by Jodi Picoult
She turns her head toward him. "Huh?"
"It's a saying. An old one."
"It's stupid. You don't fish for men."
"You ought to ask God about it sometime," Ian suggests, leaning back and covering his eyes with his forearm, just enough that he can peek out and still see her.
Faith frowns, on the verge of saying something, but then she stops and picks at the wood of the dock again. Ian finds himself straining forward, waiting for a confession, but whatever Faith might have said is lost to the sudden jerk of the rod and her squeal of delight. He shows her how to reel in her catch, a beauty of a fish that's every bit of three pounds. Then he unhooks the bass and rounds open its mouth, so that Faith can grab hold.
"Oh," she breathes, the tail of the fish snugging against her stomach. She's a picture, Ian thinks, smiling. With her hair caught in the late sun and dirt streaked across her cheek, he looks at her and truly sees her not as a story, but simply as a little girl.
The fish starts to thrash its tail, fighting for freedom. "Look at how--Oh!" Faith cries, and she drops the bass--the last thing Ian sees before she loses her footing and falls from the dock into the freezing water.
Mariah awakens to her worst nightmare: Ian Fletcher has disappeared with Faith. Bolting upright on the couch, she screams for her daughter, knowing by the stillness in the small cabin that they are gone. A deck of cards lies scattered across the rug, as if he's taken her in the middle of everything, as if he's taken her by force.
She will have to call the police, but that seems like an easy sacrifice if it means Faith's safe return. With her heart pounding, Mariah races outside, so distraught that she does not even notice the car still sitting in front of the cabin. She runs toward the manager's office, the nearest phone, cursing herself for putting Faith within reach of Ian Fletcher. When she rounds the corner, two figures are silhouetted against the lake, one tall, one tiny. With intense relief, Mariah stops short, her knees buckling. She cups her hands around her mouth to call out to them, but then before her very eyes, Faith falls into the lake.
Oh, shit! That's all Ian has time to think before the water swallows Faith, and Mariah's scream echoes. It's freezing in there, and he has no idea if the kid can swim, and the very worst part of it is that he can't just jump in and grab her because there's every chance that he'll land on top of her, push her farther down. He is distantly aware of Mariah scrabbling down the slope, yelling, but with intense focus he stares at the murky water until a pale streak of silver unfurls beneath the surface. He leaps in a few feet to the left of where he's seen Faith's hair, opens his eyes to the gritty underworld, and tangles his fingers in a silky skein.
He can see her, her eyes wide and terrified, her mouth open, her hands pushing at the underside of the dock that she's trapped beneath. Dragging her by her ponytail, he yanks Faith free and pulls her up. She crawls onto the wood, choking and sputtering, her cheek pressed against the planks as she spits up water.
Ian hauls himself onto the dock as well, just as Mariah reaches them and folds Faith into her arms, soothing and cuddling. Only now does he let himself breathe, let himself think of what might have happened. He notices that he's soaked and shaking; his clothes must weigh fifty pounds wet, and they're freezing to boot. With a glance in Faith's direction to make sure she is all right, he stands and slowly sets out toward the cabin to change.
"Don't you move!"
Mariah's voice, vibrating with anger, stops him. Ian turns and clears his throat to speak. "She'll be fine," he manages. "She wasn't under for more than a few seconds."
But Mariah isn't ready to give up. "How dare you take her out here without my permission?"
"Well, I--"
"Were you waiting for me to fall asleep so that you could sneak her out with a...a candy bar and ask her questions up one side and down the other? Did you get your precious tape? Or did you forget to take it out of your pocket when you jumped in?"
Ian feels his lips draw away from his teeth, an involuntary snarl. "For your information, the only thing I asked your daughter was if her daddy ever taught her how to cast a fishing line. I didn't tape a frigging word of our conversation. She fell into the lake by accident and got stuck under the dock. All I did was go in after her."
"She would never have gotten stuck under the dock if she hadn't been standing on it in the first place! For all I know, you might have pushed her."
Ian's eyes glitter with rage. This is what he gets for saving the child's life? He takes a step back, breathing hard. "For all I know," he sneers, "she might have walked on water."
