“Yes.”
“Has Mariah White admitted to harming Faith?”
“Not to my knowledge.”
“Does that fit the MSP profile?”
“Yes, it does.” Fitzgerald raises a brow. “Of course, it also fits the profile of a mother who hasn’t hurt her child.”
“All the same, Doctor, you’ve just given me about ten specific reasons that this case looks like Munchausen by Proxy. If it looks like a skunk and smells like a skunk and acts like a skunk … well, you can’t say honestly that this is clearly somatoform disorder, can you?”
Dr. Fitzgerald’s mouth flattens into a line. “That’s completely specious logic.”
Metz shakes his head. “Yes or no.”
“No.”
“And what does that leave us?”
The psychiatrist meets the attorney’s gaze. “If it’s not somatoform disorder,” he says, smiling slowly, “I guess it could always be a seven-year-old seeing God.”
Keeping Faith
SEVENTEEN
Woman’s at best a contradiction still.
–Alexander Pope December 6, 1999 “That,” I sing, “was incredible!” Inside me, it feels as if small bubbles are rising,
which at any moment may burst into laughter. I embrace Joan tightly. “Where did you find Dr. Fitzgerald?”
“On the Internet,” she says, looking at me carefully.
Well, she could have found him under a rock for all I care. Not only has the psychiatrist laid the groundwork for an alternative explanation of Faith’s symptoms, he’s also stood toe-to-toe with Malcolm Metz and won.
“Thank you. You made such an issue about getting thrown this surprise on Friday–I didn’t think you’d be able to pull together such a good defense strategy this quickly.”
“I didn’t, so don’t thank me.”
I smile hesitantly. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t have the manpower or resources that Metz does, Mariah. Under ordinary circumstances, I couldn’t have pulled it off. I would have walked in here this morning and flown by the seat of my pants. But Ian Fletcher spent the entire weekend in my office, finding Dr.
Fitzgerald and corresponding with him on-line and ruminating over this particular defense.”
“Ian?”
“He did this for you,” Joan answers matter-of-factly. “He’d do anything for you.”
A witness stand is a tight spot. You are gated in on all sides. You are broadcast by microphone. You sit on a chair that is so uncomfortable you can’t help but straighten your spine and look the gallery in the eye. My heart begins to batter in my chest like a lightning bug trapped in a jar, and suddenly I understand why this is called a trial.
Joan’s heels click on the wooden floor. “Can you state your name for the record?”
I draw the swan neck of the microphone toward my lips. “Mariah White.”
“What is your relationship to Faith White?”
“I’m her mother.” The word is a balm; it slides from my lips to my throat to my belly.
“Can you tell us how you’re feeling today,
Mariah?”
At that, I smile. “Actually, I feel terrific.”
“How come?”
“My daughter’s out of the hospital.”
“I understand she was very ill over the weekend?”
Joan asks.
Of course Joan knows that Faith was sick;
she saw her several times. This formality, this rigamarole, seems ridiculous. Why wade through the theories and hypotheses when I could just high-step to the gallery, sweep Faith into my arms, and be done with this?
“Yes,” I answer instead. “She went into cardiac arrest twice, and she was comatose.”
“But she’s already out of the hospital?”
“She was discharged on Sunday afternoon, and she’s doing very well.” I glance at Faith, and even though it is against the rules, I wink.
“Mr. Metz is alleging that you are a perpetrator of Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy. Do you understand what that means?”
I swallow hard. “That I’m hurting her.
Making her sick.”
“Are you aware, Mariah, that two experts now have stated in this court that the best way to determine Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy is to keep the mother away from the child and look for improvement?”
“Yes.”
“Were you able to see Faith this weekend?”
“No,” I admit. “I was restrained by court order. I wasn’t allowed any contact with her.”
“What happened to Faith between Thursday and Sunday?”
“She got worse and worse. Around midnight on Saturday, the doctors said they didn’t know if she was going to live.”
Joan frowns. “How do you know, if you weren’t there?”
“People called me. My mother. And Kenzie van der Hoven. They were both with Faith for long periods of time.”
“So from Thursday night through Sunday morning,
Faith’s condition declined, to the point where she was comatose and near death. Yet she’s healthy and present today. Mariah, where were you from two A.m.
Sunday morning to four P.m. that same day?”
I look right at Joan, the way we’ve practiced. “I was at the hospital, with Faith.”
“Objection!” Metz stands and points at me.
“She’s in contempt of court!”
“Approach.”
I should not be able to hear their conversation, but they are angry enough to be shouting. “She’s in direct violation of a court order!” Metz says. “I want a hearing on this today!”
“Jesus, Malcolm. Her child was dying.”
Joan turns to the judge. “But then Mariah showed up, and she didn’t die, did she? Your Honor, this testimony proves my theory.”
The judge looks at me. “I want to hear where this is going,” he says quietly. “Ms.
Standish, you may proceed, and we’ll deal with the violation of the court order later.”
Joan addresses me. “What happened when you got to the hospital?”
