Copyright 1999
by Jodi Picoult
BOOK JACKET INFORMATION

PRAISE FOR THE PACT

"Anyone who doubts that there is any more
vivid, original fiction being written must read
The Pact. Jodi Picoult has written a
truly fine book, a piece of total
contemporary America."
--ANNE RIVERS SIDDONS

"Engrossing ... Picoult has a remarkable
ability to make us share her characters' feelings of
confusion and horror. ... The Pact is
compelling reading."
--People

"Jodi Picoult's fifth novel, The
Pact, is so good that we can't put it down.
... It is suspenseful, intelligently
written, topical."
--Detroit Free Press

"Picoult is a writer of high energy and
conviction who has, in [The Pact], brought
to life a cast of subtly drawn characters caught
up in a tragedy as timeless and resonant as those
of the Greeks or Shakespeare. ... She forges
a finely honed, commanding, and cathartic drama."
--Booklist

"An affecting study of obsession, loss, and
some of the more wrenching varieties of guilt. A
moving story, mingling elements of mystery with
sensitive exploration of a tragic subject."
--Kirkus Reviews

KEEPING FAITH

Somewhere between belief and doubt lies faith.
For the second time in her marriage, Mariah
White catches her husband with another woman, and
Faith, their seven-year-old daughter, witnesses
every painful minute. In the aftermath of a sudden
divorce, Mariah struggles with depression and
Faith seeks solace in a new friend--a friend who
may or may not be imaginary.
Faith talks to her "Guard" constantly and
begins to recite passages from the Bible--a book
she's never read. Fearful for her daughter's
sanity, Mariah sends her to several
psychiatrists. Yet when Faith develops
stigmata and begins to perform miraculous healings,
Mariah wonders if her daughter--a girl with
no religious background--might indeed be seeing
God. As word spreads and controversy heightens,
Mariah and Faith are besieged by believers and
disbelievers alike; they are caught in a media
circus that threatens what little stability they have
left.
What are you willing to believe? Is Faith a
prophet or a troubled little girl? Is Mariah
a good mother facing an impossible crisis ... or
a charlatan using her daughter to reclaim the
attention her unfaithful husband withheld? As the
story builds to a climactic battle for
custody, Mariah must discover that spirit is not
necessarily something that comes from religion but from
inside oneself.
Fascinating, thoughtful, and suspenseful,
Keeping Faith explores a family
plagued by the media, the medical profession, and
organized religion in a world where everyone has
an opinion but no one knows the truth. At her
controversial and compelling best, Jodi Picoult
masterfully explores the moment when boundaries
break down, when illusions become reality, and when
the only step left to take is a leap of faith.

JODI PICOULT grew up in
Nesconset, New York. She received an
A.b. in creative writing from Princeton and a
master's degree in education from Harvard. She is
the author of five previous books, including
her most recent, The Pact, which she recently
adapted into a screenplay for a feature film and
which is now available in paperback. She lives
in New Hampshire with her husband and three children.

JACKET DESIGN
BY JULIE METZ
JACKET IMAGE
BY DEBRA LILL
AUTHOR PHOTOGRAPH
BY JOSEPH MEHLING

www.jodipicoult.com

ALSO BY JODI PICOULT

The Pact
Mercy
Picture Perfect
Harvesting the Heart
Songs of the Humpback Whale

This is a work of fiction. The events and characters
portrayed are imaginary. Their resemblance, if
any, to real-life counterparts is entirely
coincidental.
BOOK DESIGN BY OKSANA KUSHNIR

SPECIAL SYMBOLS USED
IN THIS VOLUME

Computer Braille Code
Begin computer code.
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End computer code.

FOR LAURA GROSS--

Ten years ago you believed in me so
strongly that you managed to convince the publishing
world I was worth the risk, too. Here's
to another forty or fifty years of business,
and friendship. Now do you see why I couldn't
dedicate this to Padre Pio?

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

While researching this book, I was for the first time
shooed out of someone's office. It quickly became
clear to me that simply bringing up the concept of
God for conversation was likely to raise people's
hackles. Add to that my plot, and it became an
all-out war. So, for their open-mindedness in considering
my ideas along with their strong religious
convictions, I'd like to thank the following people:
Rabbi Lina Zerbarini, Herman F.
Holbrook, Father Ronald Saunders, Father
Andrew F. Kline. Kudos also to my
physicians-on-call, Dr. James Umlas
and Dr. Spencer Greene. Thanks to Nancy
Veresan, and to Kim Keating--who has moved beyond
legal expert to become a valued contributor
to my books. I only hope she's ready for the
next one. And to the various psychiatric
professionals who made my characters and my court
case come to life, a heartfelt thanks: Dr.
Tia Horner, Dr. Burl Daviss, Dr.
Doug Fagen. My appreciation to Sarah
Gross for her prompt responses to e-mail
questions. Thanks to Jane Picoult and Laura
Gross for their insightful first-reader comments;
to Beccy Goodhart for her painstaking editing and for
helping me deliver my masterpiece before she
delivered her own; to Camille McDuffie, who
I know will jump through hoops to make people read this
book. And finally, my gratitude to Kyle,
Jake, and Samantha van Leer ... and their
dad, Tim--for getting through all those baths and
bedtime stories without me, so that I'd have time
to write.

KEEPING FAITH

PROLOGUE

August 10, 1999
Under normal circumstances, Faith and I should
not be home when my mother calls and invites us to come
see her brand-new coffin.
"Mariah," my mother says, clearly
surprised when I pick up the phone. "What
are you doing there?"
"The grocery store was closed." I sigh.
"The sprinklers in the produce section had a
flood. And the dry cleaner had a death in the
family."
I do not like surprises. I live by lists.
In fact, I often imagine my life like a
September loose-leaf binder--neatly slotted
and tabbed, with everything still in place. All this I
attribute to a degree in architecture and my
fervent intent to not turn into my mother as I grow
older. To this end, every day of the week has a
routine. Mondays I work on the frames of the
tiny dollhouses I build. Tuesdays I
build the furnishings. Wednesdays are for errands,
Thursdays for housecleaning, and Fridays for tending
to emergencies that crop up during the week. Today,
a Wednesday, I usually pick up Colin's
shirts, go to the bank, and do the food shopping. It
leaves just enough time to drive home, unload the
groceries, and get to Faith's one o'clock ballet
class. But today, due to circumstances beyond my
control, I have entirely too much time on my
hands.
"Well," my mother says, in that way of hers.
"It seems you're fated to come for a visit."
Faith suddenly bounces in front of me.
"Is it Grandma? Did she get it?"
"Get what?" It is ten o'clock, and already I have
a headache.
"Tell her yes," my mother says on the other
end of the phone line.
I glance around the house. The carpet needs
to be vacuumed, but then what will I do on
Thursday? A heavy August rain throbs against
the windows. Faith spreads her soft, warm hand
over my knee. "Okay," I tell my mother.
"We'll be right over."

My mother lives two and a half miles away,
in an old stone house that everyone in New
Canaan calls the Gingerbread Cape. Faith
sees her nearly every day; stays with her after school
on days I am working. We could walk, if not for the
weather. As it is, Faith and I have just gotten
into the car when I remember my purse, sitting
on the kitchen counter.
"Hang on," I tell her, getting out and
cringing between raindrops, as if I might melt.
The phone is ringing by the time I get inside.
I grab the receiver. "Hello?"
"Oh, you're home," Colin says. At the
sound of my husband's voice, my heart jumps.
Colin is the sales manager for a small company
that manufactures LED exit signs, and
he's been in Washington, D.c., for two
days, training a new rep. He is calling me
because it is like that with us--tied as tight as the lacing
on a high-top boot, we cannot stand being apart.
"Are you at the airport?"
"Yeah. Stuck at Dulles." I curl the
telephone cord around my arm, reading between the round
vowels of his words for all the other things he is
too embarrassed to say in a public venue:
I love you. I miss you. You're mine. In
the background a disembodied voice announces the
arrival of a United flight. "Hasn't Faith
got swimming today?"
"Ballet at one o'clock." I wait a moment,
then add softly, "When will you be home?"
"As soon as I can." I close my eyes,
thinking that there is nothing like an embrace after an
absence, nothing like fitting my face into the curve
of his shoulder and filling my lungs with the scent of
him.
He hangs up without saying good-bye, which
makes me smile. That's Colin, in a
nutshell: already rushing to come back home to me.

It stops raining on the way to my mother's. As
we pass the long soccer field that edges the town,
vehicles begin pulling onto the road's narrow
shoulder. A perfect, arched rainbow graces the
lush grass of the playing field. I keep
driving. "You'd think they'd never seen one before,"
I say, accelerating.
Faith rolls down her window and stretches out
her hand. Then she waggles her fingers in front of
me. "Mommy!" she yells. "I touched it!"
Out of habit I look down. Her fingers are
spread and streaked with red and blue and lime
green. For a moment, my breath catches. And then
I remember her sitting on the floor of the living
room just an hour before, her fists full of
Magic Markers.

My mother's living room is dominated by an
unappealing Naugahyde sectional couch the
color of skin. I tried to talk her into leather,
a nice wing chair or two, but she laughed.
"Leather," she said, "is for goyim with
Mayflower names." After that, I gave up. In
the first place, I have a leather couch myself. In the
second, I married a goy with a Mayflower
name. At least she hasn't coated the
Naugahyde with a protective plastic wrap,
the way my grandmother Fanny did when I was little.
But today, walking into the living room, I do not
even notice the couch. "Wow, Grandma,"
whispers Faith, clearly awed. "Is someone in
it?" She falls to her knees, knocking at the
highly polished mahogany rectangle.
If things had gone according to plan, I'd
probably be choosing cantaloupes at that moment,
holding them to my nose for softness and sweetness,
or paying Mr. Li thirteen dollars and forty
cents, and receiving in return seven Brooks
Brothers shirts, so starched that they lay like the
torsos of fallen men in the back of the station
wagon. "Mother," I say, "why do you have a
casket in your living room?"
"It's not a casket, Mariah. See the
glass on the top? It's a coffin table."
"A coffin table."
My mother sets her coffee mug on the clear
plate of glass to prove her point. "See?"
"You have a coffin in your living room." I am
unable to get past that one sticking point.
She sits on the couch and props her sandaled
feet on the glass top. "Well, I know that,
honey. I picked it out."
I cradle my head in my hands. "You just went
to Dr. Feldman for your checkup. You know what
he said: If you take your blood pressure
medication religiously, there's no reason
to believe you won't outlive us all."
She shrugs. "This is one less thing for you to do,
when the time comes."
"Oh, for God's sake. Is this about the new
assisted-living community Colin mentioned? Because I
swear, he only thought you'd--"
"Sweetie, calm down. I don't plan
to kick the bucket anytime soon; I just needed a
table in here. I liked the color of the wood. And
I saw a piece on Twentyst.Twenty about a
man in Kentucky who was making these."
Faith stretches out on her back beside the
coffin. "You could sleep in it, Grandma," she
suggests. "You could be like Dracula."
"You've got to admit, the craftsmanship is
to die for," my mother says.
In more ways than one. The mahogany is
exquisite, a smooth, glossy sea. The
joints and bevels are neat and defined, the hinges
bright as a beacon.
"It was a real bargain," my mother adds.
"Please don't tell me you got a used
one."
My mother sniffs and looks at Faith. "Your
mommy needs to loosen up." For years now, my
mother has been telling this in one form or another.
But I cannot forget that the last time I loosened up,
I nearly came apart.
My mother gets down on the floor with Faith,
and together they yank at the brass pallbearer's
handles. Their blond heads--Mom's dyed, my
daughter's fairy-white--are bent so close I
can't tell where one ends and the other begins. Their
horseplay manages to jerk the coffin a few
inches toward them. I stare at the flattened
hollow left in its wake in the carpet, then try
as best I can to fix it with the edge of my shoe.

Colin and I are luckier than most. We
married young, but we've stayed married--in spite
of some fairly intense bumps in the road.
But there's a chemistry involved, too. When
Colin is looking at me, I know he's not
seeing me with ten pounds left behind from pregnancy
or the fine strands of gray in my hair. He
pictures my skin creamy and tight, my hair
hanging down my back, my body a college
student's. He remembers me at my best, because
--as he says every now and then--I'm the best thing
he can remember.
When we go out to dinner occasionally with his
colleagues--the ones who have collected trophy
wives--I realize how fortunate I am to have
someone like Colin. He puts his hand on the small
of my back, which is not as tanned or slender as
those on some of the younger models. He
proudly introduces me. "This is my wife,"
he says, and I smile. It is all I've
ever wanted to be.

"Mommy."
It has started to rain again; the road is
swimming in front of me, and I've never been a
very confident driver. "Ssh. I have
to concentrate."
"But, Mommy," she presses. "This is
really, really important."
"What is really, really important is
getting to your ballet lesson without getting us
killed."
For one blessed moment it is quiet. Then
Faith begins kicking the back of my seat. "But
I don't have my leotard," she whines.
I swerve onto the side of the road and turn
to look at her. "You don't?"
"No. I didn't know we were going there
straight from Grandma's."
I feel my neck redden. We are all of
two miles from the dance studio. "For God's
sake, Faith. Why didn't you say something
before?"
Her eyes fill with tears. "I didn't know
we were on our way to ballet until now."
I slam my hand against the steering wheel. I
don't know if I am angry at Faith, at the
weather, at my mother, or at the damned sprinklers
in the grocery store, all of which have managed
to screw up my day. "We go to ballet every single
Tuesday after lunch!"
I pull onto the road and make a
U-turn, ignoring the prick of guilt that
tells me I'm being too hard on her, that she's
only seven. Faith begins to shriek through her
tears. "I don't want to go home! I want
to go to ballet!"
"We're not going home," I say through clenched
teeth. "We're just going to pick up your
leotard, and then we'll go to ballet." We'll
be twenty minutes late. I envision the eyes
of the other mothers, watching me hustle Faith through the
doors in the middle of a class that has already
started. Mothers who've managed to get their children
to class on time in the middle of this flash flood,
mothers who do not have to work hard to make it look so
easy.
We live in a century-old
farmhouse, which is bordered on one side by a forest
and on the other side by a meticulous stone wall.
Our seven acres are mostly woods, tucked
behind the house; we're close enough to the road that at
night the headlights of passing cars sweep over
the beds like lighthouse beacons. The farmhouse itself
is full of opposites that still attract: a
sagging porch backed by brand-new Pella windows,
a claw-foot tub with a Shower Massage,
Colin and me. The driveway dips, rising at
the end near the road and again near the house. As we
turn down it, Faith gasps in delight.
"Daddy's home! I want to see him."
So do I, but then I always do. No doubt
he's taken an earlier flight and come home for
lunch before returning to the office. I think about the
other mothers already in the parking lot of the ballet
studio, and then of seeing Colin, and suddenly being
twenty minutes late seems entirely
worthwhile. "We'll say hi to Daddy. Then you
get your leotard, and we've got to go."
Faith bursts through the door like a marathon
runner at the ribbon finish. "Daddy!" she
calls, but there is no one in the kitchen or the
family room, nothing but Colin's briefcase
neatly centered on the table to prove that he is
here. I can hear water running through the old
pipes. "He's taking a shower," I say, and
Faith immediately heads upstairs.
"Hang on!" I shout after her, certain that the
last thing Colin wants is to be surprised
by Faith if he's strolling around the bedroom
naked. I rush behind her, managing to get to the
closed door of the master bedroom before Faith can
turn the knob. "Let me go in first."
Colin stands beside the bed, wrapping a towel around
his hips. When he sees me in the doorway, he
freezes. "Hi." I smile, going into his
arms. "Isn't this a nice surprise?"
With my head tucked up beneath his chin and his hands
loosely clasped around my waist, I nod
to Faith. "Come on in. Daddy's dressed."
"Daddy!" she cries, barreling straight for
Colin at groin level, something that we've
laughed about often and that has him moving into a
protective crouch, even as he holds me.
"Hi, cupcake," he says, but he keeps
looking over Faith's head, as if expecting
to find another child waiting in the wings. Steam rolls
from the seam of the closed bathroom door.
"We could put on a video for her," I
whisper, leaning close to Colin. "That is,
assuming you're looking for someone to wash your
back."
But instead of answering, Colin awkwardly
untangles Faith's arms from his waist.
"Honey, maybe you should--"
"Should what?"
We all turn toward the voice coming from the
bathroom. The door swings open to reveal a
damp, dripping woman, half wrapped in a
towel, a woman who assumed that Colin's words
were meant for her. "Oh, my God," she says,
reddening, retreating and slamming the door.
I am aware of Faith running from the bedroom,
of Colin going after her, of the water in the shower being
turned off. My knees give out, and suddenly
I am sitting on the bed, on the wedding-ring
quilt Colin bought me in Lancaster,
Pennsylvania, after the Mennonite woman who
crafted it told him that the symbol of a perfect
marriage was an endless circle.
I bury my face in my hands and think,
Oh, God. It is happening again.

BOOK I
THE OLD TESTAMENT

ONE

Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth
Unseen, both when we wake and when we sleep.
--John Milton,
Paradise Lost
There are certain things I do not talk about.
Like when I was thirteen, and I had to take my
dog and have her put to sleep. Or the time in high
school that I got all dressed up for the prom and
sat by the window, waiting for a boy who never came.
Or the way I felt when I first met Colin.
Well, I talk a little about that, but I don't
admit that from the beginning I knew we were not meant
to be together. Colin was a college football
star; I'd been hired by his coach to tutor him
to pass French. He kissed me--shy, plain,
scholarly--on a dare from his teammates, and even
muddled by embarrassment, it left me feeling
gilded.
It is perfectly clear to me why I
fell in love with Colin. But I have never
understood what made him fall for me.
He told me that when he was with me, he became
someone different--a person he liked better than
the easygoing jock, the good ol' fraternity boy.
He told me that I made him feel admired for
what he was instead of what he'd done. I argued
that I wasn't a match for him, not tall or
stunning or sophisticated enough. And when he
disagreed, I made myself believe him.
I don't talk about what happened five
years later, when I was proved right.
I don't talk about the way he could not look
me in the eye while he was arranging to have me
locked away.

Opening my eyes is a Herculean effort.
Swollen and grainy, they seem resolved to stay
sealed shut, preferring not to risk the sight of
something else that might turn the world on end. But
there is a hand on my arm, and for all I know it
might be Colin, so I manage to slit them enough that
the light, sharp as a splinter, comes into view.
"Mariah," my mother soothes, smoothing my hair
back from my forehead. "You feeling better?"
"No." I am not feeling anything. Whatever
Dr. Johansen prescribed over the phone
makes it seem as if there's a foam cushion
three inches thick around me, a barrier that moves
with me and flexes and manages to keep the worst
away.
"Well, it's time to get moving," my mother
says, matter-of-fact. She leans forward and
tries to haul me from the bed.
"I don't want to take a shower." I try
to curl into a ball.
"Neither do I." My mother grunts. The last
time she'd come into the room, it was to drag me into the
bathroom and under a cold spray of water.
"You're going to sit up, damn it, if it sends
me to an early grave."
That makes me think of her coffin table, and of the
ballet lesson Faith and I never did
manage to get to three days ago. I pull
away from her grasp and cover my face, fresh
tears running like wax. "What is the matter with
me?"
"Absolutely nothing, in spite of what that
cretin wants you to believe." My mother puts her
hands on my burning cheeks. "This is not
your fault, Mariah. This isn't something you could have
stopped before it happened. Colin isn't worth the
ground he walks on." She spits on the
carpet, to prove it. "Now sit up so that I can
bring Faith in here."
That gets my attention. "She can't see me like
this."
"So, change."
"It's not that easy--"
"Yes, it is," my mother insists. "It's not just
you this time, Mariah. You want to fall apart?
Fine, then--do it after you've seen Faith. You know
I'm right, or you wouldn't have called me to come over
here and take care of her three days ago." Staring
at me, she softens her voice. "She's got
an idiot for a father, and she's got you. You make
what you want of that."
For a second I let hope sneak through the
cracks in my armor. "Did she ask for me?"
My mother hesitates. "No ... but that's neither
here nor there."
As she goes to get Faith, I adjust the
pillows behind my back and wipe my face with a
corner of the comforter. My daughter enters the room,
propelled by my mother's hand. She stops two
feet from the bed. "Hi," I say, bright as any
actress.
For a moment I just delight in seeing her--the
crooked part of her hair, the space where her
front tooth used to be, the chipped pink
Tinkerbell polish on her fingernails. She
folds her arms and sets her colt's legs and
mulishly presses her beautiful bow of a mouth
into a flat line.
"Want to sit down?" I pat the mattress
beside me.
She doesn't answer; she barely even
breathes. With a sharp pain I realize that I know
exactly what she's doing, because I've done it
myself: You convince yourself that if you keep perfectly
still, if you don't make any sudden moves, neither
will anyone else. "Faith ..." I reach out my
hand, but she turns and walks out of the room.
Part of me wants to follow her, but a larger
part of me can't muster the courage. "She's still not
talking. Why?"
"You're her mother. You find out."
But I can't. If I have learned anything, it
is my own limits. I turn onto my side
and close my eyes, hoping that my mother will
get the hint that I just want her to go away.
"You'll see," she says quietly, laying
her hand on top of my head. "Faith is going
to get you through this."
I make her think I am asleep. I do not
let on when I hear her sigh. Or when I
watch, through narrowed eyes, as she removes from my
nightstand an X-acto knife, a nail file,
and a pair of embroidery scissors.

Years ago when I found Colin in bed with
another woman, I waited three nights and then
tried to kill myself. Colin found me and got me
to the hospital. The ER doctors told him
they had been able to save me, but that isn't true.
Somehow that night, I got lost. I became
another person, one I do not like to hear about, one
I would certainly not recognize. I could not
eat, I could not speak, I could not command enough energy
to throw the covers off my body and get out of bed.
My mind was frozen on a single thought: If
Colin didn't want me anymore, why should
I?
When Colin told me that he was having me
committed to Greenhaven, he cried. He
apologized. Still, he never held my hand, never
asked me what I wanted, never stared into my
eyes. He said I needed to be hospitalized so
that I would not be left alone.
Contrary to what he thought, I wasn't alone.
I was several weeks pregnant with Faith. I
knew about her, knew she existed before the tests
came back and the doctors altered the course of
treatment to meet the needs of a pregnant,
suicidal woman. I never told anyone there
about the pregnancy, just let them figure it out
themselves--and it took me years to admit that was because
I was hoping to miscarry. I had convinced myself that
it was Faith, a small ball of cells inside
me, who made Colin turn to another woman.
Yet when my own mother says that Faith is going
to keep me from getting so deeply depressed that
I can't claw my way out, she may not be far off
the mark. After all, Faith has done it before.
Somehow, during those months at Greenhaven, being
pregnant became an asset instead of a
liability. People who would not listen to what I had
to say when I was first committed stopped to remark on
my swelling belly, my glowing cheeks. Colin
found out about the baby and came back to me.
I named her Faith, a real goyishe name according
to my mother, because I so badly needed something
to believe in.