Long after Mariah has fed Faith hot soup, bathed her, and tucked her into bed for the night, Ian still has not returned to the cabin. She finds herself pacing, staring blindly at the static on the television. She wants to apologize. Surely now that they've both had time to cool down he realizes that it was the fear talking, not really her, but she'd like to tell him so herself. After all, if Faith had wandered down to the dock by herself, she could have just as easily fallen in--and drowned.
She waits until her daughter is sleeping deeply, then goes to sit on the edge of the bed. Mariah touches the curve of Faith's cheek, warm as a ripe peach. How do other mothers go about keeping watch? How do they shut their eyes with the certainty that in that moment, something won't go wrong? Being in water that cold could have had far more serious effects, yet Faith seems absolutely fine.
For whatever it is worth, Faith's God wasn't the one to haul her out of the water; that was done by Ian himself. For this at least, Mariah owes him her gratitude.
She sees the swinging beam of headlights cut across the small room. Walking out of the bedroom to the front door of the cabin, she waits for Ian to come inside. But a minute passes, and then another, and finally it is five minutes later. She peeks through the window--yes, the car is there--and then opens the door.
Ian is sitting at her feet. He's been leaning against the door. "I'm sorry," Mariah says, coloring.
"Nah. It's a stupid place to sit."
They look at the night sky, the rotting porch, the chipped paint on the door--anywhere but at each other. "I mean that I'm really sorry."
"Well, so am I. This isn't the first time I've done something involving Faith without getting your permission first." Ian rubs the back of his neck. "She liked fishing, though. Right up till the end there."
They each imagine a picture of Faith with that bass, and it forms a bridge between them. Then Mariah sits down beside Ian, drawing a circle absently on the dirt of the porch floor. "I'm not used to letting her out of my sight," she admits. "It's hard for me."
"You're a fine mother."
Mariah shakes her head. "You might be the only one who thinks so."
"I doubt that. I bet there's a little girl inside that thinks so." He leans against the side of the cabin. "I figure I owe you an apology, too. You got me riled up, or else I wouldn't have said all that about Faith walking on water."
Mariah considers his words. "You know," she says finally, "I don't want her to be some...Messiah figure...any more than you do."
"What do you want?"
She takes a deep breath. "I want her to be safe. I want her to be mine."
Neither of them speaks the thought that crosses their minds: that these two wishes might not both be able to come true. "She sleeping now?"
"Yes." Mariah glances at the cabin door. "Went to bed without a problem." She watches Ian draw up one knee and hook a wrist over it, and lets herself wonder what this moment might be like if she hadn't met Ian over a war of religious convictions, but when she dropped her purse in the grocery store, or when he gave up his seat for her on the bus. Her mind scrambles over territory she's deliberately left untraveled, marking the raven's wing of his hair and the brilliant blue of his eyes, remembering the night in the hospital when he kissed her on the cheek.
"You know," he says quietly. "Even during the world wars they had a cease-fire on Christmas."
"What?"
"A truce, M
ariah," Ian says, his voice running over her name like a waterfall. "I'm saying that, just for here, just for now, maybe we could give each other the benefit of the doubt." He grins at her. "I'm probably only half the monster you think I am."
She smiles back. "Don't sell yourself short."
He laughs out loud, and in that moment Mariah realizes that if Ian Fletcher is intimidating when he's scowling, he's positively threatening when he lets down his guard.
In the middle of the night, when Faith and Mariah are long asleep, Ian sneaks into their room. He stands at the edge of the bed with all the gravity of a man on the edge of a precipice. Mariah holds Faith in her arms, like an ingredient that's been folded into a batter. Their hair is woven together on the pillow. From where he's standing, it looks almost as if they are not two people, but different incarnations of one.
Tonight had gone better than he'd expected, considering his outburst at the lake. The truce is going to buy him some time, make Mariah predisposed to trust him. And, of course, he'll have to act as if he trusts her. Which, in a way, comes almost too goddamned easy. Sometimes she looks like any other mother, and Faith looks like any other little girl. Until you add God to the mix.