I think of the moment I first saw Faith,
hooked up to machines and tubes. “I sat down next to her and I started to talk. The machine that was hooked up to her heart started to beep, and a nurse said she needed to page the doctor. When she left the room, Faith opened her eyes.” I envision the red flush of her cheeks while the tube was being drawn out of her throat, her voice like brittle leaves as she called for me. “The doctors started to run tests. Everything–her heart, her kidneys, even her hands–were all back to normal. It was …
well, it was amazing.”
“Was there a clinical explanation for this?”
“Objection,” Metz says. “When did she get her medical degree?”
“Overruled.”
“The doctors said sometimes the presence of a family member acts as a catalyst for comatose patients,” I answer. “But they also said they’ve only seen as dramatic a recovery as this once before.”
“When was that?”
“When my mother came back to life.”
Joan smiles. “Must run in the family.
Did anyone else witness this remarkable recovery?”
“Yes. There were two doctors, six nurses. Also my mother and the guardian ad litem.”
“All of whom are on my witness list, Your Honor, should Mr. Metz feel the need to speak with them.” But Joan has explained to me why he won’t. It won’t do his case any good to have eight people announce that a miracle happened.
“Mariah, there have been some things said about you in this courtroom, some things the judge might want to hear your explanation for as well. Let’s start with your hospitalization seven years ago. Can you tell us about that?”
Joan has coached me. We rehearsed these questions until the sun came up. I know what I am supposed to say, what she is trying to get across to the judge. In short, I am prepared for everything that is about to happen–except how I feel, tellin
g my story in front of these people.
“I was very much in love with my husband,” I start, just as we’ve practiced. “And I caught him in bed with another woman. It broke my heart, but Colin decided that it was my head that needed fixing.”
I turn in the seat, so that I am looking at him. “It was clear that Colin didn’t want me. I became very depressed, and I believed that I couldn’t live without him. That I didn’t want to.” I draw a deep breath.
“When you’re depressed, you don’t pay a lot of attention to the world around you. You don’t want to see anyone. There are things you want to say–
real things, honest things–but they’re buried so deep inside it’s an effort to drag them to the surface.” My face softens. “I don’t think Colin was a tyrant for having me committed.
He was probably terrified. But I just wish he’d talked to me first. Maybe I still wouldn’t have been able to tell him what I wanted, but it would have been nice to know he was trying to listen.
“Then all of a sudden I was at Greenhaven,
and I was pregnant. I hadn’t told Colin yet, and it became my secret.” I look at the judge. “You probably don’t know what it’s like to be in a place where you belong to everybody else. People tell you what to eat and drink, when to get up and go to bed, they poke at you with needles and sit you in therapy sessions. They owned my body and my mind–but, for a little while, I owned this baby. Of course, eventually the pregnancy showed up on the blood tests, and the doctors told me that I still had to go on medication. They said a baby wouldn’t be much good if I killed myself before giving birth. So I let them pump me full of drugs, until I didn’t care about the risk to the baby. Until I didn’t care about anything at all.
“After I left Greenhaven, I began to panic about what I’d done to this baby just by trying to save myself. I made this little deal: It was all right if I wasn’t a perfect wife, just as long as I became a perfect mother.”
Joan catches my gaze. “Have you been a perfect mother?”
I know what I am supposed to say: Yes,
the best that I could be. It made us laugh, because it sounded like an old Army slogan, but neither Joan nor I could come up with a better response.
However, now that I am here, I find that the words will not come. I reach down, and the only thing that leaps to hand is the truth.
“No,” I whisper.
“What?”
I try to look away from Joan’s angry expression. “I said no. After I had Faith,
I used to go to playgrounds to watch other mothers. They could juggle the bottles and the stroller and the baby without breaking a sweat. But me, I’d forget her lunch when she went to school. Or I’d throw away a piece of paper with scribbles on it that was supposed to be a Valentine. Things every mother’s probably done, but that still made me feel like I’d screwed up.”
Joan interrupts me with a quiet question. “Why is it so important to you to be perfect?”
They say that there are moments that open up your life like a walnut cracked, that change your point of view so that you never look at things the same way again. As the answer forms in my mouth,
I realize that this is something I’ve always known, but never before understood. “Because I know what it’s like not to be good enough,” I say softly. “That’s why I lost Colin, and I don’t ever want to go through it again.” I twist my fingers together in my lap. “You see, if I’m the very best mother, Faith won’t wish she had someone else instead.”
Sensing that this is a place I need to get away from, and fast, Joan throws me a lifeline. “Can you tell us what happened on the afternoon of August tenth?”
“I was at my mother’s home with Faith,” I recite, grateful to be bogged down in the details. “She was going to ballet practice,
but realized she’d forgotten her leotard. So we detoured home and found Colin’s car in the driveway. He’d been on a business trip,
so we went in to say hello. Faith ran upstairs first, and found Colin in the bedroom,
getting ready to take a shower. I came in to tell Faith to get her leotard quickly, and then the bathroom door opened and … Jessica stepped out in a towel.”