I am sitting with my hand on the bridge of the
phone. Any minute now, I tell myself,
Colin is going to call and tell me it was a run
of dementia. He will beg not to be held
responsible for this small bit of insanity. If
I do not understand something like that, who will?
But the phone does not ring, and sometime after two in
the morning I hear a noise outside. It is
Colin, I think. He's come.
I run to the bathroom and try to untangle my
hair, my arms stiff and aching from disuse. I
swallow a capful of mouthwash. Then I rush
into the hall with my heart pounding.
It's dark. There's no one moving about; nothing.
I creep down the staircase and peer out the
sidelight that frames the front door.
Carefully I ease the door open--it creaks--
and step onto the old farmer's porch.
The noise that I thought was my husband coming home
to me is a pair of raccoons, thieving around the
trash can. "Go!" I hiss at them, waving my
hands. Colin used to snare them in a
Hav-A-Heart trap, a rectangular cage
with a levered door that didn't cause harm to the
animal. He'd hear one screaming after being shut
in and would carry it off to the woods behind the house.
Then he'd walk back, the cage empty and
neat, with no sign of the raccoon's having been
there. "Abracadabra," he'd say. "Now you
see it, now you don't."
I retreat inside, but instead of heading
upstairs I see the moon reflecting off the
polished dining-room table. In the center of the oval
is a miniature replica of this farmhouse. I
made it; it is what I do for a living. I
build dream houses--not out of concrete and
drywall and I-beams, but with spindles no
bigger than a toothpick, squares of satin that
fit in the palm of my hand, mortar based with
Elmer's glue. Although some people ask for an exact
replica of their house, I have also created
antebellum mansions, Arabian mosques,
marble palaces.
I built my first dollhouse seven years
ago at Greenhaven, out of popsicle craft
sticks and construction paper, when other
patients were making God's-eyes and origami.
Even in that first attempt there was a spot for every
bit of furniture, a room to suit each
personality. Since then I have built nearly
fifty others. I became famous after Hillary
Rodham Clinton asked me to make the White
House for Chelsea's sixteenth birthday--
complete with an Oval Room, china in the display
cabinets, and a hand-sewn United States flag
in the Executive Office. Customers have
asked, but I do not make dolls to go with the houses.
A piano, however tiny, is still a piano. But a
doll with a beautifully painted face and finely
turned limbs is always, at its heart, made of
wood.
I pull out a chair and sit down, gently
touching my fingers to the sloping roof of the miniature
farmhouse, the pillars that hold up its porch, the
small silk begonias in its terra-cotta
planters. Inside it is a cherry table like the one
this dollhouse sits upon. And on that miniature
cherry dining-room table is an even smaller
replica of this dollhouse.
With the flick of a fingertip I shut the front
door of the dollhouse. I brush my thumb along
the stamp-sized windows, sliding them down. I
secure the shutters with their infinitesimal
latches; I shelter the begonias beneath the
Lilliputian porch swing. I close up the
house tightly, as if it might need to stand through a
storm.

Colin phones four days after leaving. "This
wasn't the way it was supposed to happen."
Presumably, by this he means that Faith and I
weren't supposed to interrupt. Presumably,
we had forced his hand. But of course I do not say
so.
"It's not going to work with us, Mariah. You know
that."
I hang up the phone while he is still
talking, and pull the covers over my head.

Five days after Colin has left, Faith
is still not speaking. She moves around the house like a
silent cat, playing with toys and picking out
videos and all the time watching me
suspiciously.
My mother is the one who manages to plumb through
the muteness to figure out that Faith wants
oatmeal for breakfast, or that she can't reach the
Playmobil village on the top shelf, or that
she needs a drink of water before going to bed. I
wonder if they have a secret language. I
don't understand her; she refuses to communicate,
and all in all it reminds me of Colin.
"You have to do something," my mother repeats. "She's
your daughter."
Biologically, yes. But Faith and I have little
in common. In fact, she might as well have
skipped a generation and come straight from her grandmother,
so close are those two. They have the same grounding
in whimsy, the same rubber resilience, which is why
it is so strange to see Faith moping around.
"What am I supposed to do?"
My mother shakes her head. "Play a game with
her. Go for a walk. At the very least, you could tell
her you love her."
I turn to my mother, wishing it were that simple.
I've loved Faith since she was born, but not the
way you'd think. She was a relief. After first
wanting to miscarry and then months on Prozac,
I'd been certain she'd appear with three eyes
or a harelip. But the easy, normal birth
gave way to the reality of a baby I could not make
happy, as if my punishment for thinking the worst of
her were to be disconnected before we ever had a chance
to bond. Faith was colicky; she kept me up
all night and nursed with such a vengeance my
belly cramped at each feeding.
Sleep-deprived and unsettled, I would lay
her on the bed at times, stare at her wise, round
face and think, What on earth do I do with you?
I figured that motherhood would be something that
descended naturally, the same way my milk
came in--a little painful, a little awe-inspiring,
but part of me now for better or for worse. I
waited patiently. So what if I didn't know
how to use a rectal thermometer on my child? So
what if I tried to swaddle her and the blanket
never tucked tight? Any day now, I told
myself, I am going to wake up and know what I am
doing.
It was sometime after Faith's third birthday that
I stopped hoping. For whatever reason, being a mother
will never come easily to me. I watch women with
multiple children effortlessly settle everyone in
place in their vans, while I have to check
Faith's safety belt three times, just to make
sure it's really snapped tight. I
hear mothers lean down to speak to their children, and I try
to memorize the things they say.
The thought of trying to get to the bottom of
Faith's stubborn silence makes my stomach
flip. What if I can't do it? What kind of
mother does that make me? "I'm not ready," I
hedge.
"For God's sake, Mariah, get over
yourself. Get dressed, brush your hair, act like
a normal woman, and before you know it, you won't be
acting anymore." My mother shakes her head.
"Colin told you you were a shrinking violet for ten
years, and you were stupid enough to believe him. What
does he know from nervous breakdowns?"
She sets a cup of coffee in front of me;
I know that she considers it a triumph to have me
sitting at the kitchen table, instead of holed up in
bed. When I was committed, she was living in
Scottsdale, Arizona--where she'd moved after
my father died. She flew in after my suicide
attempt and went home when she felt assured that
the danger was over. Of course, she hadn't counted
on Colin's having me institutionalized. When
she discovered what he had done, she sold the
condo, returned here, and spent four months
overturning the legal writ so that I could be
released of my own volition. She never believed
Colin was right to have me sent to Greenhaven, and
she's never forgiven him. As for me, well, I
don't know. Sometimes, like my mother, I think that he
shouldn't have been deciding how I felt, no
matter how unresponsive I was at the time. And
sometimes I remember that Greenhaven was the one
place I felt comfortable, because there nobody was
expected to be perfect.
"Colin," my mother says succinctly, "is a
schmuck. Thank God Faith takes after you."
She pats my shoulder. "Do you remember the time
you came home in fifth grade, with a B-minus
on your math test? And you cried like you thought we were
going to put you on the rack--but we couldn't have cared
less? You did your best; that's what was
important. You tried. Which is more than I can
say for you today." She looks through the open
doorway, to the living-room floor, where Faith
is coloring with crayons. "Don't you know by now
that raising a child is always a work in progress?"
Faith picks up the orange crayon and
scribbles violently over the construction paper.
I remember how last year, when she was
learning letters, she'd scrawl a long stream of
consonants and ask me what she'd spelled.
"Frzwwlkg," I'd say, and to my surprise
I made her laugh.
"So go already." My mother pushes me toward the
living room.
The first thing I do is trip over the box of
crayons. "I'm sorry." I gather fistfuls
in my hands, set them back in the holiday Oreo
tin we use to store them. When I'm finished, I
rock back on my heels, to find Faith staring
coldly at me.
"I'm sorry," I say again, but I am not
speaking of the crayons.
When Faith doesn't respond, I look
down at the paper she's been drawing on. A
bat and a witch, dancing beside a fire. "Wow--this
is really neat." Inspiration strikes; I pick
up the drawing and hold it close. "Can I keep
it? Hang it downstairs in my workshop?"
Faith tips her head, reaches for the picture,
and rips it down the middle. Then she runs up the
stairs and slams her bedroom door.
My mother comes in, wiping her hands on a dish
towel. "That went well," I say dryly.
She shrugs. "You can't change the world
overnight."
Reaching for one half of Faith's artwork, I
run my fingers over the waxy resistance of the
witch. "I think she was drawing me."
My mother tosses the dish towel at me; it
lands unexpectedly cool against my neck. "You
think too much," she says.

That night while I am brushing my teeth I
catch sight of myself in the mirror. I am not
unattractive, or so I learned at
Greenhaven. Orderlies and nurses and
psychiatrists look through you when you are disheveled
and complaining; on the other hand, a pretty face
gets noticed, and spoken to, and answered. At
Greenhaven I cut my hair short,
into honey-colored waves; I wore makeup
to play up the green of my eyes. I spent more
time on my appearance during those few months than
I ever had in my life.
Sighing, I lean toward the mirror and wipe a
spot of toothpaste from the corner of my mouth.
When Colin and I moved into this farmhouse, we
replaced this bathroom mirror. The old
one had been cracked at the corner--bad luck,
I said. The new mirror, we didn't know where
to hang. At five-foot-four, eye level for
me was not eye level for Colin. A foot
taller and lanky, he laughed when I'd first
held up the mirror. "Rye," he said, "I can
barely see my chest."
So instead we put the mirror where Colin could
see it. I would stand on tiptoe to see the whole
of my face. I never quite measured up.

In the middle of the night I feel the
blankets rustle. A drift of air, a soft
solidness pressed against me. Rolling over, I
wrap my arms around Faith.
"This is what it would be like," I whisper to myself,
and I let my throat swell up before I can even
finish my thought. Her arms come around me like a
vine. Her hair, tucked beneath my chin, smells
of childhood.
My mother used to tell me that when push comes
to shove, you always know who to turn to. That being a
family isn't a social construct, but an
instinct.
The flannel of our nightgowns hooks and
catches. I rub Faith's back in silence,
afraid to say anything that might ruin this good
fortune, and I wait for her breathing to level before
I let myself fall asleep. This one thing, this I
can do.

The town where we live, New Canaan, is
large enough to have its own mountain, small enough to hold
rumors in the nooks and crannies of the weathered
clapboard storefronts. It is a town of
farms and open land, of simple people rubbing shoulders
with professionals from Hanover and New London
who want their money to go a little bit further in
real estate. We have a gas station, an old
playground, and a bluegrass band. We also have one
attorney, J. Evers Standish, whose shingle
I've passed a million times driving up and
down Route 4.
Six days after Colin has left, I answer
the front door to find a sheriff's deputy on
the porch, asking me if I am indeed Mrs.
Mariah White. My first thought is for Colin--
has he been in a car accident? The sheriff
reaches into his pocket and pulls out an
envelope. "I'm sorry, ma'am," he
says, and he is gone before I can ask him what
he's brought me.
The first concrete act of divorce is called
a libel. It's a little piece of paper that,
held in your hand, has the power to change your whole
life. I will not know until months later that
New Hampshire is the only state that still
calls it a libel, instead of a complaint or a
petition, as if part of the process, however
amicable, involves a slight to one's character.
Attached to the note is the piece of paper that
says a divorce is being served against me.
Thirty minutes later I am sitting in the
waiting room of J. Evers Standish's office,
Faith curled in the corner with a battered Brio
train set. I would not have brought her, but my mother
has been gone all morning--off, she said, to get
us both a surprise. A door behind the
receptionist opens, and a tall, polished
brunette walks out, hand extended. "I'm
Joan Standish."
My jaw drops open. "You are?" For years,
in passing the building, I've pictured J.
Evers Standish as an older man with muttonchops.
The attorney laughs. "The last time I
checked, I was." She glances at Faith,
absorbed in creating a tunnel for the train.
"Nan," she asks her receptionist, "could you
keep an eye on Mrs. White's daughter?"
And as if I am pulled by a thread, I follow
the lawyer into her office.
The funny thing is, I'm not upset. Not
nearly as upset as I was the afternoon Colin left.
Something about this libel seems completely over the
top, like a joke with the punch line forthcoming.
Something Colin and I will laugh about when the lights
are out and we're holding each other a few months
from now.
Joan Standish explains the libel to me. She
asks me if I want to see a therapist or
hear about referral programs. She asks what
happened. She talks about divorce decrees and
financial affidavits and custody, while I
let the room whirl around me. It seems
impossible that a wedding can take a year to plan but
a divorce is final in six weeks--as if
all the time in between, the feelings have been dwindling
to the point where they can be scattered with one angry
breath.
"Do you think Colin will want joint
custody of your daughter?"
I stare at the attorney. "I don't know."
I cannot imagine Colin living without Faith. But
then again I cannot imagine myself living without Colin.
Joan Standish narrows her eyes and sits down
on her desk, across from me. "If you don't mind
my saying so, Mrs. White," she begins, "you
seem a little ... removed from all this. It's a very
common reaction, you know, to just deny what's been
legally set into motion, and therefore to just let the whole
thing steamroll over you. But I can assure you that
your husband has, in fact, started the judicial
wheels turning to dissolve your marriage."
I open my mouth, then snap it shut again.
"What?" she asks. "If I'm going
to represent you, you'll have to confide in me."
I look into my lap. "It's just that ...
well. We went through this, sort of, once before.
What happens to all ... this ... if he
decides to come back?"
The attorney leans forward, her elbows resting
on her knees. "Mrs. White, you truly see
no difference between then and now? Did he hurt you
last time?" I nod. "Did he promise you
he'd change? Did he come back to you?" She
smiles gently. "Did he sue for divorce
last time?"
"No," I murmur.
"The difference between then and now," Joan Standish
says, "is that this time he's done you a favor."

Our seats for the circus are in the very first row.
"Ma," I ask, "how did you get tickets this
close?"
My mother shrugs. "I slept with the ringmaster,"
she whispers, and then laughs at her own joke.
Her surprise from yesterday involved a trip to the
Concord TicketMaster, to get us all seats
at the Ringling Brothers Circus, playing in
Boston. She reasoned that Faith needed something that
might get her excited enough to chatter again. And
once she heard about the libel, she said that I should
consider the trip to Boston a celebration.
My mother hails a man selling Sno-Cones
and buys one for Faith. The clowns are working the
stands. I see some that I recognize--could they be
the same after all these years? One with a white head
and a blue smile leans over the low divider in
front of us. He points to his suspenders,
polka-dotted, then to Faith's spotted
shirt, and claps his hands. When Faith blushes,
he mutely mouths the word "Hello." Faith's
eyes go wide, then she answers him, just as
silently.
The clown reaches into his back pocket and
pulls out a greasepaint crayon. He cups
Faith's chin in one hand, andwiththe other draws a
wide, splitting smile over her lips. He
colors musical notes on her throat and
winks.
He hops away from the divider, ready
to entertain some other child, and then turns back at the
last minute. Before I can manage to duck away,
he reaches for my face. His hand is cool on
my cheek as he paints a tear beneath my left
eye, dark blue and swollen with sorrow.

Although it is not something I remember, when I was
little I tried to join the circus.
My parents took me to the Boston Garden every
year when Ringling Brothers came to town, and to say
I loved it would be an understatement. In the weeks
leading up to the show I'd wake in the middle of the
night, my chest tight with flips and my eyes blind
with sequins, my sheets smelling of tigers and
ponies and bears. When I was actually at the
circus, I'd school my eyes not to blink,
aware that it would be gone as quickly as the cotton
candy that melted away to nothing in the heat of my
mouth.
The year I was seven I was mesmerized by the
Elephant Girl. The daughter of the ringmaster,
glittering and sure, she stepped on the trunk of
an enormous elephant and shimmied up it, the
way I sometimes walked up the playground
slide. She sat with her thighs clamped around the
thick, bristly neck of the elephant and stared at
me the whole time she circled the center ring.
Don't you wish, she said silently, that you
were like me?
That year, like all the other years, my mother made
me get up ten minutes before the intermission, so that
we could beat the bathroom lines. She towed me
to the ladies' room, both of us crowding into the tiny
stall, and she loomed like a djinn with her arms
crossed over me as I squatted to pee. When
I was done, she said, "Now wait till I'm
finished."
My mother tells me that I had never crossed the
street without reaching for her hand, never reached
toward a hot stove; even as an infant, I'd
never put small objects in my mouth. But that
day, while she was in the toilet, I ducked beneath
the door of the stall and disappeared.
I do not remember this. I also do not remember
how I made my way past the green-coated
security guards, out the door, and into the huge
lot where the circus had set up its trailers.
Of course, I do not remember how the ringmaster
himself announced my name in hopes of finding me,
how the murmurs of a lost little girl ran like
fire, how my parents spent the show searching the
halls. I can't recall the chalky face of the
circus hand who found me, who pronounced it a
wonder that I hadn't been trampled or gored.
And I can't imagine what my parents thought,
to discover me nestled between the lethal tusks of a
sleeping elephant, my hair matted with straw
and spit, his trunk curled over my shoulders like
the arm of an old love.
I don't know why I'm telling you this,
except to make you see that maybe, like eye
color and bone structure, miracles are
passed down through the bloodlines.

The Elephant Girl has grown up. Of
course, I cannot be sure they are one and the same,
but here is a woman in a spangly costume with the
same red-gold hair and wise eyes as the girl
I remember. She leads a baby elephant
around the center ring and tosses it a purple
ball; she bows grandly to the audience and lets the
elephant wave over her shoulder. Then from the
side curtains comes a child, a little girl so like the
one in my past that I wonder if time stands
completely still beneath a big top. But then I watch
the Elephant Woman help the girl ride the
baby elephant around the ring, and I see that they
are mother and daughter.
A look passes between them, one that makes me
glance at Faith. Her eyes are so bright I can
see the Elephant Girl's sequins
reflected in them. Suddenly the clown who was here
before is leaning over the divider, motioning wildly
to Faith, who nods and falls over the railing
into his arms. She waves back at us, her
face mobile as she marches off to be part of the
pre-intermission extravaganza. My mother
scoots into Faith's seat. "Did you see that?
Oh, I knew we should have brought the
camera."
And then in a buffet of light and booming
voice, the circus performers and animals parade
around the trio of rings. I look around, trying
to find Faith. "Over there!" my mother calls.
"Yoo-hoo! Faith!" She points past the
ringmaster and the caged tigers to my daughter, who is
riding in front of the Elephant Lady on a
tremendous tusked beast.
I wonder if other mothers feel a tug at their
insides, watching their children grow up into the people they
themselves wanted so badly to be. The searchlights
wing over the crowd, and in spite of the cheers and the
fanfare I can still hear my mother surreptitiously
unwrapping a Brach's butterscotch candy in the
belly of her purse.
A trained dog, spooked by something, leaps out
of the arms of a clown in a hoopskirt. The dog
streaks between the ringmaster's legs, over the satin
train of a trapeze artist, and just in front of
Faith's elephant, causing it to trumpet and
rear up on its legs.
If I live to be a hundred, I will never
forget how long it took to watch Faith tumble to the
sawdust, how panic swelled into my eardrums and
blocked out all other sound, how the clown who'd
befriended her rushed over, only to bump against the
juggler and knock the spinning knives out of his
hands, so that the three bright blades fell and
sliced across my daughter's back.

Faith lies unconscious on her belly in
a hospital bed at Mass General, so small
she barely takes up half the length of the
mattress. An IV drips into her arm to ward
off infection, the doctor says, although he is
confident because the lacerations were not deep. Still, they were
deep enough to require twenty stitches. My jaw
is so tight from being clenched that a shudder runs down
my spine, and my mother must know how close I am
to falling apart, because she has a quiet word with a
nurse, touches Faith's hair, and pulls me
out of the room.
We don't speak until we reach a small
supply closet, which my mother appropriates for
our use. Pushing me against the wall of sheets and
towels, she forces me to look her in the eye.
"Mariah, Faith is all right. Faith is going
to be just fine."
Just like that, I dissolve. "It's my
fault," I sob. "I couldn't stop it." I do
not say what I'm sure my mother is thinking, too
--that I am not crying just for the knives that scored
Faith, but for retreating into depression after Colin
left, maybe even for choosing Colin as a
husband in the first place.
"If it's anyone's fault, it's mine--I
bought the tickets." She hugs me hard. "This
isn't some kind of punishment. It's not like an
eye for an eye, Mariah. You're going to get
through this. Both of you." Then she holds me at
arm's length. "Did I ever tell you about the time
I almost killed you? We went skiing, and you were
all of about seven, and you slipped off the
chairlift when I was adjusting my poles. You were
dangling there, twenty feet above the ground, while
I grabbed onto the sleeve of your little coat.
All because I wasn't paying attention."
"It's not the same. That was an accident."
"So was this," my mother insists.
We walk out of the supply closet and
into Faith's room again. Words the psychiatrists
had used at Greenhaven to describe me
circle in my head: compulsive and
idealistic, rejection-sensitive, poor
self-confidence, a tendency to overcompensate and
to catastrophize. "She should have gotten someone
else as a mother. Someone who was good at this sort of
thing."
My mother laughs. "She got you for a reason,
honey. You wait and see." Announcing that she's
off to get us coffee, she heads for the door. "Just
because other parents roll with the punches doesn't
mean it's right. The ones who are most nervous about
screwing up, Mariah, are the same ones who
care enough to want things to be perfect."
The door shuts behind her with a sigh. I sit
down on Faith's bed and trace the edge of her
blanket. If I can't have Colin, I
think, please let me have her.
I don't realize I've spoken aloud
until my mother comes in with the coffee. "Who are you
talking to?" I flush, embarrassed to be
caught bargaining with a higher power. It is not as if
I believe in God. When I was a child, my
family wasn't very religious; as an adult,
all I have is a healthy dose of skepticism
--and, apparently, the urge to beg in spite of this
when I really, really need help. "No one. Just
Faith."
My mother presses the coffee into my hand. The
cup is so hot it burns my palm, and even after
I set it on the nightstand my skin still smarts.
At that moment, Faith blinks up at me.
"Mommy," she croaks, and my heart turns
over: Her first word in weeks is all mine.

TWO

"Sure, lots of people believe in God.
Lots of people used to believe the world was flat,
too."
Ian Fletcher
in The New York Times, June
14, 1998

August 17, 1999
Ian Fletcher is standing in the middle of
hell. He paces around the new backdrop of the
set, running his hand over the gas pipes that will
produce flame, and the jagged peaks of rock.
He scrapes off a bit with his thumb, thinking that
brimstone isn't all it's cracked up to be.
"It's too damn yellow. Looks like some New
Age druid circle."
His set decorator glances at the
associate producer. "I think, Mr.
Fletcher, that the fire-and-brimstone thing was
smell-related."
"Smell?" Ian scowls. "What's that
supposed to mean?"
"It's sulfur, sir. You know, you burn it,
and it stinks."
Ian glares at the set decorator.
"Tell me," he says softly, threateningly,
"what's the point of a smell-related special
effect in a visual medium like television?"
The man quails. "I don't know, Mr.
Fletcher, but you--"
"But I what?"
"You wanted fire and brimstone, Ian." The
voice comes from the tangle of cameras and
microphones just off to the left. "Don't blame
the fellow for your own mistakes."
At the sound of the executive producer's
voice, Ian sighs and runs a hand through his
thick, black hair. "You know, James, the
only thing that makes me think there might be a
higher power after all is the way you always manage
to drop in at the absolute worst
moment."
"That's not God, Ian, that's Murphy's
Law." James Wilton steps into the circle
of sulfur and glances around. "Of course, if you
rediscover religion, that would be one way
to boost ratings." He hands Ian a fax with the
latest Nielsen numbers.
"Shoot," Ian mutters. "I told you
CBS wasn't the way to go. We ought to reopen
negotiations with HBO."
"HBO isn't going to come within ten feet of you
if you keep ranking in the bottom third."
James breaks off a piece of sulfur and
holds it to his nose. "So this is brimstone,
eh? Guess I always kind of pictured it as a
big black fireplace."
Ian absentmindedly glances at the new set.
"Yeah, well. We'll design a new one."
"Oh?" James says dryly. "Should we
pay for it with the huge bonus from your pending Nike
endorsement? Or with the incoming grant from the
Christian Coalition?"
Ian narrows his eyes. "You don't have to be so
cynical. You know that six months ago, when we
did the specials, we got an incredible
Nielsen share for the time slot."
James walks from the set, leaving Ian
to follow. "They were specials. Maybe that was the
appeal. Maybe a weekly show loses its
novelty." He turns to Ian, his face
grave. "I love what you do, Ian. But
network executives have notoriously short
attention spans. And I've got to bring them a
winner." Taking the fax from Ian's hand, James
crumples it into a ball. "I know it goes against
your nature ... but now would be a good time to start
praying."