Lake Perry, Kansas--October 23, 1999
Faith sits down next to Mr. Fletcher at the breakfast table and watches her mother at the counter. "We've got a selection this morning of Cheerios, or Cheerios...or, if you'd rather have them, Cheerios," her mother says brightly.
"I'll have Cheerios, then." Mr. Fletcher smiles at her mom, and right away Faith can tell there's something different. Like the air is easier to take into your lungs.
"How are you feeling?" Mr. Fletcher asks her.
"Okay." But then she sneezes.
"Wouldn't surprise me if she caught a cold," her mother says to Mr. Fletcher, who nods. She sets a bowl of cereal in front of Faith.
"Give her vitamin C. You can ward off a cold if you take enough of it."
"That's an old wives' tale. Like wearing garlic on a string around your neck."
Faith looks from one to the other and wonders how she managed to go to sleep last night and wake up this morning and somehow, in that short time, miss the entire world's turning upside down. The last time she'd seen Mr. Fletcher and her mom together, they were shouting so loud it made her head pound.
They're still talking about medicines and getting sick, as if Faith isn't even in the room. Quietly, she stands up and crosses the small kitchen, dragging a stepstool to the counter. She reaches for the bowls on the middle shelf of the cabinet and takes down a second one. This she fills with Cheerios and places in front of an empty seat at the table.
"Well," Mr. Fletcher says. "At least you're still hungry."
Faith stares at him, challenging. "It's not for me. It's for God."
Her mother's spoon clanks against her cereal bowl. Faith watches the two grown-ups look at each other for a long time, a staring contest to see who'll fold first. Her mother, especially, seems to be hanging on the edge of the table, waiting for Mr. Fletcher to speak.
After a moment he reaches for the jug of milk and passes it down the table. "Here," he says, calmly taking another spoonful of his own Cheerios. "Just in case She doesn't like it dry."
October 24, 1999
The next night Ian is sprawled on the couch, writing on a pad, while Mariah sits at the kitchen table. The heady scent of rubber-cement fumes wafts across the room, and although he cannot see her hands, he knows she's busy gluing something together. Thankless job, he thinks. Everything in this damn cabin is falling apart.
Suddenly she stretches, her breasts rounding out against one of the shapeless flannel shirts. She turns to him and smiles hesitantly. "What are you working on?"
"General notes for a broadcast."
"Oh. I didn't know you were still doing them." She blushes at her own words, the subtext loud and clear: I didn't know that you could be kind, and cross us at the same time.
"Gotta make a living."
At the mention of employment, Mariah groans. "I've probably lost all my clients."
Surprised to discover she is more than a stay-at-home mom, Ian raises his brows. "Clients? What do you do?"
She seems flustered for a moment, then gestures toward the table.
"I do this."
He walks over and stands behind her chair. Spread across a paper towel is a fan of toothpicks, glued side by side. Beside it is a tiny structure, and as he watches, Mariah curls the fan into a thatched roof for the top of a tiny hut. But rather than looking silly, like a child's camp craft, it is remarkably realistic. Strategically breaking bits of wood here and there, she's created a door, a window, the feel of an aboriginal home. "That's amazing," Ian says, surprised by the extent of her talent. "You're a sculptor?"
"No, I make dollhouses." She rolls a bead of rubber cement between her fingers.
"What is the hut for?"
"Me." Mariah laughs. "I was bored. The toothpicks were the first thing I could find."
Ian grins. "Remind me to hide the wooden spoons from you."
She leans back in her chair and looks up at him. "Your broadcasts--who's doing them?"
"Me. In living color. We're doing reruns while I'm here."
"The ones you're writing...?"
"For when I get back," Ian says softly. "Whenever that is."
"Are they about Faith?"
"Some parts." Even as he says the words, he wonders why the hell he's told her the truth. Wouldn't it be easier, smarter, to say that he's stopped focusing on Faith entirely?
