last time Ian remembers getting more than a few hours of rest was several years ago? Has James seen him leave the Winnebago in the night to walk the woods or the plains or the prairie of whatever particular hell he's stuck in?

  "You're just feeling cornered," James deduces, "and trying to change the topic." Ian relaxes, safe in his privacy. "I'm serious, Ian. I'm asking as a friend. What were your parents like? How'd you grow up?"

  Overnight, Ian thinks, but he does not say so. He pushes back from the table. "I've got a powerful hunger for a cruller just now," he answers, slipping his facade into place with a grin. "Care to join me?"

  October 3, 1999

  Fortunately, the police have forced Ian Fletcher and the members of that weird cult and the fifty or so other gawkers who've turned up all the way off our property. Unfortunately, that doesn't get them far enough away. The road--a public venue--is only a half acre away from the house, so we can see them from the windows. And that means they can see us, too.

  I haven't let Faith play outside, although she is restless and whining. They clamor for me when I step out for the briefest moment; what would they do to her? I even wait until after midnight to sneak outside with the trash, trying to set it out for collection without being barraged by reporters. I steal past the swing set and under the fringe of oak trees.

  "Penny for your thoughts."

  I jump up. Behind the glowing tip of match is Ian Fletcher. He lights the cigar and clamps it between his teeth, inhaling.

  "I could have you arrested," I say. "You're trespassing."

  "I know. B
ut I don't think you will."

  "You're wrong." I immediately head toward the house, ready to call the police.

  "Don't," he says quietly. "I saw you moving around inside, getting ready to come on out here, and I just wanted to ask after your mother." He gestures toward the collection of cars at the edge of the road. "Without everyone listening."

  "What about her?"

  "Is she all right?"

  Without taking my eyes off him, I nod. "No thanks to you."

  Is it my imagination, or does Ian Fletcher actually blush? "Yeah, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have..." He hesitates, then shakes his head.

  "Shouldn't have what?"

  His eyes are bright and burning; they hold me. "I just shouldn't have. That's all."

  "An apology from Ian Fletcher? I ought to get this on tape." But the next moment he is gone, and the only sign he's been there at all are the red embers of his cigar at my feet.

  October 4, 1999

  The next day I go to the hospital, where Dr. Weaver plans to test my mother's heart again. To my shock, I find her waiting in the lounge on the patient floor with Ian Fletcher. "Mariah," she says, as if we are all getting together for tea. "This is Mr. Fletcher."

  I grip Faith's hand so tightly she yelps. "We've met. Would you excuse us for a moment?" I pull my mother aside, Faith in tow. "Do you want to tell me why he's here?"

  "Calm down, Mariah. I swear, you're headed for a heart attack yourself. I invited Mr. Fletcher--" she pauses, smiles at him and nods, "--so that he can get his story and then get the heck out of our lives. Let him film whatever he wants; I've got nothing to hide."

  I pinch the bridge of my nose. "What makes you think he's not going to label you as some kind of zombie or vampire and stick around anyway?"

  "Because I know."

  "Oh, great. Well, that clears it all up for me." I tighten my hold on my daughter. "Faith doesn't want him here either."

  "She's reacting to your vibes, sweetheart."

  "I don't have vibes. There are no such thing as vibes."

  "There's no such thing as God either, right?" My mother smiles innocently.

  "All right," I say. "This is your dog-and-pony show. If you want Ian Fletcher here, it's your business. But he's not speaking to me or to Faith, and I'm not setting one foot in that examination room unless you make that clear to him."

  Ian Fletcher huddles with his camera crew and executive producer in the corner of the examination room. He promises to limit his investigation to my mother and smugly produces her signed consent form, as well as one from the hospital to film, when I challenge him on it. He orders gurneys moved and lighting arranged and scowls when I move Faith away from the scope of the camera. Me, I stand beside a hospital administrator there to oversee the filming, and we both play watchdog. When Fletcher motions his cameraman to lean in over the doctor's shoulder for a close-up of the medical chart, I interrupt. "That's confidential."

  "As is this entire procedure, Miz White. Your mama did put her signature on a contract that said we could film with a handheld unit to our satisfaction."

  "I don't care about your satisfaction."

  Ian Fletcher looks at me and smiles slowly. "Pity," he says.

  I walk away, wondering what had happened to the man who was so solicitous the night before. Is this his television persona, as opposed to his private one?

  With my arms crossed, I watch as Ian Fletcher's cameraman zooms in on my mother's cardiogram and stress test. "Mrs. Epstein," Dr. Weaver says finally, "you have the constitution of an eighteen-year-old. You may even outlive me." He turns to Ian, clearly tickled by these fifteen minutes of fame. "You know, I'm a man of science, Mr. Fletcher. But there's no scientific explanation, short of a cardiac transplant, to explain the dramatic change between Mrs. Epstein's routine blood-pressure checks and stress-test results during her physical a month ago versus today. Not to mention, of course, the phenomenon of...resuscitation."

  A slow gratification spreads through me, partly because my mother's health has been validated, partly because it feels good to beat Ian Fletcher. I glance at him in triumph, just in time to see him whisper to the cameraman, who turns his body so that the video camera is no longer focused on my mother but behind her--on Faith.

