Keeping Faith

by Picoult, Jodi

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.

  Millie nods. “I will.”

  Lake Perry, Kansas–October 24,

  Mariah finds herself unable to sleep. She turns on her side and watches the night sky through the cabin’s window, the moon rising and the stars three-dimensional, as if she could reach out and have them settle on her palm. She marks time by Faith’s steady breathing and lets questions chase their own tails in her mind: How long can we stay?

  Where do we go next? How is my mother coping? Will a reporter arrive here the next day, or the next, or the next?

  She sits up, tugging down the sweatshirt she’s been using as sleepwear. Ian had bought Faith a nightgown, but not one for herself. She thinks of him rifling through serviceable flannels
,

  slinkier silks, wondering what he might choose for her. Then, feeling her cheeks flame, she gets up and paces. No reason to dream about things that won’t ever come to pass.

  She would love to go for a walk now, but that would mean trekking through the living room, where Ian is sleeping. Instead she crosses to the window and gazes out. Ian is leaning against the hood of the car. The copper glow of a cigar paints his face in profile, as wide-eyed and preoccupied as Mariah herself. She stares unabashedly, wondering what keeps him up at night, willing him to turn.

  When he does, when their eyes meet,

  Mariah’s heart hitches. She presses her hands against the window sash, caught. They do not move, they do not speak, they simply let the night tie them tight. Then Ian crunches the cigar beneath his heel, and Mariah gets back into bed, each mulling over the thought that he or she is not the only one counting the minutes till morning.

  Atlanta–CNN Studios Larry King smooths down his scarlet tie and looks at his guest. “You ready?” he asks, not waiting for an answer, and then the tiny light at the edge of the camera flickers to life. “We’re back with Rabbi Daniel Solomon, spiritual leader of Beit Am Hadash, which is affiliated with ALEPH, or Jewish Renewal.”

  “Yes,” Rabbi Solomon says, still awkward after ten minutes on the air.

  “Hello.” He is wearing a moth-eaten black jacket–the only one he has with lapels,

  instead of a mandarin collar–and his trademark tie-dyed T-shirt, but he might as well be naked. There are millions of people listening to him–

  millions!–after his years of fighting to be heard.

  He keeps reminding himself that he owes this fortuitous interview to Faith White, as well as to his own congregation. So what if King’s brought in a Catholic prig of a professor to rebut whatever Solomon says?

  Even David managed to conquer Goliath, with God on his side.

  “Rabbi,” King says, capturing Daniel’s attention. “Is Faith White the Messiah?”

  “Well, she’s certainly not the Jewish Messiah,” Rabbi Solomon says, rolling his shoulders in the familiar feel of his own theological turf. “One criterion for a Jewish Messiah involves creating a sovereign Jewish state, according to the Torah. And nothing that Faith’s heard from God indicates this.” He crosses his legs. “The interesting thing about a Messiah is that it differs greatly from Judaism to Christianity. To Jews, the Messiah won’t show up until we’ve managed to rid the world of all its evil and make it ready for a divine being. To Christians, far as I understand, the Messiah heralds the age of redemption. Brings it with Him. Jews have to work to get to a Messianic age; Christians have to wait.”

  “If I can object?”

  They turn at the sound of a voice on a TV monitor overhead. “Yes, please do,” King says. “Father Cullen Mulrooney, chair of theology at Boston College. You were saying,

  Father?”

  “I find it irresponsible for a rabbi to tell me what Christians have to do.”

  “Let’s talk about that, Father,” Larry King asks, tapping a pen on the desktop. “How come the Catholic Church is investigating the claims of a little Jewish girl?”

  Mulrooney smiles. “Because she’s affecting a large group of Catholics.”

  “The fact that she’s only seven isn’t an issue?”

  “No. Visionaries younger than Faith White have been accredited by the Catholic Church. And actually, seven used to be called the age of reason, when a person was mature enough to be morally responsible for his own deeds. That’s why the first confession takes place then.”

  Larry King purses his lips. “By the admission of her mother, this is not a girl who is schooled in formal religion–any religion.

  Let’s take a caller.” He pushes a button. “Hello?”

  “Hello? I have a question for the rabbi. If she’s not a Jewish Messiah, what is she?”

  Rabbi Solomon laughs. “A little girl who is exceptionally spiritual, maybe more skilled at opening herself up to God than the rest of us.”

  A second caller’s voice fills the studio. “If she’s Jewish, why does she have the wounds of Christ?”

  “If I may I address that?” Father Mulrooney asks. “I think it’s important to remember that the bishop hasn’t offered any official statement about the alleged stigmata.

  It may take years … decades … before the bleeding is authenticated by the Vatican.”

  “But it’s a good point,” Larry King says.

  “We’re not talking about a Carmelite nun here,

  just a kid, and a non-Christian one at that.” He turns to Rabbi Solomon. “How come a Jewish girl would develop the wounds of a savior she doesn’t believe in?”