Although he'd been asked by countless journalists,
Ian Fletcher refused to isolate the incidents
in his life that made him stop believing in God.
In fact, not only did he admit to being born
a nonbeliever, he made a living out of trying
to convince the world that everyone was born a
nonbeliever and that faith was something one was subtly
schooled to accept--like cow's milk, or potty
training--because it was socially acceptable.
Religion, he argued, made a wonderful
panacea. Ian's offhand comparison of devout
Catholics to toddlers who believed that a
Band-Aid itself cures the wound was hotly debated
in the op-ed pages of The New York
Times, in Newsweek, and on Meet the
Press. He asked why Jews were the Chosen
People yet continued to be targeted for persecution.
He asked why Catholics were the only ones who
ever saw the Virgin Mary in fountains and morning
mists. He asked how there could be a God when
innocent children got raped and maimed and killed. The
more outspoken he became, the more people wanted to listen.
In 1997 his book, God Who?, spent
twenty weeks at number one on The New
York Times nonfiction bestseller list. He
became a guest at Steven Spielberg's home
and was invited to sit in on White House
round-table discussions and focus groups concerning a
variety of cultural issues. That July a
People magazine featuring Ian Fletcher on the
cover sold out in twenty-four hours. A speech
in Central Park drew more than a hundred
thousand spectators. And in September 1998,
Ian Fletcher met with TV executives and
became the world's first teleatheist.
He formed a company--Pagan Productions--
borrowed cues from the Reverends Billy Graham
and Jerry Falwell, and then put on a show.
Huge TV screens behind him played images of
mass destruction--bombs, land mines, civil
wars--while Ian's stirring, unmistakable
Southern drawl challenged the concept of a
supreme, loving being who would allow things to come this
far. He developed a large following and
cultivated a reputation as Spokesman of the
Millennium Generation--those cynical
Americans who had neither the time nor the inclination
to trust in God for their future. He was
opinionated, brash, and bullheaded, which won him
the appeal of the eighteen-to-twenty-four-year-old
sector. He was highly educated--a Ph.d.
in theology from Harvard--which made the baby
boomers take note. But clearly Ian
Fletcher's greatest attribute--the one that
endeared him to women of all ages and made him a
natural for the small screen--was the fact that
he was handsome as sin.

Two hours later Ian bursts into the office
of his executive producer. "I've got it!"
he crows, oblivious to the way that James is
motioning to him to be quiet, as he's on the
phone. "It's perfect. It's going to make you
one very rich man."
At that, James turns toward Ian.
"I'll get back to you," he says into the receiver
and hangs up. "Okay, you've got my
attention. What's the grand plan?"
Ian's vivid blue eyes are shining, and his
hands are busy diagramming and punctuating his
enthusiasm. He looks exactly like the kind of
angry, spirited orator who drew James to him in
the first place, as the voice of a spiritually lost
country. "What do you do if you're a Bible
Belt televangelist and your ratings take a
dive?"
James considers this. "You sleep with your
secretary, or extort money."
Ian rolls his eyes. "Wrong. You take
your show on the road."
"Like in a Winnebago?"
"Why not?" Ian says. "Think about it,
James. Preachers at the turn of the last
century built congregations with grassroots
revival meetings. They pitched a tent in the
middle of nowhere and made miracles happen."
James narrows his eyes. "I can't quite
imagine you in a tent, Ian. Your idea of
"roughing it" is settling for The Four Seasons
instead of The Plaza."
Ian shrugs. "Desperate times call for
desperate measures. We're going to go slumming
with the masses, my friend. We'll hold the world's
first antirevival."
"If viewers don't tune in to you at home,
Ian, why should they tune into you in Fuck-all,
Kansas?"
"Don't y'all get it? That's the whole
catch. Instead of making cripples throw down their
crutches and having blind people see, I'm going
to uncover hoaxes. I'm going to rip apart all
these so-called miracles. You know--go to Lourdes
with scientists and prove that the statue's not crying
tears, it's condensation. Or find the medical
reason why a guy who's in a coma for nineteen
years suddenly wakes up good as new." He
leans forward, grinning from ear to ear. "People believe
in God because they don't have any other explanation
for things that happen. I can change that."
Slowly, James smiles. "You know," he
admits, "this actually isn't a bad idea."
Ian reaches for the newspaper on the
corner of James's desk. He tosses one
section to his producer and then takes his own and
spreads the pages wide, like the wings of a great
bird. "Call your secretary and have her run on
out to the newsstand. We need the Globe, the
Post, the L.a. Times," Ian orders.
"Someone saw Jesus' face on his pizza at
dinner last night. Now we've just got to find
him."

August 30, 1999
Colin White sits in his business suit on
a bench at the playground, watching mothers and
nannies chase toddlers beneath the jungle gym.
His egg-salad sandwich remains in its plastic
wrapper, untouched. Without even taking a bite,
he balls it up and stuffs it back into the brown
paper bag from the deli.
That little girl, the one on the monkey bars,
looks something like Faith. Same curl to her
hair, even if it's a shade too dark. She
keeps making it to the third rung, then slipping
free and falling to the ground. Colin remembers
Faith doing the same thing: practicing and
practicing until she could make it across. He
wants to move closer, but he knows better. In
this day and age it will only make him look like a
pedophile, not a man who simply misses his
child.
He runs his hands through his hair. What the
hell was he thinking? The answer was, he
hadn't been thinking at all when he'd brought
Jessica back to his house that afternoon. A
ballet class is not a sure thing; he should have
known that Faith and Mariah might come home
unexpectedly. In the three weeks that have
passed, he can still remember every nuance of the looks
on Faith's and Mariah's faces when
Jessica walked out of the bathroom. He can still
remember how Faith stared right through him when he
finally caught up to her in her bedroom, as if she
was old enough to know that the excuses he was making were
transparent.
He had hurt Mariah, too, but then again,
living with a woman who refused to accept that there was
any problem with their marriage would take its toll
on a saint. Every time he tried to force Mariah
to face facts, he left shaking, afraid that
he'd come home and find her trying to kill herself.
Initially he'd gone out with Jessica just
to have someone to confide in.
And now he loves her.
Colin closes his eyes. It's one hell of a
mess.
The little girl on the monkey bars finishes
swinging over the last rung and lands a few feet
away from Colin, kicking up a cloud of dust.
"Oh," she says, grinning up at him.
"Sorry."
"No problem."
"Can you tie my shoe?"
He smiles. One thing he has learned about
young children: To them, adults are interchangeable.
Anyone of similar fatherlike age might be asked
to take care of these things. He bends down over the
laces of her sneaker, realizing at close
range that this girl is younger than Faith,
heavier, unmistakably different.
The girl climbs the short ladder on one end
of the monkey bars. "You watch me," she calls
out, artlessly proud. "This time I'm going to get it
right."
Colin finds himself holding his breath as the child
swings out with her left arm, then her right, reaching for the
metal rungs and curling her knuckles over
them, even though it is an unlikely stretch,
even though it is sure to leave her aching. He
continues to watch, until he sees her safely
across to the other side.

For seven, she knows a lot of things. She knows
that monarch caterpillars live in the folds of
milkweed leaves, that tights are never as tight as
leggings, that "We'll see" always means "No."
She has learned enough of the world to realize that it is a
place of grown-ups, and that the only way to leave
her mark is to speak at the ends of their sentences and
act so much like them that they sit up and take
notice. She knows that the minute she falls
asleep, her teddy bear's sewed-shut eyes
snap open. She knows that truth can cause a sharp
pain behind your eyes and that love sometimes feels like
a fist around your throat.
She also knows, although everyone is careful to keep
it from her, that they are all still talking. Faith has
been home from the hospital for three days now,
although she isn't comfortable wearing a shirt yet. Every
time she does, she feels the cuts open up and
bleed, and she worries that in the winter she will either
freeze to death or else leak bone dry.
During the day Grandma comes over and plays
spit and go fish, and she doesn't care at all
that Faith is wearing only her shorts. Her mother
sits on the couch and stares at Faith's back
when she thinks no one is looking, as if Faith
couldn't feel the weight of her eyes anyway.
When Grandma leaves after dinner, sometimes there are
conversations with big, fat, white spaces, so that it
seems like whole hours pass between the sentences
Faith and her mother speak.
Tonight Faith is picking at the peas on her
dinner plate when the doorbell rings. Grandma
raises her eyebrows, and her mother shrugs. They
are like that, can speak without saying a thing, because they know
each other so well. With Faith and her mom,
though, it's a different type of quiet, one
brought on by not knowing each other at all. Faith
watches her mother go to the front door, and as soon
as she's out of sight, Faith takes a forkful of
peas and hides them under her thigh.
"Oh!" Her mother's voice is full of air
and light. "You're just in time for dinner."
"I can't stay," Faith hears her father
answer. She stiffens, feels the peas pop beneath
her leg. She has seen her father once since That
Day. He came to the hospital with a big stuffed
teddy bear that was the ugliest one she'd ever seen,
and the whole time he held her hand and talked to her
she was picturing that lady that came out of the
bathroom as if she lived there. She does not know
why the woman was taking a shower in the middle of the
afternoon, or why that made her mother cry. She knows
only that the whole event had a color about it, like
the scribbles of a crayon gone crazy off the
page--the same blue-black she sometimes
imagined when she was lying in bed and could hear, through the
walls, her parents fighting.
Her father walks into the kitchen and kisses her
on the forehead. "Hey, cookie!" He
pretends not to look at her back the same way
her mother does. "How's my pumpkin pie?"
Faith stares at him, and she wonders why he
calls her only by the names of food.
"For God's sake, Mariah!" Her grandma
gets to her feet. "How could you let him in?"
"For Faith--I had to."
Grandma snorts. "For Faith. Right." She
comes closer to Faith's father, and for a moment Faith
wonders if Grandma is going to sock him one right
then and there. But she only pokes him in the
side with her finger. "Good-bye, Colin. You're
not needed."
"Lay off, Millie, will you?"
Her mother reappears with a plate. "Here," she
sings. "No trouble at all."
"Mariah, I can't stay. I told you that."
"It's only dinner--"
"I have other plans."
"You could cancel them. It would be nice for
Fai--"
"Jessica's waiting in the car," her father
says tightly. "All right?"
Faith scurries away from her father's voice,
taking shelter beneath her grandmother's arm. Her mother
wilts into a chair, the plate clattering so that
peas spill across the table like polka dots. Her
father's jaw is working funny, no words coming out.
Finally he says, "I just wanted to see my
daughter. I'm sorry." Then he touches
Faith's shoulder and walks out.
"God, Ma! Did you have to say that?"
"Yes! Since you wouldn't!"
"I don't need your help." Faith's mother
presses her hands to her head. "Just leave."
Faith begins to panic. She did not want her
father there either, but that was only because she knew that it would
all come down to a scene like this. Once in school
her teacher had filled a bowl with water and
sprinkled pepper on top. Then she dripped
dishwashing soap down the side, and the pepper went
flying away. For some reason, when Faith thinks
of her mother and father, that always comes to mind, too.
"Faith," her grandmother says, "maybe you should
sleep at my house tonight."
Her mother shakes her head. "No way. She's
staying here."
"Wonderful!"
Faith tries to figure out what is so
wonderful about it. She wants to go to her
grandmother's. Her mother will just mope around and stick a
video in the VCR for her. At her grandma's,
she gets to sleep in the guest room, with the beastly
black sewing machine in the corner and the box of
buttons and the small bowl of sugar cubes on the
nightstand.
But then her grandmother is saying good-bye and her
mother is muttering about reverse psychology and it
is just the two of them, with all the dishes on the
table. For a long time Faith watches her mother.
She sits with her head in her hands, so still
that Faith thinks she's fallen asleep.
Unsure of what to say or do, Faith pokes
her. "Want to play a game?"
When her mother looks up, Faith thinks that she
has never in her life seen anything so sad.
Except maybe the tortoise at the San
Diego Zoo two summers ago, which had lifted
its great head and stared right at Faith, willing her
to help him go back to where he once had been.
Her mother's voice is thin and creaky. "I
can't." She walks out of the room, leaving Faith
behind to wonder, once again, what magic words might
keep her mother close by.

Mariah has always believed there ought to be a
network for the lovelorn, patterned after
Alcoholics Anonymous, devoted to helping
those who are crippled by broken hearts.
Surely there are enough of us, she thinks, people who
would benefit from a buddy system for the moments when you
catch your sweetheart with his arm around another
woman, or when he calls but does not want
to speak to you, or when you see in his eyes that he
has already started to forget you. She imagines having
the name of a Good Samaritan who will talk on the
phone like a seventh-grade girlfriend, draw you a
dartboard with his face on it, take the ache
away.
But instead she stares at the small business
card with her psychiatrist's beeper number. She
is not supposed to call unless it is an
emergency, which in her case would probably mean the
profound desire to cut open her wrists or
hang herself from the closet rack. She wants
to talk to someone, but she does not know whom. Her
mother is her closest friend, but she's just sent
Millie away. Other women she knows have
husbands who work with Colin; they are couples who
are probably going out to dinner with him and
Jessica. She feels something bitter rise in
the back of her throat. It does not seem right that
this woman should get her husband, her friends, and her
old life.
There is much Mariah has to do. She ought
to check on Faith, give her her
antibiotics, change the dressing on her
stitches before she goes to bed. She ought to call her
mother and apologize. At the very least she ought
to clean up the dinner table.
Instead she finds herself staring at the bed.
All night she imagines that she is falling
into dips and runnels of the mattress, as if
Colin and Jessica have literally left their
marks. She tugs the comforter off and makes herself a
nest on the floor. She piles the sheets on
top and lies down, picturing Colin's face the
way she once did in her narrow bed in a
college dormitory. She stays perfectly
still, oblivious to the tears that come without warning, a
geyser, a hot spring with the power to heal.

Her mother is crying, Faith knows, hard enough that
she can't catch her breath. It's a quiet sound,
but all the same as hard to block out with a pillow as
her parents' fights used to be. It makes her
feel like crying, too. Faith thinks about calling
her grandmother but remembers that her grandmother takes the
phone off the hook at 7:00 P.m. to foil
telemarketers. So she curls up on top of
her bed, shirtless, holding the old bear that
smells like Johnson's Baby Shampoo.
She stays that way for a long time, and then dreams
about a person wearing a long white nightgown who
is sitting across from her. Immediately--she's been
warned of strangers--she shrinks away.
"Faith," the person says. "You don't have
to be afraid."
Long dark hair, sad dark eyes. "Do I
know you?"
"Do you want to?"
"I don't know." Faith wants so badly
to touch the nightgown of this stranger. She's never
seen anything like it. It seems so soft you might
fall into it and never find your way out. "Are you a
friend of my mom's?"
"I'm your guard."
She thinks about that for a moment, puzzling out whether
or not a person you've never seen before can slip
unannounced into your life.
"Who are you talking to?" Suddenly Faith's
mother stands in the doorway, her eyes red and
swollen and her hands holding a tube of
Bacitracin.
Startled, Faith glances around the room, but the
stranger--and the dream--is gone. "Nobody," she
says, then turns around so that her mother can tend to her
stitches.

Two nights later Mariah wakes up with a
start. She walks barefoot down the
hall, aware before she even gets there that Faith
is missing.
"Faith?" she whispers. "Faith!" She
rips the comforter from the empty bed and checks in the
closet. She peeks her head inside the
bathroom and then clatters down the stairs to check
in the playroom and the kitchen. By now her head is
throbbing and her palms are damp. "Faith," she
yells, "where are you?"
Mariah thinks of the stories she's read in the
news, of children who've been abducted from their own
houses in the dead of the night. She imagines a
hundred different terrors that exist just beyond the edge
of the driveway. Then she sees a flash of
silver through the window.
Outside in the yard Faith is gingerly
crawling across the pressure-treated beam that forms
the top of the swing set, ten feet above the ground.
She's done it before, catlike, and terrified
Mariah, who was certain she'd fall. "Do you
mind telling me what you're doing out here in the
middle of the night?" Mariah says softly, so as
not to startle her.
Faith glances down, not at all surprised
to be discovered. "My guard told me to come."
Of all the things Mariah expected to hear, that
is not one of them. "Your what?"
"My guard."
"What guard?"
"My friend." Faith grins, giddy with the truth of
it. "She's my friend."
Mariah tries to remember the faces of
Faith's little playmates. But none have come
to visit since Colin left, their families
adhering to the New England tradition of keeping
one's nose out of a neighbor's bad business,
lest it be contagious. "Does she live around
here?"
"I don't know," Faith says. "Ask
her."
Mariah suddenly feels her chest pinch.
Since Greenhaven she has pictured her mind
as a series of glass dominoes, capable of being
felled by a puff of breath in the right direction.
She wonders if dissociation from reality is
genetically based, like hair color or a
tendency to gain weight. "Is ... is your friend
here now?"
Faith snorts. "What do you think?"
A trick question. "Yes?"
Faith laughs and sits up, straddling the beam
and swinging her feet. "Come down before you get
hurt," Mariah scolds.
"I won't get hurt. My guard told
me."
"Bully for her," Mariah mutters, climbing
onto one of the swings so that she can grab for her
daughter. As she comes closer, she can hear
Faith singsonging under her breath to the tune of
"Pop Goes the Weasel": ""But the fruit
o-of the tree ... which is in the mid-dle of the
garden ...""
"Inside," Mariah says with authority.
"Now."
It is not until her daughter is tucked
into bed that Mariah realizes, for the first time since the
circus accident, Faith's back has healed enough
for her to be wearing a nightgown.

Except for the fact that Dr. Keller's
Barbie is bald, Faith likes playing with the
toys. There are Koosh mitts and a dollhouse and
crayons shaped like ducks and pigs and stars. The
Barbie, though, gives her the creeps. It has
little pimply holes where its hair ought to be, and it
looks all wrong. It reminds Faith of the time
she dropped a Baby Go Potty doll and its
chest cracked off to reveal a pump and
batteries, instead of the storybook heart she'd
imagined there.
Mostly, though, Faith likes coming to see
Dr. Keller. She thought that maybe she'd have
to get shots or even that test where they stick the
really long Q-tip down your throat, but Dr.
Keller only watches her play and sometimes
asks her questions. Then she goes off into the room
where Faith's mother is waiting, and Faith gets
to play even longer all by herself.
Today Dr. Keller is sitting on a chair,
writing in her notebook. Faith picks up a
puppet, one with a queen's crown, and then lets it
slide off her hand. She digs her hands into the
tub full of crayons and lets the colors
fall through her fingers. Then she walks across the
room and stares down at the bald Barbie. She
grabs it and carries it over to the dollhouse.
It's not a fancy dollhouse, not like the ones
her mom makes, but that's not such a bad thing.
Whenever Faith gets too close to one of her
mother's dollhouses, she gets yelled
at, and if she manages to take out a tiny chair
or finger a miniature braided rug, she always
thinks she's going to break it if she even breathes
the wrong way. This plastic dollhouse of Dr.
Keller's is clearly for kids, clearly for
someone to play with. Not just for show.
Ken and another Barbie, this one with hair, are
crammed into the tiny bathroom of the dollhouse.
Ken is facedown in the toilet. Faith picks
him up and walks him to the bedroom. She mashes
him against the Barbie with hair, holding her tight.
Then she takes the bald Barbie and props her
against the bedroom wall to watch.
Dr. Keller scoots her chair closer to the
dollhouse. "There are lots of people in that room."
Faith looks up. "It's a father and a mother and
another mother."
"Two mothers?"
"Yeah. This one"--she touches the doll in
Ken's arms--"does all the kissing."
"How about the other one?"
Faith gently strokes the bald head of the
second Barbie. "That one does all the
crying."

"You're what?"
Jessica's face falls, and immediately Colin
knows he has made another mistake. "I thought
you'd be happy," she says, and then bursts
into tears.
For the life of him, Colin doesn't know what
to do. He is certain that Jessica is expecting
him to do or say something appropriate, but all
he can think of is the moment years ago, when the
doctors at Greenhaven told him that Mariah
had tested positive for pregnancy. After a
moment he puts his arms around Jessica. "I'm
sorry. I am happy."
Jessica lifts her face. "You are?" Her
voice shakes.
Colin nods. "Cross my heart."
She turns in his embrace and twines herself
around him like a jungle vine. "I knew you'd
say that. I knew you'd see this as a second
chance."
For what? he thinks, and then realizes she
is speaking of a family. He smiles at her,
past the sudden constriction of his throat.
Jessica's eyes are shining as she takes his hand
and places it on the flat plane of her
belly. "I wonder who it'll look like," she
says softly.
Colin tries to picture the face of the child they
might have created. He closes his eyes, but all
he can see is Faith.

Mariah straightens with a groan, having finished
tying Faith's sneakers into double knots. It is
Thursday, the day for vacuuming and returning
library books and buying fresh corn at the
farmstand and, these days, for Faith's appointment with
Dr. Keller. "Okay. Let's go."
"Mommy," Faith says, "you have to do hers,
too."
Sighing, Mariah squats again and pretends
to tie the shoes of Faith's imaginary friend.
"Mommy ... she's got buckles."
After a moment Mariah stands. "Are we ready
now?" She cuts in front of her daughter,
grabs her purse, and opens the front door.
Once Faith is outside, Mariah remains
for a moment, so that her guard has a chance to walk out
the door, too.
A smile wreathes Faith's face, and she
slides her hand into Mariah's on the way to the
car. "She says thank you."

Mariah never would have chosen Dr. Keller as
her own psychiatrist. For one thing, she is so
organized that Mariah always finds herself checking
to see if she's left something back in the car--her
keys, her pocketbook, her confidence. And
Dr. Keller is beautiful, too--young, with
hair the rich color of a fox's back and legs
that she always remembers to cross. Mariah learned
years ago that she did not want to talk to someone like
that. Dr. Johansen was just her speed--short,
tired-looking, human enough that Mariah did not mind
revealing her failures. But Dr. Johansen
had been the one to suggest that Faith see someone
to help her understand the divorce. Mariah wanted
Faith to see Dr. Johansen, but he didn't
treat children. He recommended Dr. Keller, and
even called the office to help Mariah get a
fast appointment.
Mariah does not want to admit, even to herself,
that she is at the root of Faith's
hallucinations. After all, the doctors at
Greenhaven said they couldn't be sure that the baby
inside her would not be damaged by Prozac.
And they couldn't say how.
Mariah forces her gaze to Dr. Keller's.
"I'm worried about this imaginary friend."
"Don't be. It's perfectly normal.
Healthy, even."
Mariah raises her brows. "It's healthy and
normal to talk to someone who isn't there?"
"Absolutely. Faith's created someone
to give her emotional support twenty-four
hours a day." Dr. Keller pulls out a sheet
of drawing paper from Faith's file. "She
calls this friend her guard, which only reinforces the
behavior--she has someone to protect her now, so
this never happens again."
Mariah takes the paper and smiles at the
simple drawing of a little blond girl. It's
Faith--she can tell by the purple dress with the
yellow flowers, which Faith would wear every single day
if given the opportunity. She's drawn her
hair in braids that look like sunny snakes, and
she's holding the hand of another person. "That's
her friend," Dr. Keller says.
Mariah stares at the figure. "Looks like
Casper the Friendly Ghost."
"She may very well be. If Faith's
conjuring up a mental vision of this person, it's
probably something she's seen somewhere else."
"Casper with hair," Mariah amends, her
finger tracing the floating white body and the brown
helmet around the face. "Some guard."
"What's important is that it's working for
Faith."
Mariah takes a deep breath and jumps off
the cliff. "How do you know it is?" she asks
quietly. "How do you know this friend isn't someone
she's hearing in her head?"
Dr. Keller pauses for a moment. Mariah
wonders how much she knows about her own
hospitalization, how much Dr. Johansen has
revealed. "In the first place, I wouldn't
classify it as a hallucination. That would suggest
that your daughter is having psychotic episodes,
and you haven't indicated any changes in
behavior that would lead me to believe that."
"What sorts of changes?" Mariah says,
although she knows very well what they are.
"Dramatic ones. Trouble sleeping. Staring
spells. Aggression. Changes in eating
habits. If she's walking around at three in the
morning and saying that her friend told her to go
climb onto the roof of the house."
Mariah thinks about Faith crawling across the
top of the swing set in the middle of the night.
"No," Mariah lies, "there's nothing like that."
Dr. Keller shrugs. "Then don't worry
about it."
"How about when she wants her friend to get into bed
with her? Or eat at the table?"
"Go along with it. Don't make it a big
deal, and eventually Faith will feel secure enough
to just let it go."
Let her guard down, Mariah thinks, and
almost smiles.
"I'll talk to her about this friend again, Mrs.
White. But really, I've seen a hundred of
these cases. Ninety-nine of those children turned out
absolutely fine."
Mariah nods, but she is wondering what
happened to the other one.