  She's sitting in the corner, coloring on a prescription pad. "No," I whisper, and then I spring into action. "She is not your subject!" I shout, moving between the cameraman and my daughter, filling up his field of vision so that he stumbles back. "You give me that tape! You give it to me right now!"

  I reach for the camera, but the man holds it over his head. "Jesus, Mr. Fletcher," he says, appealing for help. "Get her off me!"

  Ian Fletcher steps forward, palms raised. "Miz White," he soothes, "take it easy now."

  I round on him. "Don't you tell me what to do." From the corner of my eye, I see the cameraman still recording. "Make him shut the damn thing off!"

  Ian nods slightly, and the cameraman lowers the camera. The tension drains from my body, leaving me rubbery. I move away from Faith, shaking, and look up to find my mother, Ian Fletcher, the hospital administrator, and the doctor all staring at me, speechless. "No," I manage, then clear my throat. "I said no."

  After Fletcher leaves, a nurse takes Faith to get a sticker, leaving me alone with my mother as she dresses. "It's my fault," she says. "I thought if I invited Fletcher, we would get rid of him faster."

  "No such luck," I murmur.

  We wait quietly for Faith to return, thoughts running our own circles of guilt. "Mariah, you know what they say about dying?"

  I look at her. "What?"

  "About the bright light and all. The tunnel." She picks at a cuticle on her thumb, suddenly unable to look at me. "It's not like that."

  I swallow, my mouth dry as a desert. "No?"

  "I didn't see a light. I didn't see angels. I saw my mother." She turns to me, her eyes bright. "Oh, Mariah. Do you know how long it's been? Twenty-seven years since I've seen her. It was a gift, you know, to be able to look at all the things that I've already forgotten--the way her nails were bitten down and the color of the roots that had grown out past the hair dye...even the lines on her face. She smiled at me and told me that I couldn't come yet."

  My mother unexpectedly laces her fingers through mine. The older we've grown, the less we've touched. As a child I'd crawled into her lap; as a teenager I shied from her hand when it tried to straighten my collar or fix my hair; as an adult I found even a quick good-bye embrace too maudlin, too full of things we did not yet want to say. "I always wondered why God was supposed to be a father," she whispers. "Fathers always want you to measure up to something. Mothers are the ones who love you unconditionally, don't you think?"

  Faith returns with four stickers covering her shirt. It is decided that she'll wait with my mother in the hospital lobby while I move the car from the faraway lot to short-term parking.

  I am at the edge of the lot when I hear footsteps. "I'm always telling you I'm sorry," Ian Fletcher says, falling in beside me.

  "That's because you're always doing reprehensible things," I answer. "I want that tape."

  "You know I can't give it to you. But you have my word that I won't use any shots that include Faith."

  "Your word," I snort. "Like you gave me your word you wouldn't film her in the first place."

  "Look, I shouldn't have filmed her without your permission. I already said that."

  I start walking.

  "Hey. Hey!" He grabs my arm as I start to leave. "Can you just hang on a second?" Releasing me quickly, as if he's been burned, he stuffs his hands into the pockets of his jeans. "I want to tell you something. I don't believe your claims about your daughter--alleged resurrection included--and I'm still going to prove you wrong. But I respect what you did in there." He clears his throat. "You're a good mother."

  My jaw drops. I realize that lately I've been so busy flying by the seat of my pants and protecting Faith, I haven't had time to wonder whether I'm doing it right. This man,
this horrible man who's barreled--uninvited--into our life, this man who does not know me from Eve, has imagined me as the person I've always wanted to be--a fiercely loyal lioness, a natural mother.

  I don't know whether to laugh or cry. Certainly I know better than most that circumstances can turn you into someone you've never been before. I think of ordinary women who've moved two-ton cars to save pinned toddlers, of mothers who step in front of a bullet heading for their child in a move as easy as breathing. Maybe I'm one of them now. But I'd willingly return to second-guessing myself if it meant that Faith would go back to normal.

  "Mr. Fletcher?" I wait until he is looking right at me, expecting a thank-you, and then I slap him as hard as I can across the face.

  SIX

  He that is not with me is against me.

  --Luke 11:23

  October 6, 1999

  Ian's grandmother had been a dyed-in-the-wool Southern belle who wore her religion like a Kevlar vest. "Thank God I'm a Christian woman," she'd say, her litany dragged out for show when she found out that her husband had left her for the Jolly Donut waitress, or when she got word that the estate had been sold out beneath her to make way for a J. C. Penney store. And then, when God didn't quite come through for her, she'd sneak out the bottle of bourbon she kept in the tank of the downstairs toilet and take up His slack.

  The Southern Baptist miasma in which Ian had been raised was a far piece from Yankee skepticism. Down South, communities were built around their churches. In some places still, religion had Southerners by the throat, and a man's worth was judged by what house of God he frequented. Truth be told, Ian feels considerably more at home with the Yankees, for whom religion is an afterthought, rather than a staple of living. In the North there is room for doubt...or so Ian had thought, until he saw the reaction to Millie Epstein's passing and subsequent revival.

  He has, through an inside source, managed to review Millie Epstein's charts. Three distinct medical professionals signed the woman off as dead. And yet Ian himself saw her hale and hearty just days ago.