  “Faith White is a blank slate,” Father Mulrooney cuts in. “If a religious innocent, a non-Christian, develops the wounds of Christ, surely that’s proof that Jesus is the one true Lord.”

  Rabbi Solomon smiles. “I didn’t see it like that at all. I think God’s picked a little Jewish girl and tossed stigmata into the mix because it’s the way to gather many different people.

  Christians, Jews–we’re all watching her now.”

  “But why now? Why wait thousands of years, and then just show up? Does it have to do with the millennium?”

  “Absolutely,” the priest says. “For years the turn of the century has been posed as the apocalypse, and people are looking for redemption.”

  The rabbi laughs. “Forget the millennium.

  According to the Jewish calendar, there’s forty-three years to go before we even hit the turn of the century.”

  “Caller?” King says, pushing another button.

  “She’s the devil’s handmaiden. She–“

  “Thank you,” King says, cutting off the line.

  “Hi, you’re on the air.”

  “I say good for Faith White. Even if she’s making the whole damned thing up, it’s about time someone suggested God might be a woman.”

  “Gentlemen? Is God male?”

  “No,” say the rabbi and the priest,

  simultaneously.

  “God is neither, and both,” Mulrooney says. “But there’s so much more to a vision than just physical attributes. There’s the concrete,

  verifiable sign of proof apart from the vision, and the visionary’s piousness and Christian virtue–“

  “I’ve always resented that,” Rabbi Solomon murmurs. “The idea that it’s only Christians who have virtue.”

  “That’s not what–“

  “You know what your problem is?” the rabbi accuses. “You say you’re open-minded. But only as long as your visionary happens to be seeing something you all like. You sit on a college faculty.

  You haven’t even met the girl, but she’s a round peg in a square hole, so you’re discrediting her with your theology.”

  “Now, just a moment,” Father Mulrooney says, fuming. “At least I have a theology.

  What kind of radical hippie movement calls itself Jewish but uses chanting and Buddhism and Native American imagery?”

  “Hey, there’s room for a female God in Jewish theology.”

  The priest shakes his head. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t Hebrew prayers addressed to “adonai eloheinu”–the Lord our God?”

  “Yes,” Rabbi Solomon says. “But there are many Hebrew names for God. Hashem, for example, which means “the name”–very unisex.

  There’s God’s presence, Shekhinah,

  traditionally considered to be a feminine term. My personal favorite word for God is Shaddai. It’s always conjugated in the masculine, and for years rabbis have translated it to mean “the Hill God” or “the Mountain God.” Yet shaddai is amazingly similar to the word shaddaim … which means “breasts.”"

  “Oh, for criminy’s sake,” Father Mulrooney snorts. “And “hello” minus the o is “hell.”"

  “Why, you–” Rabbi Solomon nearly comes out of his chair, until Larry King restrains him with a touch of his hand.

  “Faith Wh
ite, healer or hoax?”

  King says smoothly. “We’ll be back in a minute.” When the camera light blinks off, Father Mulrooney is an alarming shade of scarlet,

  and Rabbi Solomon’s eyes are blazing with anger. “Look, you guys are giving me terrific stuff, but try not to kill each other,

  all right? We’ve got to fill twenty more minutes of air time.”

  Lake Perry, Kansas–October 25,

  A full Kansas moon is a remarkable sight, luminous and filled to bursting as it grazes the plains. It is the kind of moon that coaxes animals out of hiding, that makes cats dance on fenceposts and barn owls cry. It changes you, if only for the time you stare at it, making your blood beat thick and your head spin to a song played on bare branches and marsh reeds. It is the kind of moon that thrusts its belly toward Ian and Mariah on Monday night, only hours before he will go to visit Michael.

  This has become their habit, a moment to wind down before Mariah goes inside to bed and Ian goes back to work. On the porch they speak of easy things: geese they have seen flying south, the remarkable number of stars, the way winter already hangs in the air. They wrap up in plaid blankets and sit side by side until their cheeks pinken and their noses run and they surrender to the cold. Tonight Ian has been unusually quiet. He knows what he has to do–the acting job of his life, essentially–but he’s putting it off. Every time he draws in a breath to start, he looks at Mariah and realizes that he does not want to set in motion the beginning of the end.

  Mariah yawns. “Well, I guess I’d better go in.” She glances around the porch for stray items that Faith might have left outside and reaches for a pair of shoes. “I swear that girl sheds,” she murmurs, then picks up a worn leather Bible. Clearly assuming that Faith found it inside the cabin, she tries to tuck it into the folds of her blanket before Ian can notice.

  “Actually, that’s mine.”

  “The Bible?”

  He shrugs. “It’s a starting point for my speeches. It’s great reading. Course, I see it as fiction, not fact.” He closes his eyes, tilts back his head. “Ah, hell.

  I’m lying to you, Mariah.”

  He can sense the moment she tenses, takes a mental step back. “I beg your pardon?”

  “I lied. I was reading the Bible tonight because …