But he can't. Because at some point during this past week Mariah White has stopped being a story and somehow turned into a person much like himself. Sure, there have been some bizarre moments--Faith getting cereal so that her hallucination could eat breakfast; Faith sitting on the porch, holding a conversation with absolutely nobody. But most of these incidents Mariah had tried to hide from Ian, seemingly embarrassed, instead of flaunting them as proof. He tells himself that she's acting every bit as much as he is, that she's playing dumb in the hopes that Ian will become a convert like the rest of the poor fools who've been suckered in by Faith. He tells himself this because the alternative--unthinkable!--is that his hunch about Mariah is incorrect. And if he's misjudged her, then what else might he be wrong about?
"If I asked you what you were going to say about her," Mariah asks, "would you tell me the truth?"
Ian thinks of Michael, of the story he will have when this is all over. But he schools his face into a furrow of confusion and looks away. "I'd tell you if I could, Mariah. But the fact of the matter is, right now, I don't know what I'm going to say."
New Canaan, New Hampshire
Joan Standish has listened to the news reports and the growing coverage of Faith White's mysterious absence from New Canaan. Petra Saganoff begins each Hollywood Tonight! report with a countdown: Day Three Without Faith, Day Four. The local NBC affiliate, a respectable channel, has even featured a live broadcast during which a caller said that he'd seen Faith in line for a movie in San Jose, California--and then ruined his credibility by shouting out something about how Howard Stern rocks. All in all, she hasn't paid much attention to the story, apart from feeling sympathy for the little girl caught in the middle of it.
But then Malcolm Metz's high-profile Manchester law firm called to say that they'd been trying to serve papers to her client since Tuesday, a motion to change custody on behalf of Colin White. Her client? Who knew if Mariah White wanted Joan's representation? She hadn't talked to the woman since the divorce came through.
But for reasons she doesn't fully understand or want to analyze, she finds herself driving to the Whites' house during her lunch hour. None of the programming she's seen prepares her for the drive up the long, hilly road, lined on both sides with cars that have their hatches popped, and makeshift picnics and tailgates spread across their insides. People cluster in small groups--the media representatives and the others, the ones who think Faith can help. They line the
edge of the stone wall that separates the White property from the road, caretakers bent over their wheelchair-bound charges, blind men with harnessed dogs, curious Christians wearing cameras around their necks that tangle in the chains of their oversized crosses.
God, there have to be at least two hundred people. Joan pumps the brakes on her Jeep at a small roadblock erected at the end of the driveway. Two local policemen are manning it; they recognize her as one of the town's few attorneys. "Paul," she greets him. "This is something."
"Haven't been here recently, huh?" the cop says. "You ought to show up after lunch, when the cult gets to singing."
Joan shakes her head. "I don't suppose Mariah White is really at home after all?"
"No such luck. Course, then there'd be a hundred more loonies."
"Is anyone here?"
"Her mother--holding down the fort, I guess." He steps back so Joan can drive through. She parks at the edge of the lawn and walks up the porch stairs to knock on the front door. An older woman's face appears in the sidelight, clearly weighing whether or not to open up.
"I'm Joan Standish," she yells. "Your daughter's attorney."
The door swings open. "Millie Epstein. Come in." The woman hovers around Joan as she steps inside. "Did something happen to them?"
"To whom?"
"Mariah and Faith." Millie anxiously worries her hands. "They're not here, you know."
"As far as I know, they're fine. But I do need to get in touch with your daughter." Joan is a professional when it comes to reading the clues on a person's face, and Millie Epstein clearly is hiding something. "Mrs. Epstein, this is incredibly important."
"I don't know where they are. I swear it."
Joan considers this for a moment. "But you've heard from them," she guesses.
"No."
"Then you'd better hope Mariah calls soon, because I have a message. You tell her that her ex-husband is suing for custody of their daughter. And that no matter how noble her intentions were in taking Faith away from all this, what a judge is going to see is that she bucked the system by going underground when papers were being served. And frankly, Mrs. Epstein, that pisses off judges. The longer she stays hidden, the greater the chance that Colin White will be given custody." The older woman's face is white, her lips pressed tight. "You tell her to call me," Joan says softly.