Colin smiles at the VP of Operations for the
chain of nursing homes. "This'll just take a
minute," he says, and he casually leaves the
office to rummage in the trunk of his car. Hard
to sell the merits of a damn exit sign when it
shoots sparks the minute he plugs it in.
Luckily, Colin has a spare in the trunk;
he can blame the other on faulty wiring at the
plant in Taiwan.
The sample is buried in a box. Gritting
his teeth, Colin shoves his hand along the side,
feeling for a telltale wire, then grasping and
extracting what turns out to be a small
barrette.
How it got into his sample box, he can't
imagine. He remembers the last time he saw
Faith wearing it, winking silver against the
waterfall of her light hair. She keeps her
barrettes and ponytail scrunchies in an old
cigar box that Colin's own grandfather once gave
him.
Forgetting the nursing home VP, forgetting the
exit sign that now dangles from the box like a
broken droid, Colin runs the pad of his thumb
over the edge of the barrette.
He has been to the obstetrician with
Jessica. He has heard the new baby's
heartbeat. But it is very hard to pretend that he is
thrilled about this unborn child, when he has made
such a mess of things with the one he's already
got.
He has tried to call her, and once he even
watched her at the school playground from a distance,
but he backs away before making contact. The fact
of the matter is, he does not know what to say. Every
time he thinks he has the apology right, he
remembers how Faith stared at him when he came
to visit her in the hospital after the circus
accident--silent and judgmental, as if even in
her limited range of experience she knew he
did not measure up. Being a father, Colin knows,
is no ATANDThat commercial, no simple feat of
tossing a ball across a green yard or braiding
a length of hair. It is knowing all the words
to Goodnight Moon. It is waking a split
second in the middle of the night before you hear her
fall out of bed. It is watching her twirl in a
tutu and having one's mind leap over the years
to wonder how it will be to dance at her wedding.
It is maintaining the illusion of having the upper
hand, although you've been powerless since the first moment
she smiled at you from the rook's nest of your
cradled arm.
He thinks about Faith so much these days that he
cannot imagine how she ever slipped from his mind long
enough to let him make the monumental mistake of
sleeping with Jessica in his own home.
Colin sighs deeply. He loves
Jessica, and she's right--it is time to reinvent
himself. So he makes a silent promise: to be
a better father this time around, to make sure that
Faith reaps the benefits of the new leaf he is
going to turn over. He tells himself that as soon
as he straightens out his life, he'll come back
for Faith. He'll make it up to her.
"Mr. White," the nursing-home executive
says impatiently from the doorway. "Can we
get on with this?"
Colin turns around, shoves the barrette
into his pocket. He picks up the new
sample and smoothly launches into a diatribe
on its energy and monetary savings, wondering all
the while how someone who makes a living by helping
people safely escape cannot for the life of him see the
way out.

September 6, 1999
Millie Epstein picks up her Diet
Coke and settles next to her daughter on the
living-room couch. "Well, consider it a
blessing. She could have dreamed up a British
soldier with a big furry hat as a guard, and then
complained that he wouldn't fit in the backseat of the
car."
Mariah rolls her own can of soda across the
plane of her forehead. "She's supposed to start
school next week. What if the other kids
tease her?"
"Is that what you're worried about? Really,
Mariah. She's seven. By next week she
won't even remember this."
Mariah skims her lip along the sharp edge
of the soda can. "I did," she says quietly.
Her mother comes up swinging. "There was nothing wrong
with you. Colin made you believe you were meshugge
when you were only a little bit under the weather."
"It was a clinical depression, Ma."
"Which is not the same as thinking an alien is
beaming radio messages into your brain."
Mariah turns in her seat. "I never said I
was schizophrenic."
"Honey." Millie touches her daughter's
shoulder. "You had an imaginary friend when you were about
five, too. A boy named Wolf, who you said
slept at the foot of your bed and told you
vegetables were to be avoided at all costs."
"Is that supposed to make me feel better?"
Mariah's head is beginning to pound. Picking up
the remote, she turns on her mother's TV.
There is nothing on but soap operas, which she can't
abide, an infomercial, and a Martha Stewart
program. She flips through the lesser-used
channels of the satellite dish and settles on
a syndicated sitcom.
"No, go back." Millie grabs the
remote. "I like listening to his accent."
Mariah frowns at an installment of Ian
Fletcher's anti-evangelical show, watching
him strut around like a jaded cock of the walk.
Accent, hah. He probably picked it up from
a voice coach. She has never understood the
mass philosophical appeal of this man, but then
again she has never been interested enough in religion
to want to entertain its alternative. "I think the
reason people watch him is because they believe that if
he keeps mouthing off, God's going to hurl a
lightning bolt down during a live broadcast and
let the world watch him fry."
"That's very Old Testament of you." Millie
pushes the mute button. "Maybe you
remember more of Hebrew school than I thought."
Mariah blinks. "I went to Hebrew
school?"
"For a day. Your father and I thought we'd try to do
the conventional thing by you. Some of your friends went
to Sunday school, so ..." She laughs. "You
came home and said you'd rather take ballet."
It does not surprise Mariah. When she was
a child her religious affiliation was purely
social, the kind of Jew whose family attended
temple only on High Holy Days, and then just
to see what everyone else was wearing. Mariah can
remember seeing Santa in the mall and wishing she
could crawl into his lap. She can remember how
on Christmas Day, when the rest of the world was
celebrating, her family would go to the Chinese
restaurant for dinner and then out to a movie, where
they were the only people in the theater.
It surprised no one when Mariah married an
Episcopalian.
Mariah cannot recall ballet class, but she
realizes that although she can still configure her feet in
the basic five positions, she would be
hard-pressed to recite all Ten Commandments.
"I didn't know--"
"Oh!" Millie exclaims. "This is his
big tour! The one he's taking across America!
Tuesday he was in New Paltz."
Mariah laughs. "New Paltz has a big
atheist population?"
"Just the opposite. He was there because some church
claimed to have a statue oozing blood. Turned out
to be a limestone deposit or something."
A line of type flashes at the bottom of the
screen: HOULTON, MAINE, LIVE! The
camera pans, catching T-shirts emblazoned
with THE LIMB OF LIFE: THE JESUS
TREE. Then it narrows on a close-up of
Ian Fletcher, framed in the doorway of an
RV. "Gorgeous man." Millie sighs.
"Look at that smile."
Mariah doesn't glance up from the TV
Guide she's skimming. "Well, of course,"
she says. "He's probably having the time of his
life."

Ian has never been so miserable in his life.
He is hot and sweaty, has a killer
headache, and is quickly coming to hate Maine, if not
the entirety of New England. Worse
still, he can't look forward to a respite when the
broadcast is finished. His producer refused
to book him a decent hotel, saying that a guy
who wants to go on a grassroots tour ought to be
willing to let his Italian loafers touch the
ground. So--for appearance's sake--Ian's
production crew gets to stay at the Houlton
Holiday Inn, while Ian camps out in a
glorified tin can.
He's not about to reveal that accommodations are
vitally important to a man who cannot sleep at
night, but only prowls about, exhausted. His
insomnia is no one's business but his own. Still,
Ian can't even begin to describe the anticipation
he feels at the prospect of bringing down this
whole little Christ show. Whatever hoax he picks
next to unravel will damn well be situated
near a Ritz-Carlton.
At a signal from James he steps out of the
godforsaken Winnebago, several reporters
closing around him. He pushes through them and steps
onto an empty milk crate that someone has
left behind. "As y'all may know," Ian says,
gesturing to the small and devoted knot of people
gathered in front of the McKinneys' sprawling
apple tree, "there's been some question in recent
days whether Houlton, Maine, is indeed the
site of a religious miracle. According
to William and Bootsie McKinney, the
morning of August twentieth, following a severe
thunderstorm, Jesus appeared to them in a split
branch of this Macintosh tree."
Ian turns toward it. Actually, the way the
rings of the tree have grown and the delicate lines of
dried sap do sort of resemble a long-chinned,
dark-eyed visage. Like conventional pictures of
Jesus, if one believes in that sort of thing.
Ian deliberately smacks his open palm over
the image, covering it. "Is there a face here?
Maybe. But if the McKinneys were not pious
Catholics who attended mass regularly, would
they have seen Jesus? Or might they have said it
looks like Orville Redenbacher, or
Great-uncle Samuel?" He waits for the
suggestion to sink in before adding, "Is a religious
miracle truly inexplicable and divine? Or
is it a coincidental meeting of what's been
programmed in one's mind with what one wants
to see?"
At the quick gasp of one of the nuns, the
Houlton parish priest steps forward. "Now,
Mr. Fletcher," Father Reynolds says.
"There are documented cases of religious
miracles that have even been approved by the Holy
See."
"Like that sighting of the Virgin Mary in a
Mexican subway puddle a few years
back?"
"I don't believe that has reached the
approval stage yet."
Ian snorts. "C'mon, Father--if you were the
Virgin Mary and you wanted to choose a place
to appear, would you pick the oil sheen on a
subway platform? Can't you accept the
possibility that this may not be what it seems?"
The priest taps his finger against his chin. "I
can," he says slowly. "Can you?"
At the titter that runs through the crowd, Ian
realizes he's lost his momentum. Goddamn
live TV. "Ladies and gen'lemen, I'd like
to introduce Dr. Irwin Nagel, of
Princeton University's Forrestal Campus.
Doctor?"
"Wood," the professor says, "is made
up of several types of xylem cells, including
vessels, which conduct materials and strengthen the
stem of the tree. The so-called picture inside
here is only a natural process of the xylem.
As the tree gets older, the innermost layers
stop conducting food and get clogged with resin,
gum, and tannin, which harden and darken. The face that
the McKinneys have seen is actually just a
conglomeration of deposits in the tree's
heartwood."
Ian nods as his producer comes to stand beside him.
"What do you think?"
"I don't know if they're buying it,"
James whispers. "I liked your subway thing,
though."
Dr. Nagel suddenly lifts up a large,
dangerous-looking pair of hedge trimmers.
"Now, I've got the McKinneys' permission
for this," he says, as he randomly selects a
branch and hacks it off. The pale sapwood
seems to blush, and then within moments the demarcations
of the tree's rings are clearly visible. "Well,
there. It kind of looks like Mickey Mouse."
Ian steps forward. "The professor means that
the apparition of the face of Christ is, literally,
a fluke of nature. That it happened is
not extraordinary for a tree of this size and age."
On impulse Ian takes a black marker from
his pocket and draws a shape on the exposed
insides of the tree. "Roddy," he calls to a
familiar reporter, "what is this?"
The man squints. "That's the moon."
Ian points to Father Reynolds. "A bowl."
"A semicircle," says Professor
Nagel.
Ian sets the cap on his marker with an audible
click. "Perception is a very powerful thing. I
say this isn't the face of Jesus. That's my
opinion. It may or may not be true, and I
can't prove it, and you have the right to doubt what I
say. But by the same token, when Bill
McKinney and Father Reynolds say, "Yes,
this is the face of Jesus," well, that's just an
opinion, too--and one that can't be proved. It
doesn't matter if the pope agrees with them,
or the President, or the majority of the whole
damned world. It's certainly what they see. But
it may or may not be a fact. And if you
don't believe me, how can you believe them?"

"You know, half the time I don't even understand
what he's saying, and I still think he's
terrific," Millie announces. "Look at
that priest. He's practically purple."
Mariah laughs. "Can we turn this off, Ma?
Or is Jerry Springer coming on next?"
"Very funny. He's a poet, Mariah. Just
you listen to him."
"He's using someone else's script,"
Mariah says, as Ian Fletcher lifts up a
Bible and begins to read with heavy sarcasm.
""But the fruit of the tree which is in the middle
of the garden, God hath said Ye shall not eat of it;
neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die."" Faith
comes into the room and slips onto the couch. "I
know that poem."
The funny thing is, the biblical verse
seems familiar to Mariah, too, although she can't
understand why. It has been years since Mariah
has studied a Bible, and as far as she knows,
Faith's never even seen one. She and Colin
had put off their daughter's religious instruction
indefinitely, since neither of them could consider it
without feeling like a hypocrite.
""And the serpent said to the woman ...""
Faith mutters something beneath her breath.
Assuming the worst, Mariah crosses her arms.
"What was that, young lady?"
""Ye shall not surely die.""
As the words leave Faith's mouth, Ian
Fletcher repeats them on TV, and then plucks
an apple from the McKinneys' tree to take a
large, provocative bite. That's when Mariah
recalls where she's heard Fletcher's verses
before--just days ago, when Faith was playing on the
swing set in the middle of the night, humming them
softly. Just days ago, when Faith--who has
never been to church or temple in her young life,
who has never attended Sunday or Hebrew
school--was singing from the Book of Genesis as
if it were any other jump-rope rhyme.

The men and women who work at Pagan
Productions in L.a. keep a healthy distance
from Ian Fletcher, frightened by his bursts of
temper, his ability to turn their own words back
on themselves, and their instinct for self-preservation--
in the event Mr. Fletcher is wrong about God,
they don't want to be cast into the lake of fire
along with him on Judgment Day. They are paid
well to respect their employer's privacy and
to firmly deny requests for interviews. It is
for this reason that no one outside Pagan
Productions knows that Ian leaves every Tuesday
morning, and that no one has any idea of where he
goes.
Of course, people who work for Ian hypothesize like
mad: He has a standing appointment with a
mistress. He attends a witches' coven.
He calls the pope, who is, unbeknownst to his
followers, a silent partner in Pagan
Productions. Several times, on dares, the
bravest employees have tried to follow Ian when
he disappears in his black Jeep. He
manages to lose all of them by winding around the
Los Angeles Freeway. One swears that he
tracked Ian all the way to LAX, but nobody
believes him. After all, where can you fly
round-trip in time to be back for a tape-editing
session that same night?
On the Tuesday morning of the week that Ian
kicks off his grassroots antirevival at the
Jesus Tree, a black stretch limousine
pulls up alongside the Winnebago. Ian is
discussing with James and several associate
producers the reactions his recent comments
have received in the press. "I've got to go," Ian
says, relieved to see the car approach. He's
had to juggle time and make concessions, since this
week he is leaving from Maine rather than L.a.
"You've got to go?" James asks. "Where?"
Ian shrugs. "Places. Sorry, I thought
I mentioned I'd be cutting out early today."
"You didn't."
"Well, I'll be back tonight. We can finish
up then." He grabs his briefcase and his leather
jacket and slams out the door.
Exactly two and one half hours later he
crosses the threshold of a small brick
building. He navigates the hallways with the
confidence of someone who has been there before. Some of the
people he passes nod as he makes his way to the
recreation center, equipped with oak tables and
televisions and chintz couches. Ian heads for a
table in the far corner occupied by a man. Although it
is warm in the room, Michael wears a
crewneck sweater with a button-down oxford
shirt. His hands flutter over a pack of cards,
which he turns over one at a time. "Queen of
diamonds," he murmurs. "Six of
spades."
Ian slips into the chair beside him. "Hey
there," he says softly.
"King of hearts. Two of spades. Seven of
hearts."
"How have you been, Michael?" Ian scoots
closer.
The man's shoulders rock from side to side.
"Six of clubs!" he says firmly.
Ian sighs, nods. "Six of clubs,
buddy." He moves back a distance. He
watches the cards flip in succession: red,
black, red, black. Michael turns over an
ace. "Oh, no," he says. "Ace--"
"In the hole," Ian finishes.
For the first time, Michael makes fleeting eye
contact with Ian. "Ace in the hole," he
echoes, then goes back to counting cards.
Ian sits quietly until exactly one
hour has passed since his arrival--not because
Michael has acknowledged his presence but because he
knows that Michael would notice an absence even
a few minutes shy of the routine. "See you in a
week, buddy," Ian murmurs.
"Queen of clubs. Eight of hearts."
"All right, then," Ian says,
swallowing hard. He walks out of the building and
begins the journey back to Maine.

Something Faith has recently discovered is that
if you squinch up your eyes really tight and rub
them hard with the balls of your thumbs, you see things:
little stars and greeny-blue circles that she
imagines are her irises, as if there's some kind
of mirror on the insides of her eyelids that
makes this vision possible. She pulls at the
edges of her lids and sees a flurry of red, the
color she thinks that anger must be. She has
been doing it a lot, although yesterday, when school
started, it didn't work that well. Willie
Mercer said that only babies would carry a Little
Mermaid lunchbox, and when she whispered to her
guard, trying to ignore him, Willie laughed and
said she was Looney Tunes. So she closed her
eyes to shut him out, and one thing led to another, and
before she knew it the school nurse was calling
home to say that Faith wouldn't stop rubbing her
eyes; it must be conjunctivitis.
"Do your eyes hurt, Faith?" Dr.
Keller asks now.
"No, everyone just thinks they do."
"Yes. Your mom told me about school
yesterday."
Faith blinks, squinting into the fluorescent
lamps. "I wasn't sick."
"No."
"I just like doing it. I see things." She tips
up her chin. "Try it," she challenges.
To her surprise, Dr. Keller actually
takes off her glasses and rubs her eyes the
way Faith has been doing. "I can see something
white. It looks like the moon."
"It's the inside of your eye."
"Is it?" Dr. Keller puts her glasses
back on. "Do you know this for sure?"
"Well, no," Faith admits. "But don't
you think maybe your eyes are still looking around even
when the lids are down?"
"I don't see why not. Do you see your friend
when your eyes are closed like that?"
Faith doesn't like talking about her guard. But
then again, Dr. Keller took off her glasses
and rubbed her eyes, something Faith never imagined
she would do. "Sometimes," Faith says in the
tiniest voice she can manage.
Dr. Keller looks at her
carefully, which hardly anyone else ever bothers
to do. Usually when Faith talks, her mother just
says "Uh-huh" and "Really?" but she's
actually thinking of a gazillion other things while
Faith is trying to tell her something. And Mrs.
Grenaldi, her teacher, doesn't look anyone
in the eye. She stares just over the top of the kids'
heads, as if they all have bugs crawling through the
parts of their hair.
"Have you had your friend a long time?"
"Which friend?" Faith asks, although she knows she
can't fool Dr. Keller.
The psychiatrist leans forward. "Do you have other
friends, Faith?"
"Sure. I play with Elsa and Sarah and with
Gary, when my mother makes me, but Gary wipes
his snot on my clothes when he thinks I'm not
looking."
"I mean other friends like your guard."
"No." Faith considers. "I don't know
anyone else like her."
"Is she here with us now?"
Faith glances around, uncomfortable. "No."
"Does your guard talk to you?"
"Yes."
"Does she ever say scary things to you?"
Faith shakes her head. "She makes me
feel better."
"Does she touch you?"
"Sometimes." Faith closes her eyes and
jams her thumbs into them. "She shakes me at
night to wake me up. And she hugs me a
lot."
"That sounds nice," Dr. Keller says.
"I bet you like that."
Embarrassed, Faith nods. "She says she
loves me best."
"Then she's only your friend? Not anyone
else's?"
"Oh, no," Faith says. "She has other
friends. She just doesn't see them so much right now.
It's like how I used to go over to Brianna's
house all the time, but now she goes to a different
school so I don't get to play with her a
lot."
"Does your guard tell you about her other
friends?"
Faith repeats several names. "She played with
them a long time ago, not anymore."
Dr. Keller has become very quiet.
This is strange; usually she asks Faith questions,
questions, questions until Faith is ready to cover her
ears. Faith watches the doctor's hands, which are
shaking just a little bit, like the way her mother's did
when she was taking pills.
"Faith," Dr. Keller says finally,
"does it ... do you like--" She takes a deep
breath and continues. "Did you ever pray to have a friend
like this?"
Faith wrinkles her nose. "What's
praying?"

From the light in her eyes Mariah knows that
Dr. Keller is on the verge of a breakthrough.
Or maybe it has already happened; it is
difficult to tell, since Faith is playing so
nicely on the other side of the observation window.
Dr. Keller sits down at her desk and
gestures for Mariah to do the same. "Faith
mentioned some names to me today: Herman Joseph, from
Steinfeld. Elizabeth, from Schonau.
Juliana Falconieri." Dr. Keller
glances up.
Mariah shrugs. "I don't think we know
any Hermans. And is Schonau close to here?"
"No, Mrs. White," Dr. Keller says
softly. "It's not."
Mariah laughs nervously. "Well, maybe
she's making those names up. I mean, if she
managed to create an imaginary friend ...?" She
lets her voice trail off, and she feels her
palms begin to sweat, although she does not know why
she's nervous.
Dr. Keller rubs her temples. "Those are
very complicated names for a seven-year-old
to spontaneously invent. And they aren't
fabricated. They are, or were, people who
existed."
More confused, Mariah nods. "Maybe it's
something they're learning in class. Last year
Faith was an expert on the rain forest."
"Does she attend parochial school?"
"Oh, no. We're not Catholic." Mariah
smiles hesitantly. "Why?"
Dr. Keller sits on the edge of the desk,
across from Mariah. "Before I married and became a
psychiatrist, I was Mary Margaret
O'Sullivan from Evanston, Illinois. I
received communion every Sunday and had a big party for
my confirmation and went to parochial school
until I was accepted at Yale. In my
school, I did learn about Herman Joseph.
And Elizabeth, and Juliana. They're
Catholic saints, Mrs. White."
Mariah is speechless. "Well," she says,
because she does not know what is expected.
Dr. Keller begins pacing. "I don't think
we've been hearing Faith just right. Her guard
... the words ... they sound alike."
"What do you mean?"
"Your daughter," Dr. Keller says
flatly. "I think she's seeing God."

THREE

The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.
John Milton,
Paradise Lost

September 20, 1999
At Greenhaven there was a woman who believed
that the Virgin Mary lived in the shell of her ear.
"All the better," she told us, "to whisper
prophecies." From time to time she invited the
nurses and the doctors and the other patients
to look. When it was my turn, I got so close
that for the slightest moment I noticed a pulsing in
some inner pink membrane. "Did you see her?"
she demanded, and I nodded, not certain which of us this
made seem more insane.
Faith has been out of school as much as she's
in, and I haven't worked on one of my
dollhouses in two weeks. We spend more time
at the hospital than in our home. We know
now, thanks to an MRI and a CT scan and a
battery of blood work, that Faith does not have a
brain tumor or a thyroid problem. Dr.
Keller has asked her colleagues about
Faith's behavior, too. "On the one hand,"
she said to me, "almost all adult psychotic
hallucinations have to do with religion, the government,
or the devil. On the other hand, Faith is
functioning in a totally normal way, with no other
psychotic behavior." She wanted to put
Faith on Risperdal, an antipsychotic
drug. If the imaginary friend went away, that would
be that. And if she didn't, well, I would
cross that bridge if and when we came to it.
Faith can't be talking to God; I
know this. But in the next breath I wonder, Why
not? Things have happened before without precedent. And a
good mother would stick up for her child, no matter how
bizarre the story. But then again, if I start
saying that Faith is seeing God, that she isn't
crazy--well, everyone will think that I am.
Again.
To give Faith the Risperdal I have to mash the
pill in a mortar and pestle and mix it with
chocolate pudding to mask the taste. Dr.
Keller says that antipsychotics work fast; that
unlike with Prozac and Zoloft, we don't have
to wait eight weeks to see if it's taken
hold. In the meantime, we just have to wait and see.
Faith is sleeping now, curled on her side
beneath her Little Mermaid comforter. She looks like
any other child. She must know I'm here, because she
stretches and rolls over and opens her eyes.
They are glazed and distant with the Risperdal. She
has always favored Colin in features, but with a
start I realize that right now she looks like me.
For a moment I think back to the months I
spent at Greenhaven--watching the door close
behind me and lock, feeling the prick of the sedative
in my arm, and wondering why Colin and an ER
psychiatrist and even a judge were speaking for me,
when I had so much I wanted to say.
I honestly don't know what would be worse
to find out in this case: that Faith is mentally ill
or that she isn't.