“What did Colin say?”
“He ran after Faith. Later he told me he’d been seeing Jessica for a few months.”
“Then what happened?”
“He left. I called my mother. I was miserable, I was sinking fast, but this time I wasn’t alone. I knew she’d take care of Faith for me, while I tried to get sorted out.”
“So although you were upset, you were functioning well enough to provide for Faith?”
“Yes.” I smile fleetingly.
“What else did you do after Colin left?”
“Well, I talked to Dr.
Johansen. About getting a refill of Prozac.”
“I see,” Joan says. “Has your medication continued to keep you in control of your emotions?”
“Yes, absolutely. It certainly helped me cope.”
“How did Faith cope with this whole upheaval?”
“She was very distant. She wouldn’t talk. And then all of a sudden she developed an imaginary friend. I started to take her to Dr. Keller.”
“Did the imaginary friend concern you?”
“Yes. It wasn’t just some playmate.
Faith was suddenly saying things that made no sense. She was quoting Bible verses. She referred to a secret from my childhood that I’ve never spoken about. And then–crazy as it sounds–
she brought her grandmother back to life.”
At the plaintiff’s table, Malcolm Metz coughs.
“And then?”
“A few local newspaper articles appeared,” I say. “Ian Fletcher showed up,
along with a cult, and about ten network-affiliate TV reporters. After Faith healed an AIDS baby, more press arrived, and more people who wanted to touch Faith, or pray with her.”
“How did you feel about this?”
“Awful,” I say immediately. “Faith’s seven. She couldn’t go out to play without being harassed. She was being teased at school, so I pulled her out and began doing lessons at home.”
“Mariah, did you in any way encourage Faith to have hallucinations about God?”
“Me? Colin and I were a mixed-faith marriage. I don’t even own a Bible. I couldn’t have planted this idea in her mind; I don’t know half the things she’s come out with.”
“Did you ever harm your daughter in a way that would cause her to bleed from her hands and her side?”
“No. I never would.”
“What do you think would happen to Faith if she went to live with Colin?”
“Well,” I say slowly, “he loves her.
He hasn’t always had her interests at heart, but he loves her. It isn’t Colin I’m worried about … it’s Faith. She’d have to deal with a new sibling, and a mother that isn’t really hers, and right now I don’t think it’s fair to ask her to change her world again.” Glancing at Colin, I frown. “Faith’s performing miracles. Taking her away from me won’t change that. And it won’t change the fact that wherever she goes, people are going to follow her, or want a piece of her.”
I can feel my daughter’s eyes on me, like the sun that touches the crown of your head when you step outside. “I can’t tell you why Faith’s like this,” I say softly. “But she is. And I can’t tell you why I deserve to have her. But I do.”
Metz likes to call it his “snake in the jungle” approach. With a witness like Mariah White, he has two choices: He can go in there and batter away, preying on her confusion, or he can appear nice and question gently and then, when she least expects it, strike her fatally. The most important thing is to make Mariah doubt herself.
By her own admission, it’s her Achilles’
Heel. “You must be tired of talking about this depression from seven years ago.”
Mariah gives him a small, polite smile. “I guess.”
“Was that the first time i
n your life that you were so ill?”
“Yes.”
His voice is rich with pity. “You’ve had recurrent depression many times since then,
haven’t you?”
“No.”
“But you have been on medication,” Metz chides,
as if she’s given the wrong answer.
She looks puzzled for a moment, and inside,
he smiles. “Well, yes. But that’s what’s kept me from getting depressed again.”
“What medication are you on?”
“Prozac.”
“Was that specifically prescribed to alleviate the wild mood swings?”
“I don’t have wild mood swings. I suffer from depression.”
“Do you remember the night you tried to kill yourself, Mrs. White?”
“Not really. I was told at Greenhaven that I’d probably block it out of my mind.”
“Are you depressed right now?”
“No.”
“If you weren’t taking medication, you’d probably be very depressed.”
“I don’t know,” Mariah hedges.
“You know, I’ve read about these cases where people on Prozac have flipped out. Gone crazy,
tried to kill themselves. Don’t you worry it might happen to you?”
“No,” Mariah says, looking toward Joan a little nervously.
“Do you have any recollection of going crazy while on Prozac?”
“No.”
“How about harming someone while on Prozac?”
“No.”
“How about just having some violent reactions?”
“No.”
Metz raises his brows. “No? You consider yourself an emotionally stable person, then?”
Mariah nods firmly. “Yes.”
Metz walks toward the plaintiff’s table and picks up a small videocasette. “I’d like to introduce the following tape into evidence.”
Joan is out of her seat in an instant,
approaching the bench. “You can’t let him do this,
Your Honor. He’s springing this evidence on me. I have a right to discovery.”
“Your Honor,” Metz counters, “Ms.
Standish was the one who opened up the line of questioning during her direct examination, with regard to how stable Mrs. White is under the influence of Prozac.”
Keeping Faith Page 48