"Sleep," Faith parrots.
"So-Like-Every-Every-P."
"Excellent." Second grade has brought
spelling words our way. "Keep."
"Knowledge-Every-Every-P."
I place the list on top of the kitchen table.
"You got them all right. Maybe you ought to be the
teacher."
"I could be," she says confidently. "My
guard says everyone has things to teach people."
Just like that, I freeze. It has been two
days since Faith's mentioned her imaginary
playmate, and I was beginning to believe the
antipsychotic medicine deserved the credit.
"Oh?" I wonder if I can reach Dr.
Keller by pager. If she'll discontinue the
drug just on the strength of my own observations.
"Your friend is still hanging around?"
Faith's eyes narrow, and I
realize that she hasn't been talking about her
guard for a very important reason: She knows that
it's gotten her into trouble. "How come you want
to know?"
I think about the answer Dr. Keller would
offer: Because I want to help you. And then I
think about the answer my mother would give: Because if
she's important to you, I want to get to know
her. But to my surprise, the words that come from my
mouth are entirely my own. "Because I love you."
It seems to shock Faith as much as it's
shocked me. "Oh ... okay."
I reach for her hands. "Faith, there's something
I want to tell you." Her eyes grow round,
expectant. "A long time ago, before you were
born, I was very upset about something. Instead of
telling people how I felt, I started acting
different. Crazy. I did something that scared a
lot of people, and because of it I was sent somewhere I
really didn't want to be."
"You mean, like ... jail?"
"Kind of. It doesn't matter now. But I
wanted you to know that it's okay to be sad. I
understand. You don't need to act different to get me
to see that you're upset."
Faith's chin trembles. "I'm not upset.
I'm not acting different."
"Well, you didn't always have this guard of
yours."
The tears that have been building in her eyes
spill over. "You think I made her up,
don't you? Just like Dr. Keller and the kids at
school and Mrs. Grenaldi. You think I'm just
doing this to get noticed." Suddenly she draws in
a sharp breath. "And now I'm going to have to go to that
jail place for it?"
"No," I insist, hugging her close.
"You're not going anywhere. And I'm not saying you
made her up, Faith, I'm not. It's just that I
was so sad once that my mind made me believe
something that wasn't true--that's all I'm
saying."
Faith's face digs into my shoulder as she
shakes her head. "She's real. She is."
I close my eyes, rub my thumb against the
bridge of my nose to ward off the headache.
Well, Rome wasn't built in a day. I
stand up and gather an empty platter, left over
from the afternoon's treat of cookies. I am
halfway to the kitchen when Faith tugs
on the bottom of my shirt. "She wants
to tell you something."
"Oh?"
"She knows about Priscilla. And she forgives
you."
The plate I am holding drops to the floor.

When I was eight years old, I wanted a
pet so badly that I began to collect small
creatures--frogs and box turtles and, once,
a red squirrel--and secretly bring them into the
house. It was the turtle crawling over the kitchen
counter that finally turned the tide. Rather than risk
salmonella poisoning, my mother came home one
day with a kitten, mine for the promise that I'd
leave other creatures outdoors.
I named the kitten Priscilla, because she had
been a princess in my favorite library
book that week. I slept with her on my
pillow, her tail curled over my brow like a
beaver hat. I fed her the milk from my cereal
bowls. I dressed her in doll clothes and
bonnets and cotton socks.
One day I decided I wanted to give her a
bath. My mother explained to me that cats hate
to get wet and that they'd lick themselves clean rather than
go anywhere near water to wash. But then again, she'd
said Priscilla wouldn't like being swaddled and
walked in a toy baby carriage, and she'd been
wrong about that. So on a sunny afternoon when I was
playing in the backyard, I filled up a
bucket with water and called for the cat. I waited
until my mother was out of sight and then dunked
Priscilla into the water.
She fought me. She scratched and twisted and still
I managed to hold her in the water, convinced I
knew best. I scrubbed her fur using a bar of
Ivory that I'd stolen from my parents'
bathroom. I was very careful to wash all the trouble
spots my mother always reminded me about. I was so
careful, in fact, that I forgot to let her up
to breathe.
I told my mother that Priscilla must have
fallen into the bucket, and because I was crying so
hard, she believed me. But for years I could
feel the bones shifting beneath the slack fur.
Sometimes, there is a tiny weight in my palm that
I curl my hand around as I sleep.
I never got another cat. And I never told
a soul.

"Mariah," my mother stares at me blankly.
"Why are you telling me now?"
I glance toward my mother's guest bedroom, where
Faith has gone to play with a tin of buttons.
"Did you know?"
"Did I know what?"
"About Priscilla? That I drowned her?"
My mother rolls her eyes. "Well, of
course not. Not until five minutes ago."
"Did Daddy?" My mind is doing
calculations--Faith was only two when my father
died; how much could she remember from back then?
My mother lays a hand on my arm. "Mariah,
are you feeling okay?"
"No, Ma, I'm not. I'm trying to figure
out how my daughter knows a secret about me that I
never in my life shared with anybody. I'm trying
to figure out if I'm having a setback or if
Faith's going crazy, or if--" I break
off, ashamed at what I am about to admit.
"What?"
I look at my mother and then down the hallway,
where the sound of Faith's voice lingers. It is not
something I can just say, the way other mothers brag about
their child's ability to solve math problems or do the
backstroke. It offers up an agenda. It
draws a line, and forces the person I am
speaking with to toe up. "Or if Faith's telling
the truth," I whisper.
"Oh, for God's sake!" my mother
exclaims, scowling. "You are having a
setback."
"Why? Why is it so hard to accept that Faith
might be talking to God?"
"Ask Moses' mother."
Just then, something strikes me. "You don't
believe her! Your own granddaughter!"
My mother peers down the hall to make sure
Faith is still occupied. "Could you lower your
voice?" she hisses. "I didn't say that I
don't believe Faith. I'm just reserving
judgment."
"You believed in me. Even when I tried
to kill myself, when Colin and a judge and the entire
staff at Greenhaven said I had to be committed,
you stuck up for me."
"That was one thing. That was an isolated incident,
and I was going against Colin's word." She throws
up her hands. "People are still being killed in
the name of religion, Mariah."
"So if she was seeing Abraham Lincoln,
or Cleopatra, that would make a difference?
God's not a four-letter word, Ma."
"Still," my mother says. "It might as well
be."

September 23, 1999
In the mail that afternoon I get the electric
bill, the phone bill, and divorced.
The envelope looks official, stamped with the
address of the Grafton County Courthouse and
thick with a sheaf of papers. I slit it open with
my thumb and get a paper cut. Just like that, in
six weeks, my marriage is over. I think of
traditions I've heard from other parts of the world--
Native Americans leaving a man's shoes
outside a tepee; Arabs saying "I divorce
you" three times--and suddenly they don't seem as
silly. I try to imagine Colin and his
attorney, standing in front of the judge at a
meeting I did not even know about. I wonder if
I am supposed to keep this paper in my
safe-deposit box, nestled beside my marriage
license and my passport, but it is hard
to imagine so many years fitting into such a tiny
space.
Suddenly my heart feels too big for my
chest. For years I've done what Colin wanted
me to do. I acted like women I'd once watched
from a distance: wearing boiled-wool jackets and
Lilly Pulitzer prints, inviting his
colleagues' children to tea parties, draping garland
over the mantel at Christmas. I turned into a
shell he could be proud of. I was his wife, and
if I'm not that any longer, I don't really know
what to be.
I try to envision Colin in his college
football uniform. I try to see him grasping
my hand at our wedding. I try, but I can't
succeed--the pictures are too fuzzy or too
distant to do the memory justice. Maybe this is
how it works with failures of the heart. Maybe you
edit your history, so that the stories you tell yourself
become legend, so that accidents never happened.
But then again, all I will have to do is look at
Faith and know that I am only fooling myself.
I toss the mail onto the kitchen table like a
gauntlet. The worst thing about endings is knowing that
just ahead is the daunting task of starting
over.
"God help me," I say, burying my
face in my hands, and I let myself cry.

"Mommy," Faith yells, racing into the
kitchen, "there's a book about me!" She dances
around me as I chop carrots for supper. "Can we
get it? Can we?"
I look down, because I have not seen her this
animated in a while. The Risperdal initially
made her groggy and slow. It is only in the
past day or so that her body seems to have overcome
these side effects. "I don't know. Where did
you hear about it?"
"From my guard," she answers, and I feel that
familiar twist of my insides. Faith pulls
the stool beneath the dry-erase memo board and with great
concentration scrawls I. I. Swerbeh.
"That's the guy who wrote it. Please?"
I look at the carrots, splayed like pickup
sticks on the butcher block. At the chicken,
naked and blushing with paprika, waiting on top
of the oven. The library in town is only a
ten-minute ride. "Okay. Go get your
library card."
Faith is so excited that I feel a pang of
guilt, since I am planning to use this as proof
that her mind is playing tricks. When there is no
I. I. Swerbeh, maybe she'll believe
there is no guard.
Sure enough, there is no record of this author
on either the library's computerized card catalog
or the dusty old shelved one. "I don't know,
Faith. This doesn't look promising."
"At school, the librarian says that because our
town's little, we sometimes have to borrow books from
other libraries at other schools. And we can if
we fill out a piece of paper. So maybe we
just have to ask the librarian here."
Humor her, I think. Holding Faith's
hand, I approach the children's librarian.
"We're looking for a book by an I. I.
Swerbeh."
"A children's book?"
Faith nods. "It's about me."
The librarian smiles. "Well, I guess
you've checked the catalogs. It's not an author
I'm familiar with ..." She stops, tapping her
chin. "How old are you?"
"I'm going to be eight in ten and a
half months."
The librarian squats down to Faith's
level. "How did you find out about this book?"
Faith's eyes dart toward me. "Someone showed
me the name. Wrote it down."
"Ah." The librarian takes a piece of
paper from her desk. "I used to teach first grade.
It's developmentally normal at that age for children
to reverse letters." She writes the author's name
backward. "There you go. Makes a little more
sense."
Faith squints at the word, sounds it out.
"What's a HEBREWS?"
"I think the book you're looking for is right
over here," the librarian says, plucking a
Bible off the reference shelf. She opens up to the
Book of Hebrews, Chapter 11, and winks.
"It is!" Faith crows, spotting the letters of
her name. "It is about me!"
I stare at the page. Forty verses, all about
what has already been accomplished by faith.
Faith begins to read, limping over the words.
""Now faith is the sub ... sub ...""
"Substance."
""The substance of things hoped for,"" she
repeats. ""The evidence of things not seen.""
As she continues, I close my eyes and try
to come up with a valid explanation. Faith might have
seen this before, might have noticed her name sandwiched
between other unfamiliar words. But we don't even
own a Bible.
I have always envied people who believe strongly in
religion, people who could face a tragedy by praying
and know that it would be all right. As unscientific as
it seems, well, it would be nice to lay the
responsibilities and pain on someone else's
larger shoulders.
If you had asked me a month ago whether or
not I believed in God, I would have said yes.
If you had asked me whether I'd like my child to grow
up with that same belief, I would have said yes. I
just wasn't willing to teach it to her.
I hadn't taught it to her.
"Tell your God," I whisper. "Tell her
that I believe."

As far as I know, before this all happened Faith
had asked me only once about God. She was
five, and had just learned the Pledge of
Allegiance in school. ""Under
God,"" she recited to me, and then in the next
breath, "What's God?" I floundered for a
moment, trying to find a way to explain without
dragging religious differences, or for that matter,
Jesus into it.
"Well," I said, thinking of words that she'd
know, "God is kind of like the biggest angel of
all. He's way up in the sky, living in a
place called heaven. And His job is to watch
over us, and make sure we're all doing
okay."
Faith mulled this over for a moment. "He's like
a big baby-sitter."
I relaxed. "Exactly."
"But you said He," Faith pointed out. "All
of my baby-sitters are girls."

As hard as it is to hear Dr. Keller saying
Faith is having psychotic hallucinations of
God, it is harder to consider the alternative.
Things like this do not happen to little girls, I tell
myself during a sleepless night, until I
realize I have no right to make that judgment.
Maybe this is a seven-year-old stage, like
looking for monsters under the bed or falling for
Hanson. The next morning I leave Faith with
my mother and drive to Dartmouth College's
Baker Library. There I ask a librarian
some questions about children's perceptions of God and then
walk through the dark maze of bookshelves until
I find the book she's recommended. I'm
expecting Dr. Spock, some treatise on
child-rearing, but instead she's directed me
to Butler's Lives of the Saints.
Just for the heck of it, I crack the old book
open, figuring I can have a good laugh before I go
about finding Dr. Spock. But before I know it
I've spent the entire day reading about young
Bernadette Soubirous from Lourdes, France,
who in 1858 spoke to the Virgin Mary several
times. About little Juliana Falconieri,
fourteenth century, who saw Christ and let him
give her flower garlands. About other child visionaries
at Fatima. About all these children, some as young as
Faith, some as nonreligious, who were nonetheless
singled out.
I begin to scribble notes on the pad I
keep in my pocketbook. Of all the
visionaries from the thirteenth, fourteenth, and even
nineteenth centuries, the ones who saw
a lady described a blue-mantled Virgin
Mary. The ones who saw a vision in a white
gown, with sandals and long dark hair--the ones who
called it God--all were referring to a man.
All but Faith.

"So?" I whisper, when I get back to my
mother's. "How was she?"
"Fine," my mother booms. "She's not
asleep."
"What I meant is whether she's been ... you
know. Seeing things."
"Oh, right. God."
I push past her and walk into the kitchen, where
I pull a banana from its brothers and begin
to peel the skin. "Yes. T."
My mother shrugs. "It's a stage. You'll
see."
I take a bite of the fruit, which lodges in
my throat. "What if it's not, Ma?" I
ask, swallowing hard. "What if this doesn't go
away?"
My mother smiles gently. "Dr. Keller will
find some other medicine that works."
"No, I don't mean that. I mean ... what
if it's real?"
My mother stops wiping down the counter.
"Mariah, what are you saying?"
"It's happened before. There were other kids who
saw ... things. And Catholic priests and the
pope or someone authenticated it."
"Faith isn't Catholic."
"Well, I know that. I know we've never been
religious. But I'm wondering if that's something
you're given a choice about." I take a deep
breath. "I'm just not sure if you and me and a
psychiatrist are the people who ought to be judging this."
"Who should be?" my mother asks, then rolls her
eyes. "Oh, Mariah. You aren't going to take
her to a priest."
"Why not? They're the ones who have experience with
apparitions."
"They'll want proof. A statue crying
tears, or some paraplegic getting up and
walking."
"That's not true. Sometimes they just go on the
strength of the child's word."
My mother smirks. "And when did you become such
an expert on goyim?"
"This isn't about religion."
"No? Then what is it about?"
"My daughter," I say thickly, as tears
come to my eyes. "There's something different about her,
Ma. Something that people are going to start whispering about and
pointing at. It's not like she has a birthmark I
can hide under a turtleneck and pretend it's not
there."
"What good is it going to do to talk to a
priest?"
I don't know. I have no idea what I've
been hoping for--some sort of exorcism? Some
vindication? Suddenly I can clearly remember
standing on the corner of the street at a red light
years ago, certain that everyone could see the scars
hidden beneath my sleeves. That everyone knew I was
subtly, irrevocably different from them. I
don't want this for my daughter. "I just want
Faith to be normal again," I say.
My mother looks at me squarely. "All
right. You do what you have to. But maybe you shouldn't
start at a church." Rummaging through her ancient,
crammed Rolodex, she extracts a business
card. It's yellowed and dog-eared--either much used
or too long forgotten. "This is the name of the rabbi
in town. Whether or not you want to admit it, your
daughter's Jewish."
Rabbi Marvin Weissman. "I didn't know
you went to temple."
"I don't." She shrugs. "It just sort of
got passed along to me."
I pocket the card. "Fine, I'll call
him first. Not that he's going to believe me. In
all the books I read today, I didn't find a
single Jewish person who had a religious
vision."
My mother rubs her thumbnail on the edge of the
counter. "And what does that tell you?"

Although I've passed the temple in New
Canaan many times, I have never gone inside. It
is dark, musty. Long, thin collages of stained
glass flank the walls at measured intervals,
and a Hebrew-school bulletin board is gaily
decorated with the names of students. Faith shudders
closer to me. "I don't like it here. It's
creepy."
Privately, I agree, but I squeeze
her hand. "It's not creepy. Look at the
pretty windows."
Faith considers the panels and looks
at me again. "It's still creepy."
Down a hallway, there are approaching
footsteps. A man and a woman stride into the
entryway, still arguing. "Is there anything nice you
can say?" the woman shouts. "Or do you just go out of
your way to make me look like an idiot?"
"Do I look like I'm trying to get you
upset?" the man thunders. "Do I?" Oblivious
to Faith and me, they yank their jackets from
hangers in the coatroom. Faith cannot take her
eyes off the couple. "Don't," I whisper.
"It's not polite to stare."
But still she watches them, her eyes wide and
sad and oddly trancelike. I wonder if she is
remembering Colin and me, if the fights we
tried to muffle behind a closed bedroom door still
managed to carry. The couple walks out the door,
their anger palpably linking them, as if they are
holding tight to the hands of their only child.
Suddenly Rabbi Weissman appears, wearing
an ombr`e plaid shirt and jeans. He is no
older than I am. "Mrs. White. Faith.
I'm sorry about being late. I had a previous
appointment." The angry couple. were they here for
some kind of counseling? Was that what other people did
when their marriages were falling apart?
When I continue to say nothing, he smiles
quizzically. "Is there something wrong?"
"No." I shake my head, well and truly
caught. "It's just that I always expect rabbis
to have long, gray beards."
He pats his smooth-shaven cheeks. "Ah,
you've been watching Fiddler on the Roof too
much. What you see is what you get." He
slips a hard candy into Faith's hand and winks.
"Why don't we all come into the sanctuary?"
Sanctuary. Yes, please.
The main room of the temple has high beams
and a fluted ceiling, pews neatly set like teeth
and a bema covered with a rectangle of blue
velvet. The rabbi pulls a small pack of
crayons from the pocket of his shirt and gives them
to Faith, along with a few sheets of paper.
"I'm going to show your mom something. Would that be
okay?"
Faith nods, already pulling out the colors. The
rabbi leads me to the back of the room, where we have
a clear view of Faith, and also privacy. "So
your daughter is talking to God."
Put so bluntly, it makes me
blush. "I think so, yes."
"And the reason you wanted to see me?"
Shouldn't that be evident? "Well, I used
to be Jewish. I mean, I was raised that way."
"You've converted, then."
"No. I just sort of lapsed out of it, and then
married an Episcopalian."
"You're still Jewish," the rabbi says. "You can
be an agnostic Jew, a nonpracticing Jew,
but you're still a Jew. It's like being part of a
family. You have to screw up pretty badly
to get kicked out."
"My mother says that Faith's Jewish, too.
Technically. That's why I'm here."
"And Faith's talking to God." It's just the
slightest movement, but I incline my head.
"Mrs. White," the rabbi says. "Big
deal."
"Big deal?"
"Lots of Jews talk to God. Judaism
assumes a direct relationship with Him. The
issue isn't whether Faith is talking to God
... but rather if God is talking to her."
I mention the quote from Genesis that Faith
sang like a nursery rhyme, the chapter in the
Bible. I tell him of my drowned kitten, the
story that no one else ever knew. When I'm
finished, Rabbi Weissman asks, "Has
God given your daughter any messages? Any
suggestions for rooting out the evil in the world?"
"No, she hasn't."
The rabbi pauses. "She?"
"That's what Faith tells me."
"I'd like to speak to her," Rabbi Weissman
says.

A half hour after I leave the rabbi sitting
with Faith in the sanctuary, he joins me in the
entryway of the temple. "Maimonides," he
says, as if we have been in the middle of a
conversation, "tried to explain the "face" of
God. It's not a real face, because that would make
God no better, really, than a man. It's a
presence, a sense that God is aware. Just as
God makes us in His own image, we make
Him in our image, too--so it makes sense in
our own heads. According to the Midrash, there were several
incidents when God was revealed in form. At one,
the Red Sea crossing, God appeared as a young
warrior and hero. At Sinai God
appeared as an elderly judge. Why did God
look like a judge at Sinai and not at the Red
Sea? Because at the Red Sea the people needed a
hero. An old man would not have fit." He
turns to me. "Of course, this is something you're
familiar with."
"No. I've never heard it before."
"Really?" Rabbi Weissman scrutinizes
me. "I asked Faith if she could draw a
picture of the God she sees." He hands me a
sheet of paper, crayoned on one side. I
prepare to be unimpressed--after all, I've
seen Faith draw this imaginary friend before. But this
picture is different. A woman dressed in
white sits on a chair, cradling ten babies
in her arms, babies that are black, white, red,
and yellow. And although the artwork is crude, this
mother's face looks something like my own.
"Are you saying she thinks God looks like
me?" I ask finally.
Rabbi Weissman shrugs. "I'm not saying
anything. But other people might."

Dressed as he is in a slick Italian
suit, with his neatly combed hair and his crisp
manners, Dr. Grady De Vries, expert
on childhood schizophrenia, does not look like
the kind of man who would spend the better part of
three hours down on the floor beside Faith,
playing with the bald Barbie. And yet I've been
sitting at the observation window watching him do just
that. After some time he and Dr. Keller come through the
adjoining door to the psychiatrist's office.
"Mrs. White," Dr. Keller says, "Dr.
De Vries would like to speak to you."
He sits down in a chair across from me. "You
want the good news or the bad news?"
"Good."
"We're taking Faith off the Risperdal.
Your daughter is not psychotic. I've studied
psychosis in children for over twenty years. I've
published books and papers on it and have been an
expert witness at trials and--well, you get the
idea. Faith is, in all manners but one, a
mentally healthy and reasonably content
seven-year-old girl."
"What's the bad news?"
Dr. De Vries rubs at his eyes with a
thumb and forefinger. "That Faith is hearing something,
and talking to someone. There's too much knowledge
there, that's age- and situationally inappropriate,
to chalk it up to a figment of her imagination. But
it's not a physical illness, and it doesn't
appear to be a mental one either." He glances at
Dr. Keller. "With your permission, I'll ask
Dr. Keller to present this case next week
at a psychiatric symposium, to see if our
colleagues might have some answers."
Through the observation glass I watch Faith
launch a Sky Dancer into the air. When it hits
the fluorescent lights, she laughs and tries
to do it again. "I don't know ... I don't
want her to be some kind of spectacle."
"She won't be present, Mrs. White.
And the case will be presented anonymously."
"If you do this, will you figure out what the problem
is?"
Dr. De Vries and Dr. Keller
exchange a look. "We hope so, Mrs.
White," he says. "But it may not be something we
can fix."

FOUR

There lives more faith in honest doubt,
Believe me, than in half the creeds.
--Alfred, Lord Tennyson

September 27, 1999
When Allen McManus is assigned to cover
symposiums, he looks upon it as an extra
six hours of sleep. From time to time enough highbrow
doctors congregate at the Boston Harbor
Hotel to warrant sending out a stringer from The
Boston Globe. No matter that most of the time
Allen McManus writes obituaries--he's
the one who gets sent. Obviously his
editor-in-chief realizes the connection: Most of
these godawful conferences are enough to bore a person
to death.
Allen slouches in the rear of the auditorium.
He's already written down the name of the
symposium, which he figures is enough for the two
lines of type it deserves. He's ready
to cover his face with his hat and take a nap. But
then an attractive woman walks up to the
podium. That sparks Allen's curiosity. After
all, in spite of his profession, he's
not dead yet. Most of the speakers at these
symposiums are crusty old turds who remind
him alternately of his father and the priest from his
childhood in Southie who used to rap his
knuckles when he didn't quite measure up as
altar boy. He sits up, interested in his
surroundings for the first time that day.
The woman is slender and fine-boned, her
no-nonsense hair sluiced behind her ears as she
settles her notes on the podium. "Good
morning, I'm Dr. Mary Keller." Allen
watches her eyes flicker over her notes,
hesitate. "Ladies and gentlemen," she
says, "given the unorthodox subject I'm
about to present, I'm not going to read my prepared
paper. Instead I'd like to tell you about two case
studies. The first is a current patient, seven
years old, whose mother brought her in for treatment. The
subject has developed an imaginary friend, one
that she refers to as her God. The second case
study occurred over thirty years ago." Dr.
Keller tells of a child at parochial school,
forced to kneel for long stretches as penitence. She
talks of a day when this five-year-old felt
something stir beside her, something warm and solid, only
to turn and see nothing at all.
"The question I place before you today is this," Dr.
Keller says. "If there is no physical
component to a delusion, if there is no
diagnostic framework in which to fit the behaviors
as a generally accepted mental illness, what are
we left with as a diagnosis?"
Allen can feel the doctors in the row before him
subtly shifting. Holy cow, he thinks,
guessing where she's headed. This woman is
committing professional suicide.
"If physical and mental illness is ruled
out, is it within the realm of a psychiatrist
to authenticate the behavior? To say that,
possibly, the delusion is really a vision?"
She slowly runs her eyes over the entire
disbelieving audience. "The reason I am asking
you this is that I know for a fact that at least one, if
not both of these subjects, is telling the truth.
I know this because the child kneeling in the chapel, and
feeling ... something indescribable ... was me.
And because thirty years later, in my own office with
another child as a subject, I have felt it again."
Allen McManus tears his eyes away from
Dr. Keller, slips out the back of the
auditorium, and places a call to his
editor.

At the departure gate Colin watches
Jessica check their tickets for the hundredth
time. She looks like any other business
traveler, with her tailored suit and laptop
case--she looks like Colin himself. To see her,
no one would know that at the end of this ten-day sales
conference in Las Vegas, she plans to get
married in a drive-through church and gamble her way
through a weeklong honeymoon.
"Are you excited?" she purrs, leaning into him.
"Because I am."
"I, uh, need to hit the bathroom." Colin
gives her a smile and walks off, ostensibly
toward the men's room. He does not know how he
feels about getting married in Las Vegas.
Performed by a hack justice of the peace, with an
Elvis impersonator serenading them and bargain
bouquets available for five dollars a pop, it
will be considerably different from his wedding to Mariah.
It had been Jessica's idea. They were
headed to Vegas anyway for the conference. "Besides"--
she had laughed, rubbing her abdomen--"imagine the
stories we can tell him."
He wonders now if his marriage to Mariah
might have lasted, had he married her at the Light
of the Moon chapel in Vegas instead of at St.
Thomas's in Virginia, with more pomp and
circumstance than a royal wedding. If he'd
been willing to do--what was it called? the hora!--
or break a glass beneath his foot, if he hadn't
just assumed that his way was the right way, maybe their
differences wouldn't have been so pronounced. As it
is, Colin blames himself for what happened to his
ex-wife. He asked her to bend to his wishes so
much that she actually broke.
Instead of entering the men's room, Colin sits
down in a narrow phone cubicle and calls his
former home. "Mariah," he says when she
answers.
There is a moment's pause. "Colin." Even
though he tries not to, he can hear the thread of
delight wrapped around her voice. It makes
him uncomfortable; it always has. Who in his right
mind wants to be someone else's savior?
Colin presses his forehead against the metal
wall of the booth and tries to find the words for what
he must say. "How's Faith's
back?" he asks instead.
"Much better. She's wearing shirts now."
"Good."
In the silence that follows, Colin suddenly
remembers how uncomfortable Mariah once was with
spaces in conversation. She'd rush into sentences,
chatter about nothing, rather than sit through the delay.
Yet here she is, closemouthed, as if she is
trying to hold in a secret just as much as he is.
"You're okay?" she finally asks.
"Yeah. Headed to Las Vegas for a conference."
"Oh," she says softly, flatly, and he
knows what she means with that one word: How is it
your life has gone on? "I guess you're
calling for Faith, then."
"Is that ... would it be okay?"
"You're her father, Colin. Of course it's
okay."
There is a shuffle of static, and before Colin can
say anything else to Mariah, Faith is on the
line. "Hi, Daddy."
"Hey, cupcake." He wraps the metal
snake of the phone line around his arm. "I wanted
to tell you I'm going away for a few weeks."
"You always go away."
It strikes Colin that she is right. With the amount
of travel he does for his job, his memories of
Faith--and presumably hers of him--almost always
involve good-byes or reunions. "But I always
miss you."
"I miss you, too." Faith sniffs and hands
the phone back to Mariah.
"Sorry," she says. "She's a little
unpredictable these days."
"Well. It's understandable."
"Sure."
"She's just a kid."
"I know. I'm sure she appreciates that you
called."
Colin marvels at how strange they both
sound: Mariah's words had once rifled over him
like waves on the beach, continuous patter about
dry-cleaning tickets and school conferences and
sales at the grocery store that he never really
listened to, never noticed, until they stopped and
he saw with surprise that he was buried up to his
neck in the sand of this marriage. He wonders how
you can go in the blink of an eye from speaking words that
are as thoughtlessly dropped as pocket change to this,
where even the most benign conversation wrings
you dry.
"So ... was that all?" Mariah hesitates just
the slightest moment before asking, "Or did you
want to talk to me?"
There are so many things to discuss: the wedding, how
Mariah's faring, how odd it seems to be miles
apart and still feel as if there is a high, deep
wall he is peering around. "That was all," Colin
says.

September 29, 1999
Ian pays three people just to read the newspapers
from around major cities in the United States and
Europe. Every morning at eight o'clock these
assistants are expected to report to his
office with two dubious mystical events. On
a morning two weeks into his Grassroots
AntiRevival Campaign, they sit in the
tight quarters of the Winnebago. "All right,
now." Ian turns to David, his youngest
employee. "What did you dig up?"
"Two-headed chicken and a
seventy-five-year-old who gave birth."
"Get out," scoffs Yvonne. "The
record's that Florida woman."
The story doesn't particularly move Ian
either. "What have you got that's better?"
"Crop circles in Iowa."
"I don't want to get mixed up with that.
Believing in God and believing in aliens are two
completely different ruses. Wanda?"
"There's a bizarre source of a light at the
bottom of a Montana well."
"Sounds like radioactive waste. Anything
else?"
"Well, as a matter of fact, yes. In
Boston there was some excitement at a
psychiatric symposium."
Ian grins. "There's an oxymoron."
"Yeah, I know. It seems some doctor
tossed out the idea that if a delusion can't be
disproved, it just might be real."
"That's my kind of shrink. What delusion,
exactly?"
"The psychiatrist has a patient--a girl
--who she thinks might be seeing God."
Ian's body begins to hum. "Is that so?
Who's the kid?"
"I don't know. Psychiatrists don't
release names at these symposiums.
They're just "the subject."" Wanda fishes in
her jeans pocket. "I did get the
psychiatrist's name, though," she says, handing
Ian a piece of paper.
"Miz Mary Margaret Keller," Ian
reads. "She couldn't disprove a delusion, huh?
She's probably had the kid studied by fifty people
just like her. What she needs is someone like me."

When there is a knock on the door, Rabbi
Weissman looks up from his books. Groaning,
he realizes it's ten o'clock. Time for another
counseling session with the Rothmans.
For the briefest of moments he considers
pretending that he's not there. There is nothing he
dislikes more than sitting while the Rothmans sling
insults at each other with such vitriolic force that
he fears being caught in the crossfire. He
understands the role of the rabbi when it comes to helping
members of his congregation, but this? Marital
therapy? The rabbi shakes his head. More like target
practice.
With a sigh, Rabbi Weissman fixes a
smile on his face and opens the office door,
momentarily stunned by the sight of Eve and Herb
Rothman kissing in the hall.
They break away with a flurry of embarrassed
apologies. Rabbi Weissman watches with
disbelief as the couple pulls the two armchairs
closer together before sitting down. Surely this
isn't the same man who last week called his
wife a scheming cow bent on milking him of his
hard-earned money. Surely this isn't the same
woman who last week said that the next time her
husband came home smelling like a harem she would
slice off his baytsim in the middle of the night.
"Well," he says, raising a questioning brow.
Eve's fingers tighten on her husband's. "I
know," she says shyly. "Isn't it wonderful?"
"It's better than wonderful," Herb
enthuses. "It's not that we don't love you,
Rabbi, but Evie and I aren't going to be needing
your services anymore."
Rabbi Weissman smiles. "That's the kind
of rejection I like. What brought this about?"
"It was no one thing," Eve admits. "I just
started feeling differently."
"Me, too," Herb says.
If the rabbi recalls correctly, he had
to separate the couple like two
prizefighters at the last meeting, to keep them from
physically assaulting each other. The Rothmans
talk for a few more minutes, then wish the rabbi
well and leave the office. Rabbi Weissman
stares after them, shaking his head. God has truly
intervened. Even He would have laid down odds that the
Rothman marriage was too far gone to fix.
It certainly wasn't anything that he said--he
would have clearly remembered a breakthrough in this
case. He would have marked it down on a Post-it,
left a note to himself on his calendar. But there's
no record from last week in the datebook,
nothing at all.
There's just the time of their meeting, and recorded
beneath it, at 11:00 A.m., the name of little
Faith White.

In the middle of the night Faith wakes up and
curls her hands into fists. They hurt enough to make
her whimper, just like the time Betsy Corcoran had
dared her to hold on to the flagpole on the
coldest day of last winter and her skin had nearly
frozen right to the metal. She rolls over and
stuffs her hands beneath her pillow, where the sheets are
still cool.
But that doesn't help either. She fidgets a
little bit more, wondering if she ought to get up and
pee now that she's awake or just sit here and wait
for her hands to stop hurting. She doesn't want
to go in to her mother yet. Once she'd gotten up in
the middle of the night and her foot had felt like the
size of a watermelon and all tingly, but her mother
had said it was just pins and needles and to go back
to bed. Even though there were no pins and needles on
the floor, and when Faith had checked, there were none
sticking out of the sole of her foot either.
She rolls over again and sees her guard
sitting on the edge of the bed. "My hands hurt,"
she whimpers, and lifts them for inspection.
Her guard leans forward to look. "It will only
hurt for a little while."
That makes Faith feel better. It's like when
she's hot and sick sometimes and her mother gives her
the little pills that she knows will make her headache
disappear. Faith watches her guard lift her
left hand first, and then her right, and put a kiss
right in the middle of each palm. Her lips are so
warm that Faith jumps at first and pulls her hands
back. When she looks down, she can see it: her
guard's kiss printed on her skin in a
red circle. Thinking it is lipstick, Faith
tries to rub at it with her thumb, but it does not
come off.
Her guard carefully folds Faith's fingers
shut, making a fist. Faith giggles; she
likes the idea of holding fast to a kiss.
"See how I love you?" her guard says, and
Faith smiles all the way back to sleep.

September 30, 1999
It would be nice if Ian could say that his sixth
sense for rooting out deception is what leads him
directly to Faith White, but it is not true.
Like any other master planner, he knows that the best
way to stay informed is to keep a finger in every pot.
So after Dr. Keller flatly refuses a
meeting with him, he sets into motion Plan B.
It takes a half hour to find a supply
closet in the local hospital and to locate a
pair of clean scrubs. Ten minutes to brief
Yvonne with the pertinent information and watch her walk
through the sliding glass hospital doors,
dressed to blend in.
She comes back fifteen minutes later, her
face glowing. "I walked straight up to the
scheduling nurse for MRI'S and told her that
Dr. Keller hadn't received the reports back
on a seven-year-old patient. So she goes,
"Oh, Faith White?"' and she looks it up
in her computer and says they were sent out a week
ago. Faith White," she repeats. "Just like
that."
But Ian has moved on. He's already running
his finger down the long line of Whites in the phone
book. Pulling his cell phone from his pocket,
he calls the first name on the list. "Hello.
I'm looking for Faith White's mother? Oh.
My apologies."
He does it twice more, with no success, and
then reaches an answering machine: "You have reached
Colin, Mariah, and Faith. Please leave a
message."
Ian circles the address and looks up at
his employees. "Bingo."

New Canaan is not an easy town to get
around. With the exception of Main Street, which
turns into the sturdier and more serviceable Route 4
on both ends, there is not much that stands out. The
school, the police station, the
hairdresser, the professional building, and the
Donut King are the sentries that let you know
you're passing through New Canaan. But unless you
know your way through the narrow lanes that run between
cornfields or up winding paths that cut over
Bear Mountain, you do not realize that you're missing
the farmhouses and old Capes where the residents
of New Canaan actually live.
The members of the Order of the Great Passion
mill in and around the Donut King. Tired and
irritable from their cross-country trek from
Sedona, they seem more driven to find the nearest
restroom than a new Messiah--the original
goal that brought them to New Canaan. Brother
Heywood, their leader, walks across Main
Street, looking over the stretch of land that belongs
to a registered Holstein farm. New Canaan,
he thinks. The land of milk and honey. But truth
be told, he has no idea if he's led his
flock to the right place. The Messiah might just
as well be in New England, New York,
New Brunswick. From his pocket he withdraws
a set of runes and casts them into the dirt at his
feet. He is rubbing one of the carved stones against
his thumb when he is nearly suffocated by a blast
of grit and dirt.
The Winnebago that comes flying too fast around
the corner sends Brother Heywood stumbling
back. He gets to his feet and shades his
eyes, trying to get the license-plate number--
not that he plans to report it, having subscribed
to a noninterventionist philosophy some years
ago, but old habits die hard. However, his
eye is drawn from the blue license plate to the
brightly painted fireball emblazoned on the
recreational vehicle's rear door.
Brother Heywood stuffs his runes back
into his caftan and from a second pocket quickly
extracts a pair of folding binoculars.
IAN FLETCHER, he reads. THE SEARCH
FOR TRUTH.
Well, you'd have to be living under a rock to not
know the name Ian Fletcher. His face is on a
billboard right on the outskirts of Sedona, and
his show is syndicated to kingdom come. In a way
Heywood's fancied himself like the teleatheist--
willing to buck the system and face public
ridicule all in the name of religion.
Except that Brother Heywood's expectations
for the final outcome are considerably
different from Ian Fletcher's.
Still, he knows what Fletcher does for a living,
and he's heard about the antievangelical
cross-country tour. There's only one reason
he can think of that would make Ian Fletcher come
to New Canaan, New Hampshire--and it
means that the Order hasn't been on a joyride
after all. Making sure no one is watching,
Brother Heywood lifts the binoculars and
mentally maps out the path to a distant white
farmhouse, the place where the Winnebago finally
comes to a stop.

On Thursday Mariah spends the morning
watching the video Agnes of God, and so
gets a late start food shopping. When she
pulls up to the elementary school, ready to pick
Faith up for the day, the trunk is full of
groceries. The bell rings, and Mariah takes
up her usual position, beside a large maple
tree at the edge of the first-grade classroom
pod, but Faith does not appear. She waits
until the last of the children have dribbled out of the school,
then walks into the office.
Faith is huddled on the overstuffed purple
couch beside the secretary's desk, crying, her
leggings torn at the knees and her hair straggling
out of its braid and sticking against her damp
cheeks. She's stretched out her sleeves and
hidden her fists inside them. She wipes her
nose on the fabric. "Mommy, can I not go
to school anymore?"
Mariah feels her heart contract. "You
love school," she says, dropping to her
knees, as much to comfort Faith as to block the
curious gaze of the school secretary. "What
happened?"
"They make fun of me. They say I'm
crazy."
Crazy. Filled with a righteous fury,
Mariah slips an arm around her daughter. "Why
would they say that?"
Faith hunches her shoulders. "Because they heard
me talk to ... her."
Mariah closes her eyes and makes a
silent appeal--to whom?--to solve this, and fast.
She pulls Faith upright and holds her mittened
hand, tugging her out of the main office. "You know
what? Maybe you can stay home from school, just for
tomorrow. We can do things, you and me, all
day."
Faith turns her face up to her mother's. "For
real?"
Mariah nods. "I used to take special
holidays sometimes with Grandma." Her jaw
tightens as she remembers what her mother had
called it: a mental-health day.
They drive through the winding roads of New
Canaan, Faith slowly beginning, in bits and
pieces, to relay the school day to Mariah. At
the turn to their driveway, Mariah rolls down
the window and picks up the mail, marking the number
of parked cars lining the road. Hikers, or
birdwatchers, taking to the field across the road.
They get that up here quite often. She continues
to drive, and then she sees the crowd that surrounds
the house.
There are vans and cars, and for God's sake, a
big painted Winnebago.
"Wow," Faith breathes. "What's going on?"
"I don't know," Mariah says tightly.
She turns off the ignition and steps from the car
into a throng of nearly twenty people. Immediately
cameras begin flashing, and questions are hurled at her
like javelins. "Is your daughter in the car?"
"Is God with her?" "Do you see God, too?"
When Faith's door cracks open, the questions
stop. Mariah watches her daughter get out of the
car and stand nervously on the slate path that leads
up to the house. Lining it are a dozen men and women
in caftans, who bow their heads as Faith looks
at them. Standing behind, and slightly apart, is a
man smoking a thin cigar. The face seems
familiar to Mariah. With a start she realizes that
she's seen him on TV--IAN Fletcher himself
is leaning against her crab-apple tree.
Suddenly Mariah knows exactly what is
going on. Somehow, some way, people are beginning to hear
about Faith. Feeling sick, she wraps an arm
around her daughter's shoulders and steers her up the
porch. She pulls Faith into the house with her and
locks the door.
"How come they're here?" Faith peeks out the
sidelight and is yanked away by her mother before she
can be seen.
Mariah rubs her temples. "Go to your
room. Do your homework."
"I don't have any."
"Then find some!" Mariah snaps. She
walks into the kitchen and picks up the
phone, tears already thickening her throat. She
needs to call the police, but she dials a
different number first. When her mother answers on the
second ring, Mariah lets the first sob out.
"Please come," she says, and she hangs up.
She sits at the kitchen counter, her palms
spread on the cool Formica. She counts to ten.
She thinks of the milk and the peaches and the broccoli
sitting in the trunk of her car, already beginning
to rot.

Ian Fletcher is very good at doing his job.
He is ruthless, he is driven, he is
single-minded. So he fixes his eyes on the little
girl, this next subject of his, and watches
her get out of the car.
But his attention wanders to the woman beside Faith
White. The look of fear on her face, her
unconscious grace, the instinctive slip of her
arm over her daughter--all draw Ian's eye.
She is small and fine-boned, with hair the
color of old gold. It is pulled back from
her face, which is pale and free of makeup and quite
possibly the most naturally lovely thing Ian
has seen since climbing the falls in South
America. She's not classically beautiful, not
perfect, but somehow that only makes her more
interesting. Ian shakes his head to clear it. He
carouses with models and movie stars--he should not be
swayed by a woman with the face of an angel.
An angel? The very thought is traitorous,
ludicrous. It's the goddamned Winnebago,
he decides. Spending the night on a foam
cot, instead of a deluxe hotel mattress, is
aggravating his insomnia to the point where he can't
think straight, to the point where anyone with a pair of
X chromosomes becomes attractive.
Ian focuses on Faith White, walking
beneath her mother's arm. But then he makes the
mistake of glancing up--and meets the gaze of
Mariah White. Cool, green, angry.
Let the battle begin, Ian thinks,
unwilling and unable to look away until she
firmly shuts the door.

"Name one thing--other than the existence of God
--that we take on blind faith," Ian
challenges, his voice rising like a call to arms
over the small group of people gathered to listen.
News of Ian's presence has by now
attracted a number of onlookers, in addition
to several members of the press. "There's nothing!
Not a single thing. Not even the sun rising every day.
I know it's going to be there, but that's something I can
prove scientifically."
He leans against the railing of a wooden platform
hastily erected beside the Winnebago for media
moments like these. "Can I prove God is there?
No."
He watches people from the corner of his eye,
whispering to each other, maybe even
second-guessing what made them come to see this
miraculous Faith White in the first place.
"You know what faith is, what religion is?"
He looks pointedly at the scarlet-suited
members of the Order of the Great Passion, gathered
close with scowls on their faces. "It's a
cult. Who gives us religion? Our parents
brainwash us when we're four or five and most
receptive to fantastical ideas. We're
told we have to believe in God, so we do."
Ian raises a hand in the direction of the
White farmhouse. "And now the word of a little girl
who--I might add--is just at the right age
to believe in fairies and goblins and the Easter
Bunny as well--is enough to convince you?" He
levels the crowd with a calculated gaze. "I
ask all y'all again: What else do we
believe in with blind faith?"
At the profound silence, Ian grins.
"Well, let me help you out. The last thing you
believed in with absolute, unshakable conviction was
... Santa Claus." He raises his brows.
"No matter how impossible it seemed, no
matter how much evidence to the contrary, when you were a
child you wanted to believe, and so you did. And as
rude as the comparison sounds, it's not all that
different from believing in the existence of God. They
both grant a boon based on whether you've been
naughty or nice. They both go about their work without
being seen. They rely heavily on the assistance of
mythical creatures--elves in one case,
angels in the other."
Ian lets his eyes touch on one of the cult
members, one local reporter, one mother clutching
an infant. "So how come y'all don't believe
in Santa nowadays? Well, because you grew up,
and you realized how impossible the whole thing was.
Santa Claus went from being a fact to being a
real good story, one to pass on to your
children. The same way your parents told you about
God when you were a kid." He hesitates for a
moment, letting the silence thicken. "Can't you see
that God's a myth, too?"

Millie Epstein slams her car door
violently. Mariah's beautiful old farmhouse
is flocked by lunatics, from what she can see.
At least twenty people are milling around on the long
driveway, some even bold enough to trample the
grass edging the front porch. These include a
handful wearing bizarre red nightgowns, a few
curious locals, and two vans with television
call letters spangled across their sides, complete
with reporters. Millie shoves them all out of
her way until she reaches the porch, where she
finds the chief of police. "Thomas," she
says. "What kind of circus is this?"
The police chief shrugs. "Just got here
myself, Mrs. Epstein. From what I can tell,
based on the reporters over there, there's one
group saying that your granddaughter is Jesus or
something. Then there's another guy who's saying that not
only is Faith not Jesus, but that Jesus
doesn't exist."
"Can't we get them off Mariah's lawn?"
"I was just about to do that myself," he admits.
"Course, I can only keep 'em as far back
as the road. It's a public venue."
Millie surveys the group. "Can we talk
to Faith?" a reporter shouts. "Bring her out!"
"Yeah!"
"Bring out the mother, too!"
The voices crescendo, and, horrified, all
Millie can do is listen. Then she crosses her
arms over her chest and stares out at the crowd. "This
is private property; you don't belong here.
And you're talking about a child. A child. Would you
really take the word of a seven-year-old?"
From the front of the crowd comes the sound of someone
clapping, slowly, deliberately. "My
congratulations, ma'am," Ian Fletcher
drawls. "A rational statement, right in the middle
of a maelstrom. Imagine that."
He comes into Millie's line of vision,
continuing to walk forward until she can see that it is
Ian Fletcher, the one from the TV show, and that as
handsome as he is and as mellifluous his voice,
she knows that she's made a horrible error in
judgment ever to have found him attractive.
Millie's tossed the crowd a crumb of doubt,
just so that they'll have something to feed on other than her
granddaughter. But this man ... this man scatters
doubt in order to have them all eating out of the palm of
his hand.
"I suggest you leave," Millie says
tightly. "My granddaughter is of no interest
to you."
Ian Fletcher flashes a smile. "Is that
a fact? So you don't believe your own
granddaughter? I guess you know that a child who says
she's talking to God is just that ... a child who
says she's talking to God. No bells, no
whistles, not even any miracles. Just a group
of fawning cult members who are already three
shades shy of reputability. But that's certainly
not enough to create a frenzy over, is it now?"
His words are honeyed; they run over Millie
and root her to the porch. "Ma'am, you're a
woman after my own heart."
Millie narrows her eyes and opens her mouth
and then, clutching her chest, falls to the ground at
Ian's feet.

Mariah throws open the front door and
kneels over her mother. "Ma!" she cries,
shaking Millie's slack shoulders. "Call an
ambulance!"
There are a few scattered camera flashes.
Ignoring them, Mariah bends over Millie,
leaning her ear close to her mother's mouth. But she
feels no breath, no telltale stir of her
hair. It's her heart, it's her heart, she
knows it. She squeezes her mother's hand, certain
that if she lets go just the tiniest bit, she will
lose her.
Moments later the ambulance roars up the
driveway, spraying gravel, getting as close
as it can given the m`elange of vans and news
trucks and the Winnebago. The paramedics race
up the porch stairs. One gently pulls
Mariah out of the way and the other begins to do CPR.
"Oh, God," Mariah whispers, her voice
tiny. "Oh, God. God. Oh, my God."
Oh, guard. Guard. Oh, my guard.
From the hiding spot where she has been huddled
since sneaking out of the house, Faith's head swings
up. And her summons sounds so much like her mother's
that for the first time she realizes what she's been
saying all along.

Ian watches Mariah White tearfully
argue with the paramedics, who refuse to let Faith
ride along in the ambulance. The chief of
police intercedes, promising to bring her daughter
down to the hospital as soon as backup arrives
to get everyone off her property. With his hands in his
pockets, he watches the ambulance roar out of the
driveway.
"Nice work."
Ian startles at the voice and finds his
executive producer holding out a set of car
keys. "Here you go. You'll get network
coverage tonight for sure."
For badgering an old woman into cardiac
arrest. "Well, now," Ian says. "Can't
ask for much more'n that."
"So what are you waiting for?"
Ian clutches the keys. "Right," he says,
falling quickly into James's expectations and
looking around for the producer's BMW. He
doesn't even bother calling for a cameraman,
knowing they'll never be allowed to set foot in the
hospital. "Don't go drag-racing my
Winnebago," he shouts, then speeds off.
In the ER waiting room he watches the
fuzzy-reception TV, tuned to kiddie
cartoons. There is no sign of Mariah
White. Faith arrives ten minutes later in the
company of a young policeman. They sit a few
rows away, and every now and then she turns in her
seat to stare at Ian.
It's downright disconcerting. Ian hasn't got
much of a conscience, so his work rarely puts him in a
contemplative state of mind. After all, the people
he usually upsets the most are the goddamned
Southern Baptists, of which he was once one and
who, in Ian's mind, are so busy swallowing their
daily doses of Jesus that they need to come up
choking on their self-righteousness from time to time.
Once a woman fainted clear away in the
middle of his Central Park speeches, but that
isn't at all the same thing. Faith White's
grandma--Ian doesn't even know her name--
well, what happened happened partly because of something
he'd said, something he'd done.
It's a story, he tells himself.
She's no one you know, and it's your story.
The policeman's beeper goes off. He
checks it, then turns to Faith and asks
her to stay put. On his way to a bank of
phones, the cop stops at the triage nurse's
desk and speaks quietly, no doubt asking the
woman to watch the kid for a minute.
When Faith turns to stare at him again, Ian
closes his eyes. Then he hears her small,
thin voice. "Mister?"
She is suddenly sitting beside him. "Hello,"
he says, after a moment.
"Is my grandma dead?"
"I don't know," Ian admits. She
doesn't respond, and--curious--he glances
down at her. Faith huddles against the armrest of the
chair, brooding. He doesn't see someone
touched by God. He sees a scared little girl.
"So," he says, uncomfortably trying
to ease her mind. "I bet you like the Spice
Girls. I met the Spice Girls," he
confides.
Faith blinks at him. "Are you the reason that
my grandma fell down?"
Ian feels his stomach clench. "I think I
am, Faith. And I'm very sorry."
She turns away. "I don't like you."
"You're in good company." He waits for her
to move, or for the policeman to claim her, but before
this can happen, Mariah White walks out of the
ER, red-eyed and searching. Her eyes find
Faith, and the girl jumps out of her seat and into her
mother's embrace. Mariah stares coldly at
Ian. "The policeman ... he was ..." Ian
stumbles over the words, gesturing down the hall.
"You get away from my daughter," she says
stiffly. With her arm around Faith, she disappears
back through the swinging doors of the ER.
Ian watches them go and then approaches the
triage nurse. "I assume Mrs. White's
mother didn't make it."
The nurse doesn't glance up from her
paperwork. "You assume right."

The thing about tragedy is that it hits suddenly,
with all the power and fury of a hurricane.
Mariah holds Faith's hand tightly as they stand
beside her own mother's body. The ER cubicle is
empty of medical personnel now, and a kind
nurse has removed the tubes and needles in
Millie's body for the family's private
good-bye. It is Mariah's decision to let
Faith in. She doesn't want to do
it, but she knows it is the only way Faith will
believe her when she says that her grandmother is
gone.
"Do you know," Mariah says, her voice
thick, "what it means if Grandma's dead?"
Before Faith can answer, Mariah begins to cry.
She sits down on a chair beside Millie's
body, her face in her hands. At first she does
not pay attention to the screeching sound on the other
side of the gurney. By the time she looks up,
Faith has managed to drag the other folding
chair over. She stands on the seat, her cheek
pressed to Millie's chest, her arms awkwardly
wrapped around her grandmother's body.
For a moment Mariah feels the hair on the
back of her neck stand up, and she touches her
palm to it. But her gaze never wavers from Faith
--not when Faith lifts herself up on her elbows,
not when Faith places her hands on either side of
Millie's face and kisses her full on the
mouth, not when Millie's arms rise stiff and
slow and cling to her granddaughter for dear life.

FIVE

A simple child
That lightly draws its breath,
And feels its life in every limb,
What should it know of death?
--William Wordsworth

September 30, 1999
For many hours after my mother comes back to life,
I cannot stop shaking. I sit in the ER while the
same doctor who signed her death certificate
now gives her a battery of exams and guardedly
pronounces her healthy. I tuck my hands beneath
my thighs and pretend that it is perfectly
normal for a woman who's been pronounced
DOA to now walk around the halls of the
hospital.
The doctor wants to keep my mother overnight
for observation. "No way," she insists. "I'm
running, I'm jumping, I'm not even breaking a
sweat. I should always be this healthy."
"Ma, it's probably not such a bad idea.
You were in cardiac arrest."
"You were dead," the physician stresses.
"There were guys in med school who had
stories of corpses sitting up in the morgue just
as the body bag was being zipped. I always wanted
to have a story like that myself." As my mother and I
exchange a look, he clears his throat. "At
any rate, we'll want to do a cardiogram, a
CT scan, some other tests, and check your heart
medication."
My mother snorts. "Make sure I'm not a
vegetable, you mean."
"Make sure you don't have a relapse," the
doctor corrects. "Let me get a nurse
to wheel you up to a patient floor."
"Thank you very much, I can walk," my mother
says, hopping off the table.
The doctor starts to leave the cubicle, still
shaking his head. I hurry across and touch his
sleeve, motioning just outside the curtains. "Is
she really all right? Is this some glitch in her
nervous system, you know, and an hour from now she'll
be comatose?"
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. D. 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.
EMT'S 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 fa@cade
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. But 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, "--s 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 1123

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.
His ratings are climbing again, which will last about as
long as an ice cube in July, unless he
manages to add fuel to the fire. Fuel that
doesn't seem to be forthcoming from the Millie
Epstein angle. He buries his head in his hands
and considers his next move. One of the things he's
learned is that there are skeletons in everyone's
closet, things no one ever wants the world
to discover. He, of all people, should know.

Allen McManus has just unwrapped his
Twinkie when the personal line on his phone
begins to ring. "Yeah?" he growls, picking up the
receiver. He's told his wife not to call him at
work. Christ, it's the only place he
gets a little peace.
"Do you know about Lazarus?"
The voice is low, disguised. Certainly not his
wife's. "Who the hell is this?"
"Do you know about Lazarus?" the voice
repeats. "Who else had something to gain?"
"Look, buddy, I don't know what--" He
hears a sharp click and a dial tone.
"Lazarus. What the fuck."
It must be a Halloween prank, Halloween
being just around the corner and everyone knowing, by virtue
of Allen's byline, that he writes the obits.
Certainly if some joker is going to bring up the
idea of raising the dead, the call will be forwarded
to Allen. He has just dismissed it from his mind when
a fax begins to come in on the Obituary Department
line. With a sigh, he walks over to the machine--
probably some celeb whose passing was picked up
on the AP wire--and squints at the grainy
picture of a woman beneath the banner of The
New Canaan Chronicle, wherever the hell
that is.
WOMAN DIES; COMES BACK
TO LIFE.
Lazarus.
Allen sits back down. He wishes he could
remember what the Bible says, exactly, about
Lazarus. Then again, he doesn't know if he's
ever really read that story in the Bible. He leans
across the aisle toward a colleague. "Barb, you
got a Bible?"
She laughs. "Yeah, sure, right next to my
Wite-Ou. Why? You seen God?"
"Forget it," Allen scowls. New
Canaan Chronicle. A nothing paper if
he's ever seen one. Yet here is this story about a
woman who came back to life right in that little
pissant town.
New Canaan was where that lady psychiatrist
was from, too.
Allen skims the article a second time.
Buried in the fourth paragraph--there it is--
Epstein's granddaughter ... has been
communicating with God.
Well, for Christ's sake. How many other
kids in that town would fit Dr. Keller's
description? Allen considers what this means--a
little girl who sees and speaks to God, who
suddenly can perform miracles. That's a front
page on the New Hampshire section
for sure.
Who else had something to gain?
That's what the caller said. Resurrection is
certainly in Millie Epstein's best interests
... unless it wasn't a resurrection at all.
Allen glances at the article again. That Ian
Fletcher guy is hanging around, which has to mean that
he, too, senses something isn't quite right. Who,
then, would benefit from a mock miracle? The
kid, for one. But kids that age always have managers
to promote their business.
In this case, it would probably be her mother.

October 7, 1999
Just after five in the morning Mariah hears the
front door open. She bolts out of bed and
tears down the stairs. Grabbing up an
umbrella from the stand in the front parlor, she
brandishes it like a bat and searches the shadows for
an intruder. "Come on!" she yells, heart
pounding. "You want pictures? You want an
exclusive? Show yourself, you bastard!"
But nothing moves, nobody stirs. Cursing,
she tosses the umbrella down and through the
sidelight catches a glimpse of Faith,
barefoot and in her nightgown, pushing a doll
stroller across the grass.
Mariah glances at the small entourage at the
edge of the road. The cult from Arizona remains
blessedly asleep on the far side of the stone
wall; the reporters who've waited for an
appearance by Faith during the day are conspicuously
absent. In fact, the only person watching
Faith is Ian Fletcher, haggard and grim,
standing in the doorway of the Winnebago.
"Hi, Mommy." Faith waves. "Want
to play with me?"
Mariah swallows the protest she is about
to make. "Your feet ... aren't you cold?"
"No, it's nice out." Faith bends toward the
stroller. "Isn't it?" she coos, and tucks a
blanket around her doll.
Except the doll is moving. Its tiny brown
fists beat at the morning fog, and below the curly
cap of its hair is a wide, circular sore.
Faith lifts the baby out of the stroller and
cuddles him to her cheek. "What a good boy."
It is then that Mariah notices a slight
woman hidden behind an ash tree at the edge of the
driveway. She has a scarf wrapped
around her head, and her eyes never leave the
infant, although she makes no move to get him
back from Faith.
Faith puts the baby back in her toy
stroller and moves him to the doll high chair that
she's dragged out to the front lawn, where she
pretends to feed him pieces of toy fruit. The
baby smiles and kicks his feet against the legs
of the high chair. He laughs so loud that a
photographer awakens and points a camera at
Faith, taking pictures with alarming speed.
Mariah, jolted out of her stupor, steps off
the porch and strides toward her daughter.
"Sweetie, I think we have to go in now."
Faith squints at the sun pushing against the
horizon. "Oh. It was just getting fun."
Mariah touches her hair. "I know. Maybe
we'll come out later." As she says this, her
gaze roams across the sparse crowd and locks on
Ian Fletcher's impassive face. In all
this time he has not moved, has done nothing more
insidious than observe. Mariah forces her
attention back to Faith. "I think you ought to bring
him back to his mother now."
Faith carefully lifts the baby and presses
her lips against the sore on his forehead. She
walks to the ash tree and gives the infant to his
sobbing mother. The woman clearly wants to say
something to Faith, but she cannot catch her breath to do
so. Faith touches her lightly on the hand, where
her fingers cradle the baby's head. "Bring him
back to play, okay?"
The woman nods and wipes her eyes. Faith
slips her hand into her mother's, and Mariah is
overwhelmed by the sensation of holding on to someone she
does not know at all. How can it be that she grew
Faith inside her, and felt her push her way
into the world, and gave her a home for seven years,
without knowing that this was coming?
She is about to step onto the porch with her
daughter when she sees Ian Fletcher brazenly
walking up the driveway. He's brought back the
plastic doll stroller and the little feeding chair, as
well as the small basket of toy fruits and
vegetables. Mariah takes the toys from him.
"Excuse us," she says stiffly.
He falls back, regarding Faith. "I
wish I could."

After the unexpected appearance of
Faith White, Ian returns to the
Winnebago. He is even more sure of his
suppositions now that he's watched her play like
any other seven-year-old kid. Clearly, the
ringleader is the mother. The moment she showed up, the
kid stopped--the healer came to heel. For whatever
reason, Mariah White is the mastermind behind this
show.
He's seen charlatans before, men and women
gifted at perpetuating a hoax. Usually
they're in it for the money, or the fame. And that's the
one thing that doesn't quite add up for Ian. There's
something about Mariah's eyes that makes him think
of a victim, instead of a swindler. As if she'd
really rather this whole thing not be happening.
Hell, she's a good actress, is all.
Beauty can be a terrific disguise, because of its
power of distraction. The purity of her features,
even stamped with sleep--those gorgeous legs
eating up the yard as she crossed to her daughter--
why, that's just a decoy. More smoke and mirrors,
like her little girl's miracles. Faith White
is no more seeing God and raising the dead than
Ian is himself.

October 8, 1999
"This," Rabbi Weissman says to Mariah,
"is Rabbi Daniel Solomon."
The man in the tie-dyed shirt holds out his hand
and grins. "I like to think I have the name of the wise
king for a reason." Mariah does not crack a
smile. She reaches behind her, where Faith is
burrowing against her hip and peeking at the
strangers.
"I'm the spiritual leader of Boulder's Beit
Am Hadash Congregation," Solomon says.
Mariah glances at his shirt, at his long,
ponytailed hair. Right, she thinks. If you're
a rabbi, I'm the queen of England.
"Beit Am Hadash," the rabbi explains,
"means "house of a new people." My congregation
is part of the Jewish renewal movement. We
draw upon Kabbalah, as well as Buddhist,
Sufi, and Native American traditions."
He glances at Rabbi Weissman. "We'd like
to know more about Faith."
"Look," Mariah says, "I don't really
think I have anything to say to you." She would not have
even let the rabbis inside, except for the fact
that to leave them on the porch seemed
inhumane. Mariah sends Faith into the
playroom so that she can't overhear the conversation.
"The last time I saw you, Rabbi Weissman,
I got the distinct impression that you weren't very
impressed with Faith. You thought this was an act I
was making her perform."
"Yes, I know," Rabbi Weissman says.
"And I'm still not convinced. But I took it upon
myself to call Rabbi Solomon. You see,
Mrs. White, after you left the synagogue, the
strangest thing happened: A couple that was having
marital problems reconciled."
"What's strange about that?" Mariah says, a
familiar twinge in her chest as she lets her mind
brush over Colin.
"Believe me," Weissman says. "They were
irreconcilable, until the day you visited with your
daughter." He spreads his palms. "I'm not
explaining this very well. It was just that after I read the
newspaper article about your mother, I was struck
by the possibility that, in some people's minds, there
might be a connection between this couple's
reconciliation and Faith. It reminded me of
something Rabbi Solomon had said at a rabbinic
council a couple of years ago. We had posed
the question of what God would say to a prophet
nowadays. I said that there would have to be a message
--you know, that peace is coming to Israel, or that this
is the way to defeat the Palestinians--something that
your daughter isn't hearing during her conversations with
God. However, Rabbi Solomon felt that a
divine message wouldn't be about ferreting out
evil, but instead about how man is treating man.
Divorce, child abuse, alcoholism. Social
ills. That's what He'd want fixed."
Mariah stares at him blankly. Rabbi
Solomon clears his throat. "Mrs. White,
may I talk to Faith?"
She sizes up the man. "For a few
minutes," Mariah reluctantly allows. "As
long as you don't upset her."
They all walk into the playroom. Rabbi
Solomon kneels, so that he is at eye
level with Faith. "My name is Daniel. Can
I tell you a story?"
Faith creeps around Mariah's hip, nodding
shyly. "The people who come to my temple believe that
before there was anything else, there was God. And God
was so ... well ... full that creating the world
meant shrinking a little bit to make space
for it."
"God didn't make the world," Faith says.
"It was a big explosion. I learned in
school."
Rabbi Solomon smiles. "Ah, I've
learned that, too. And I still like to think that maybe
God was the one who made that explosion, that God
was watching it happen from somewhere far away. Do you
think it could have happened like that?"
"I guess."
"Well, like I was saying. There was God,
sucking in to make some room for the world, filling
vessels with energy and light and setting them into the
new space. But during Creation, the vessels
couldn't hold all the energy, and they broke. And
all the sparks of light from God in these vessels
got scattered around the universe. Pieces of the
broken vessels fell, too, and became the bad
things in the world--we call that clipot. My friends
and I believe that our job is to clean up all the
clipot and get rid of them, and to gather up all
the bits of light that are scattered and get it
back to God. So maybe when you say a blessing and
eat a kosher chicken at Shabbat, the holy
sparks in the chicken are released. If you perform
a mitzvah for someone else--help them out a little
--more sparks get released."
"We don't keep kosher," Mariah says
to Rabbi Solomon. "We're not traditional
Jews."
He plucks at his T-shirt and grins
wryly. "Neither am I, Mrs. White. But
Kabbalah--Jewish mysticism--can even
explain why a little girl who has never gone
to temple or said a prayer might be closer
to God than someone else. No one can lift up
all those sparks by himself. In fact, the ability
to find sparks at all may be buried so deep in
you that you stop believing there's a God. Until
someone else comes along, with so much light in her that
you can't help but see your own, and when you're together
that light grows even brighter." He touches the top
of Faith's head. "God may be talking
to Faith because of all the people she's going to reach."
"You believe?" Mariah breathes, almost
afraid to say it aloud. "You haven't even
spoken to her, and you think she's telling the truth?"
"I'm a little more open-minded than Rabbi
Weissman. The couple he was counseling ...
well, that all could be a coincidence with
your daughter's visit. But then again, it may not
be, and Faith may have the answers. If God was
going to show up in 1999, I don't think He'd
grandstand or preach. I think He'd be just as
low-key as your daughter's suggested."
Faith tugs on the rabbi's sleeve.
"He's a She. God is a girl."
"A girl," Solomon repeats carefully.
Mariah crosses her arms. "Yes, according
to Faith, God is a woman. Can Jewish
mysticism explain that?"
"Actually, Kabbalah is founded on the
premise that God is both male and female.
The female part, the Shekhinah, is the
presence of God. It's what was broken when all
those vessels shattered. If Faith is seeing a
woman, it makes perfect sense. The presence
of God is exactly what would make her able
to heal and to have people congregate around her. What she
may be seeing is a reflection of herself."
Mariah watches Faith scratch her knee,
uninterested, and then asks the question she's been
holding tight inside. "Boulder's a long way
away, Rabbi Solomon. Why are you here?"
"I'd like to take Faith to Colorado with me,
to learn more about her visions."
"Absolutely not. My daughter's not a
spectacle."
The rabbi glances toward the windows that look out
the front of the house. "No?"
"I didn't invite them here." She fists her
hands at her sides and looks at Faith. "I
didn't ask for this to happen."
"For what to happen, Mrs. White? God?"
He shakes his head. "The Shekhinah
doesn't go where she's not wanted. You have to be
open to the presence of God before it comes to dwell.
Which is maybe why you're having such a hard time with
this in the first place." His eyes are like amber,
holding the past preserved. "What happened to you,
Mariah," he asks softly, "that makes you
fight so hard to not be a Jew?"
She remembers the one time she went to church as
a little girl, with a friend, how she was surprised by the
fact that Jesus supposedly loved everyone,
even people who made mistakes. The Jewish
God, you had to make yourself worthy of. Mariah
wonders, not for the first time, why a religion that
prides itself on being open-minded makes you jump
through so many hoops.
She is suddenly overwhelmed by the thought of two
rabbis in her house. "I'm not Jewish. I'm
not anything." She looks at Faith. "We're
not anything. I think you should go."
Rabbi Solomon holds out his hand. "Will you
think about some of the things I said?"
Mariah shrugs. "I don't know. I don't
look at my daughter and see the presence of
God, Rabbi Solomon. I don't look at
her and think she's full of divine light. I just
see someone who's getting more and more upset with
what's going on around her."
Rabbi Solomon straightens. "Funny.
That's what many Jews said two thousand years ago
about Jesus."

October 10, 1999
The last thing Father Joseph MacReady does
before donning his vestments is exchange his battered
cowboy boots for the soft-soled black shoes of a
priest. He's anticipating a full house.
Early-morning mass on Sunday in New
Canaan tends to be packed, most of the
Catholic inhabitants of the town preferring
to lose a few hours' sleep on the weekend if
it means getting the rest of the day to relax in their
gardens or on the golf courses in neighboring
towns. Today, he thinks, might be the day.
He braces his hands on the scarred table and
lifts his gaze to the frieze of the crucifixion.
He thinks back to the moment years ago when he was
drifting cross-country and suddenly realized that
he could have taken his Harley into the Pacific and still
gotten nowhere.
Now, even after decades of leading mass, he
prays before each one for a sign that he made the right
decision, a sign that God is with him. He
stares at the crucifix for another second,
hoping. But, as for the past twenty-eight years,
nothing happens.
Father MacReady closes his eyes for a moment,
trying to gather the Holy Spirit before walking into the
church to his congregation.
There are eight people there.
Clearly stunned, he steps up and begins
to deliver the mass, his mind whirling. There is no
single reason he can think of to cause his flock
to dwindle from eighty to eight over the course of a
single week. He rushes through the Holy
Eucharist and the sermon, shocking his altar
boy, who is usually fidgeting less than ten
minutes into the service. After the final "Amen,"
he hurries to remove the vestments and stand at the
rear doors of the church to say good-bye to the
faithful few. But by the time he gets there, half
are already in the parking lot.
"Marjorie," he calls to an elderly
woman whose husband died the year before. "Where are you
off to this morning in such a hurry?"
"Oh, Father," she says, dimpling. "To the
Whites' house."
Well, that only confuses him more. "You're
going to Washington?"
"No, no. The little girl. Faith White.
The one who's seeing God. I didn't think it
made up for missing mass, myself."
"What about this little girl?"
"Haven't you read the Chronicle this week?
People are saying she's got God talking to her.
Even had some miracles come to pass. Brought a
woman back from the dead, I hear."
"You know," Father Joseph says, considering,
"I just might like to tag along."

Mariah turns the cylinder of cherry on the
lathe, watching the ribbons of wood fly like
streamers as she touches the rich block with a
sculpting tool. It will be the fourth leg of a
Queen Anne dining-room table for the current
dollhouse. Her eyes wander to her work station, where
the intricately carved trio of legs sits beside
the oval island of the miniature tabletop.
Today is not the day for making furniture. In
fact, she is not supposed to be working at all,
at least according to her self-imposed calendar. But
these days nothing has gone according to schedule.
Yesterday was spent getting her mother discharged from the
hospital, after over a week of testing and
examination by cardiac experts. Mariah had
wanted her mother to stay at the farmhouse, but
Millie was having none of it. "You're five
minutes away," she told Mariah. "What could
go wrong?" Mariah had finally given in, knowing that
she could cajole her mother into spending days, at
least, at the farmhouse simply by saying that Faith
needed company. She'd helped her mother get
settled at home again, facing only one awkward
moment when they both stopped suddenly at the coffin
table. Without any complaint from her mother, she'd
dragged it out to the garage, out of sight and
out of mind.
Mariah is devoting today to making up for lost
time. She pulls a ruler from her breast pocket
and examines the leg on the lathe. It is off
by two millimeters; she will have to start over.
Sighing, she discards the wood and then hears the
doorbell ring.
It is an unexpected sound--no one's
ventured past the police block at the end of the
driveway lately. Maybe it's the mailman
with a package, or the oil-delivery truck.
She opens the front door and finds herself staring
at a priest. Her mouth tightens. "How come the
police let you pass?"
"A professional perk," Father Joseph
admits, unruffled. "When God locks a
door, He opens a window. Or at least sets
a good Catholic officer at the end of your
driveway."
"Father," Mariah says wearily, "I
appreciate your coming here. I can even understand why
you'd want to. But--"
"Do you? Because I'm not sure I do." He
laughs. "St. Elizabeth's was empty this
morning. Apparently your daughter is fierce
competition."
"Not intentionally.
"I don't think we're ready for another
religious onslaught," Mariah says. "There
were some rabbis here Friday, talking about Jewish
mysticism--"
"You know what they say about mysticism: Starts
in mist, ends in schism."
A grin tugs at Mariah's mouth. "We're
not even Catholic."
"So I hear. Episcopalian and Jewish,
right?"
Mariah leans against the doorjamb. "Right. So
why would you even be interested?"
Joseph shrugs. "You know, when I was a
chaplain in Vietnam, I met the Dalai
Lama. There were a bunch of us, and we spent a
great deal of time beforehand talking about what we should
give him to eat, to drink, what we should call
him. "His Holiness," that was what someone
suggested, although that was also what we called the
pope, and let me tell you we fought tooth and
nail over that one. But you know what, Mrs.
White? The Dalai Lama had this ... this energy
around him, the likes of which I'd never
felt before. Now, he isn't Catholic, but I
won't rule out the possibility that he's a
figure of profound spiritual enlightenment."
A dimple appears in Mariah's cheek.
"Careful, Father. That's probably grounds for
excommunication."
He smiles. "His Holiness has a lot
more on his plate than to follow my
transgressions."
There is something so secular about him that Mariah
thinks--under different circumstances--she would ask
this stranger to sit down, to share a pot of coffee.
"Father ..."
"Joseph. Joseph MacReady." He
grins. "Willing and able, too."
Mariah laughs out loud. "I like you."
"I like you, too, Mrs. White."
"However, now I think you ought to go." She
shakes his hand, well aware that he has not once
asked to speak to Faith. "If I need you,
I'll call the church. But no one's really
proved that any miracles have occurred."
"Yes, it's only word of mouth. Then again,
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were just telling
what they saw as well."
Mariah crosses her arms. "Do you really
believe that God would speak through a child? A
technically Jewish child, at that?"
"Far as I've been told, Mrs. White,
He has before."

October 11, 1999
"Move that leaf a quarter inch to the right," the
producer says, tilting his head toward the shot
lined up in the monitor. The lights that the
electrician and lighting director have set up
make Teresa Civernos squint and
instinctively cover little Rafael's eyes with her
hand. He bats it away, and for the hundredth time that
day she glories in his strength and his coordination.
Hugging him close, she touches her lips to the
smooth, unbroken skin of his brow.
"We're ready, Ms. Civernos." The
voice is as rich as honey, and it belongs
to Petra Saganoff, the star reporter for
Hollywood Tonight!.
In the background, the producer glances up.
"Can you bring the baby up a little closer? Oh,
that's perfect." He makes an okay sign with
his hand.
Petra Saganoff waits for a makeup artist
to do one last touchup on her face. "You
remember what I'm going to ask you, now?"
Teresa nods and looks nervously at the
second camera, fixed on her and the baby. She
forces herself to remember that this was her idea, not
theirs. She was going to take out a novena to St.
Jude in the Globe, but realized that there was a
way to reach more people. Her cousin Luis worked in
L.a. on the Warner Brothers lot, where the
Hollywood Tonight!'s studio was located.
He was dating the girl who did Petra
Saganoff's wardrobe. Teresa had told him
to ask. And within twenty-four hours of Rafael's
being released from Mass General with a clean bill
of health, Petra Saganoff was in Teresa's
tiny apartment in Southie, prerecording a segment
for later broadcast.
"Three," the cameraman says. "Two. One
... and--" He points to Petra.
"Your baby didn't always look this healthy,
is that right?"
Teresa feels herself flush. Petra had
told her not to flush. She must remember.
"Yes. Just days ago Rafael was a pediatric
AIDS patient at Massachusetts General
Hospital," Teresa says. "He contracted
the virus from a blood transfusion at birth.
Last week he was pale and listless; he was
fighting thrush and PCP and esophagitis. His
CD-FOUR cell count was fifteen." She
clutches the baby tighter. "His doctor said
he would die within the month."
"What happened, Mrs. Civernos?"
"I heard about something. Someone, I mean. There
is a little girl in New Hampshire who people say
is talking to God. My neighbor, she visits
shrines and places like that, and she asked if I
wanted to go with her. I figured I had nothing
to lose." Teresa smooths the hair over
Rafael's head. "Rafael was running a fever
when we got there, so I was walking with him just before
dawn when this girl--her name is Faith--came
outside. She brought a doll stroller, and she
asked if she could play with my son. She walked
him and laughed with him and pretended to feed him for about
an hour." Teresa looks up, tears in her
eyes. "She touched him. She kissed him here,
where he had an open sore. And then we went
back to Boston.
"The doctors--we went in the next day--did
not recognize him. Overnight his sores were
healed. His infections were gone. His T-cell
count was twenty-two thousand." She beams at
Petra. "They tell me it is all medically
impossible. Then they say that Rafael is not an
AIDS patient anymore."
"Are you saying your son was cured of AIDS,
Mrs. Civernos?"
"I think so," Teresa says. "God has
touched this little girl, this Faith. It's a
miracle. There is nothing I can say to make her
understand how much I want to thank her." She
nuzzles her cheek against Rafael's head.
The producer motions to the cameraman, who
stops filming. Petra taps a cigarette out
of a silver holder and confers with her producer, their
backs to Teresa. "Yeah," he says, laughing
at something Petra's said. "You collect more
nuts than a squirrel."
Teresa overhears. "This is no joke. This
really happened."
"Sure." Petra grins. "And I'm the
Virgin Mary."
"It's true. She brought her own grandmother
back to life." Furious, Teresa gets up and
grabs her big leather handbag. She rummages
for the directions to New Canaan, the ones she'd
carefully plotted out with her neighbor on an
intricately folded map of New Hampshire,
and throws it at the famous anchorwoman. "Go
ask her yourself," she says, and, turning on her
heel, she escapes to the bathroom with Rafael
and locks herself in until she hears Petra
Saganoff and her entourage leave.

October 12, 1999
On the plane, Ian sets his headphones to the
channel for the in-flight newsmagazine. With a
satisfied sigh he turns his attention to the
screen centered over the business-class cabin.
But instead of seeing CNN, Ian finds himself
staring at Petra Saganoff, the talent for some
entertainment fluff show. "Oh, for Christ's
sake," he says, flagging down a flight
attendant. "Don't you have anything else?"
She shakes her head. "I'm sorry, sir.
We get whatever tape they give us."
Scowling, Ian whips off his headphones and
tucks them into the seat pocket in front
of him. He bends forward for his briefcase,
figuring that he can at least run the numbers of his
latest Q-rating and see where in the nation he was
most recognizable. As he sits up again, he
notices the woman that Petra Saganoff is
interviewing.
She looks vaguely familiar.
He shuffles through the pile of papers in his hands
and--the baby. Ian glances at the small
screen and watches the child in the woman's arms
kick and squirm. He reaches for the earphones
he's discarded. "... his sores were healed. His
infections were gone. ..." Ian hears, and
suddenly remembers where he has seen the woman
before. On the front lawn at the New Canaan
farmhouse, watching her son get jostled around in
a doll stroller by Faith White.
A muscle jumps in Ian's jaw. Now
she's raised the dead and cured AIDS?
"God has touched this little girl ..." he
hears the woman say.
"Oh, shit," Ian murmurs. He should hop
on the next return flight. He should mount a
campaign, he should double his efforts. He should
blow Faith White's ridiculous succession of
miraculous cures for the incurable right out of the
water.
And he also knows that he won't--that, as
planned, he'll continue, on to see Michael
before returning to New Canaan.
He forces his attention back to the papers in his
lap, but envisions a pair of hands turning cards:
red, black, red, black. On the screen, the
AIDS baby who was limp as a rag two days
ago is laughing and animated in his mother's arms.
The question is only in his mind for a moment before it's
squelched. And yet Ian can still hear it ringing in his
ears, as joyful and resonant as a long note that
a choir has stopped singing: What if, this time,
I'm wrong?

October 13, 1999
With the intense focus of a seven-year-old,
Faith packs the canvas tote bag her mother
usually takes to the library with the things she needs
to run away. These include her teddy bear, a
change of underpants, and a box of Ritz
crackers she's stolen from the pantry. Also her
Wonder Woman Superfriend Membership
Certificate and a glowing plastic ring that
she found in the sandbox at the park and has always
believed to be a little bit magic. She waits
until she hears her mother turn on the shower in the
master bath, and then she creeps from her bedroom.
She puts on a dark-green Polarfleece
jacket, rust-colored leggings, and a purple
turtleneck. A pair of red woolen gloves,
to hide her hands.
Faith tiptoes down the stairs. She's not
running away, not really, since she's going
to call her mother as soon as she figures out where
there's a phone. She knows the number by heart. In
case someone is listening, she will disguise her
voice the way Inspector Gadget sometimes
does and tell her mom to come to the movie theater
where they saw Tarzan, because who will be expecting
that? And then they'll go away, just the two of them and
maybe Grandma, too, and leave all those dumb
people sitting on the front lawn.
She is silent as a firefly when she sneaks
out the sliding door.

Well, where the hell is she going now?
For once Ian's insomnia is a boon.
Staring out the window of the Winnebago, he sees a
bright flash that disappears into the woods around the
White property. Carefully opening the door of the
recreational vehicle, he steps outside. As
he approaches the perimeter of the woods, he
breaks into a run, trying to tune his senses to the
sound of small feet falling like snow.
There--he sees again the flash that drew him to her
in the first place, and he recognizes it as light
bouncing off something. A triangle. The moon is
reflecting off her jacket or sweatshirt, some
safety device of L. L. Bean's.
"Hey!" he calls softly, and Faith
freezes. She turns, spies him, and runs
off again. With one swift leap, Ian tackles
her and rolls simultaneously, so that she lands
on the cushion of his body and knocks the breath out
of him. He tightens his hold on the girl, who
is kicking his shins. "Cut it out!" he says,
shaking her. "You're hurting me."
"You're hurting me, too!" Faith cries.
He relaxes his grip. "If I let you go,
will you run away?" When she solemnly shakes
her head, he releases his arms. Immediately Faith
scrambles to her feet and takes off into the forest.
"Goddamn!" He follows her and
snags the sleeve of her fleece pullover,
reeling Faith in like an angry, struggling fish.
"You lied."
"No," Faith says, the fight going out of
her. "I never did."
Ian realizes that they are now talking about
something entirely different. "Isn't it a little
late for you to be playing outside?"
"I'm running away. I don't like it here
anymore."
Ian feels his chest tighten. The end, he
reminds himself, justifies the means. "I guess
your mom is okay with your leaving like this?"
Faith hangs her head. "I'm going to tell
her. I promise." She glances around at the
trees. "Do you know where there's a phone?"
"In my pocket. Why?"
She looks at Ian as if he is very, very
stupid. "To call my mother when I get there."
Ian brushes his hand over his coat, feeling the
slender bulk of his cellular. At last he has
a bargaining chip. "If you want to call your mother
when you get to wherever you're going, then you're going
to have to keep my phone with you. And I don't go
anywhere without my phone." He pauses, making
sure that she's following his logic. "Besides, you
probably shouldn't be wandering around alone in the
dark."
Faith looks down. "I'm not supposed to go
anywhere with strangers."
Ian laughs. "Haven't I been hanging
around long enough to not be a stranger?"
She thinks about this. "My mom says you're a
menace."
"Ah, you see. She didn't say I'm a
stranger." He holds out the cell phone, then
drops it back in his pocket. "Deal?"
"I guess," Faith mutters. She begins
to walk, and Ian strikes off beside her. He is
thinking of all the things he is missing--sound and
camera crew, foremost among them--but surely an
off-the-record interview is better than none
at all. If he figures out the catch in this
story, he can blow it open publicly the next
day.
They have been walking only a few moments when
Faith, winded, sits down on a rotting log.
This surprises him; he thought kids had more
stamina than that. He tries to see her face by the
moonlight that filters through the trees, but
she looks pale and ghostly. "You all right?"
"Yeah," she says, her voice tiny. "I'm
just tired."
"Past your bedtime. How'd you get by your mom
anyway?"
"She's taking a shower."
Ian is impressed. "I ran away from
home once, when I was five. I hid underneath
the canvas cover of the barbecue for three hours
before anyone found me."
"That isn't really running away."
Her voice is so weary, so rough with wisdom,
that Ian again feels a pang of guilt.
"Don't you like being ... important to so many people?"
Faith looks at him as if he is crazy.
"Would you?"
Well, actually, he would ... that's the whole
point of increasing his ratings share. But,
admittedly, not everyone embraces that goal.
Certainly not a child who's an unwilling pawn in
someone else's machinations. He wonders if he
might make an ally out of Faith White.
"Hey, can you help me with something?" Ian pulls
a deck of cards out of his pocket--solitaire
sometimes gets him through a long night. "I'm working
on this trick, and I'm not sure I'm doing it
right." He shuffles the deck, then asks her
to pick a card. Faith slides it from the pack,
the fingers of her gloves slipping. "Now,
remember which card you've got? You're sure?
Slide it right into the middle again."
Giggling, Faith does what he's asked.
Ian silently thanks Uncle Beauregard for
teaching him the one and only magic trick he's
ever had the inclination to learn. He shuffles the
deck impressively, making cards leap from
palm to palm, and then tells Faith to tap the
top of the deck. "That's the seven of diamonds,"
he announces. "Your card."
She lifts it and gasps. "How'd you do that!"
"I'll tell you the secret to my magic,"
he says, "if you tell me the secret to yours."
Faith's face falls. "I don't know any
magic."
"Oh, I'm not so sure." Ian sinks down
beside Faith, clasping his hands between his knees. "For
starters--how did you heal your grandmother?"
He can feel Faith bristle beside him. "I
don't want to learn your stupid card trick
anyway."
"You know, I've met other people who think they can
heal. Some of 'em were just hypnotists. They
convinced the sick people that they were feeling better, when
in fact their bodies weren't. And some of them
really did manage to make people feel better, through
some kind of electricity they just happened to carry
along their skin."
"Electricity?"
"A charge. Like the shock you get sometimes when you
touch a TV set. Bzzt. You know."
Faith stands up and stretches out her hands.
"Touch me," she challenges.
Slowly, his eyes never leaving her face,
Ian reaches toward her. "You have to take off your
gloves."
Immediately Faith ducks her hands behind her
back. "I can't."
Ian shrugs: I told you so.
"I really can't," Faith pleads.
It has been a long time since Ian was
seven. He tries to remember what worked in the
playground. "Liar."
"I am not!" Faith insists, agitated.
"Ask me something else!"
"Okay." Ian is not fighting fair--for
Christ's sake, he's outsmarting a
seven-year-old--but then again, he's never been
known for his good sportsmanship. He has Faith
right where he needs her to be: face upturned and
eager, so desperate for a chance to prove herself that
she can't help but slip up and reveal the ruse.
"Ask me," she begs again.
Ian thinks of everything he wants to know: Who
is in on this, who will profit, how did they
manage to fool a medical staff? But when he
opens his mouth, what he says surprises even
himself. "What does God look like?"
Faith's lips part on the answer. "God--"
she begins, and then she faints.
Quick reflexes make Ian reach out and catch
the girl before she strikes her head on the log or
a rock or tree root. "Faith," he says,
shaking her gently. "Wake up!" He lays her
on the ground carefully and checks her pulse.
He brushes leaves away from her face.
Then he goes to wipe off his hands on his
raincoat and realizes it's smeared with blood.
Heart pounding, Ian checks his own chest and
side. But he is fine, and a perfunctory
examination of Faith's torso reveals
no wounds. His gaze falls on her red
gloves, bright against the mossy dirt and scattered
leaves.
Gently he peels one away from her hand.
"Holy shit," he breathes. Then he gathers
Faith into his arms and runs as fast as he can
to Mariah White.

The doorbell is ringing as she wraps a towel
around her wet hair, cinches her robe at her
waist, and flies down the stairs. It is
ten-thirty at night, for God's sake. She
has a child who's asleep. Who would have the nerve
to bother them now?
As she reaches for the doorknob, the person on
the other side begins to knock harder. Her jaw
tight, Mariah swings open the door and finds
herself staring at Ian Fletcher. But all her
bluster dies the moment she notices that Faith
is lying limp in his arms.
"Oh ..." Mariah's voice trembles, and
she falls back to let Ian enter the house.
"She was in the woods." Ian watches
Mariah touch Faith's temples, her cheek.
"She's bleeding. We need to take her to the
hospital."
Mariah covers her mouth, holding back a
sob. She rucks up Faith's sleeve,
expecting to find a cut across her wrist, but
Fletcher tugs down her glove instead. "Come
on!" he says. "What are you waiting for?"
"Nothing ..." Mariah runs upstairs and
dresses in the clothes that have already been thrown into the
laundry hamper. Then she rips her car keys
and purse from the Shaker pegboard beside the front
door.
The far edge of the front yard is stirring with
curiosity, most of the reporters having risen from
their bored stakeout to notice Ian Fletcher, of
all people, carrying the girl up to the house. Video
cameras begin to whir, flashbulbs pop like
firecrackers, and above all this is the thready
refrain of people calling out to the unconscious Faith
for help.
Mariah opens the back door of the car for
Ian, and without a word of communication he climbs
in with Faith, cradling her in his lap. Mariah
gets into the driver's seat, hands shaking on the
wheel, and tries to back out of the driveway without
hitting one of the onlookers who insist on
touching the car as it passes.
Mariah meets Ian's eyes in the rearview
mirror. "How did this happen?"
"I don't know." Ian brushes Faith's
hair from her forehead; this action is not lost on
Mariah. "I think she was already hurt when I
found her."
Mariah brakes down the long curve of a
hill. Has Faith misguidedly been trying
to kill herself? She does not ask Ian Fletcher
what she wants to: Why were you with her? Why
didn't my own daughter come to me?
She pulls into the Emergency entrance of the
Connecticut Valley Medical Center. There,
she leaves the car at the curb and precedes Ian
into the building, toward the triage nurse.
Mariah is ready to fight for Faith's priority
as a case, but the nurse takes one look at the
unconscious child and the blood on Ian's coat and
immediately calls for a gurney and a doctor.
Mariah can barely keep up with them as Faith is
whisked away.
She does not think to ask Ian to follow her,
but she isn't surprised to find him coming, too.
And she is barely aware of how her body sways
when the remaining glove is cut from Faith's
fingers, of how Ian's hand reaches out to steady her.
"Vitals?"
"BP one hundred over sixty, thready
pulse."
"Let's drop a line and get bloods. I
want a type and cross, a CBC, tox
screen, 'lytes." The doctor glances over
Faith's still form. "What's her name?"
Mariah tries to make her voice work, but she
is unable to speak. "Faith," Ian offers.
"Okay, Faith," the doctor says, his
face inches from hers. "Wake up for me,
honey." He glances up at a nurse. "Get
pressure bandages," he orders, and looks at
Mariah. "Did she get into some pills? Drink
something from under the kitchen sink?"
"No," Mariah whispers, shocked. "Nothing
like that."
Ian clears his throat. "She was bleeding when
I found her. Wearing the gloves, so I didn't
realize it at first. And then she passed out." He
glances at his watch. "About thirty minutes
ago."
A resident runs his hands along
Faith's foot. "No Kernig's or
Brudzinski's signs."
"These don't look like punctures to me," a
nurse says, and the doctor in charge takes up
a position beside her and begins to press against
Faith's upper arm. "Bleeding's not slowing. I
want a hand-surgery consult stat." He looks
at Ian. "You the father?"
Ian shakes his head. "A friend."
To Mariah they seem like great vultures,
swooping down on Faith's small body to get
whatever untouched piece remains. A nurse
lifts Faith's right hand, pressing hard on her
upper arm at the brachial artery, and for a moment
Mariah is able to see a pinprick of light through
the wound--a tiny, clean tunnel passing right through
the palm.
Suddenly Faith strikes out with her foot,
catching a resident in the chin. "Noooo!" she
cries, trying to yank her arms away from the
nurses who are pinning her down. "No! It
hurts!"
Mariah takes a step forward, only to feel
Ian's hand on her shoulder. "They know what
they're doing," he murmurs, as the doctor
gentles Faith with his voice.
"How did you hurt your hands, Faith?" he
asks.
"I didn't. I didn't hurt my-- Ow!
They just started bleeding and the Band-aids wouldn't stay
on and-- Stop! Mommy, make them stop!"
Shrugging off Ian, Mariah runs toward the
gurney, her hand falling on her daughter's thigh
before she is yanked away. "Get her out of here!"
the doctor shouts, barely audible over Faith's
shrieking. But the farther she's dragged from Faith,
the more the sobs intensify, and it takes several
moments in Ian's embrace before Mariah
realizes that she is the one who's crying.

There is an insular peace to hospitals in the
middle of the night, as if beneath the moans and sighs
and muted beeps those people still roaming the halls or
sitting at bedsides are united in purpose.
You can meet a woman in the elevator and, just like
that, know her sorrow. You can stand beside a man at the
coffee-vending machine and tell he's coming off the
high of having a baby. You find yourself asking for a
stranger's story; you feel a connection to people you would
ordinarily pass on the street.
Mariah and Ian stand like sentries at the foot
of Faith's bed in the pediatric ward. She is
sleeping easily now, her bandaged hands fading
into the white sheets. "Q-tips," Ian
murmurs.
"Excuse me?"
"Her arms look like Q-tips. It's that
puffy thing on the end."
Mariah smiles, the movement so unlikely
after these past few hours that she can feel her face
crumple as it happens. Faith turns and
settles again on the bed, and Ian points to the
door, his brows raised in question. Mariah follows
him outside and begins to walk down the hall, past
the quiet patter of the nurses' station and the
elevator portal. "I haven't thanked you for
bringing her to me." She crosses her arms,
suddenly chilled. "For not whipping out a camera and
taking pictures of Faith when it happened."
Ian meets her gaze. "How do you know I
didn't?"
Her mouth, her throat, is dry. She
pictures Ian in the backseat of the car, holding
Faith. "I just do," Mariah says.
They have stopped in front of the neonatal
nursery, where the newborns, pastel-wrapped and
swaddled, sit side by side like grocery items
on a shelf. One infant bats a hand from his
blanket and unfurls the petals of his fingers.
Mariah cannot help but notice that his palm is
new and pink and whole.
"Do you believe?"
Ian is staring at the newborns, but speaking
to her. It is not a question she should answer; it is not
a topic to discuss with Ian Fletcher, who--for
all his chivalrous behavior tonight--will still be the
enemy tomorrow. But there has been a connection in the
past few hours, something that makes Mariah think
of spiders throwing the thinnest silken line across
incredible distances, something that makes her wonder if
she may just owe Ian an answer.
"Yes. I don't know what Faith's seeing,
I don't know why she's seeing it--but I do
believe that she's telling the truth."
He shakes his head almost imperceptibly.
"What I meant is, do you believe in God?"
"I don't know. I wish I could just say,
"Oh, yes." I wish it was as easy as all
that."
"You have your doubts, though."
Mariah looks up at him. "So do you."
"Yeah. But the difference is, that if you had the
choice you'd want to believe. And I wouldn't."
He presses one palm to the glass in front of
him, staring at the babies. ""Male and female
created He them." But you can watch, under a
microscope, an egg being fertilized. Y'all
can take a tiny camera and watch cells
dividing, or a heart being formed. You can see it
happen. So where is God in that?"
Mariah thinks of Rabbi Solomon in his
hippie T-shirt, negotiating a path between the
Bible and the Big Bang theory of creation for
Faith. "Maybe in the fact that it happens at
all."
Ian turns. "But we're talking about
scientific proof here."
She considers the circumstances that led to her
placement at Greenhaven. "Sometimes you can see
things happen right in front of your eyes and still
jump to the wrong conclusions."
Their eyes lock for a moment. Mariah blinks
first. "You probably want to go home. Get some
sleep."
He massages the back of his neck and
smiles faintly. "Do I ever," he agrees,
but he makes no move to leave.
Mariah finds herself cataloging Ian
Fletcher the way another woman might: the
silky black hair, so straight that it spikes
across his forehead; the reach of his spread fingers on the
glass; the light behind his pale blue eyes.
"What were you?" she blurts out.
He laughs. "Before being reincarnated as an
asshole, you mean?"
"No." Mariah blushes. "Before you were an
atheist. I mean, you were probably born something.
Episcopalian or Methodist or
Catholic."
"Baptist. Southern Baptist."
"You have the voice for it," Mariah says, before
she can censor herself.
"Just not the stomach." Ian leans his shoulder
against the nursery's glass wall and crosses his
arms. "I didn't take to the idea of Christ."
"Maybe you should have tried Judaism or
Islam."
"No, it isn't the Messiah thing. It's the
thought that any parent--including God--would make his
child suffer intentionally." He stares at the
babies, nestled in a line. "I can't worship
someone who lets that happen."
Mariah is so surprised, she is speechless.
Put that way, how can she not agree? She is still
trying to come up with a response when Ian smiles
at her, scattering all her thoughts. "I'll
tell you one thing I believe," he says
softly. "I believe that Faith is going to be just
fine." He leans forward, brushes a kiss against
Mariah's cheek, and starts down the hall.

KEEPING FAITH

SEVEN
All hell broke loose.
--John Milton,
Paradise Lost

October 15, 1999
Two days later Faith is still in the
hospital. As far as I'm concerned, she's
fine, with the exception of the open wounds on her hands.
But even these, she says, no longer hurt. Dr.
Blumberg, the hand surgeon, has escorted in
a parade of experts to confer on Faith's
diagnosis. He won't give us a straight
answer about that, and he won't discharge Faith
until he does.
I've tried to reach Colin, but his voice
mail said only that he'd gone out of town, without
specifying where. I've tried calling every few
hours, but nothing has changed.
My mother thinks I should worry about Faith, not
Colin. She has spent every day here with us and
wants to know why I'm in such a rush to get
home. In the hospital, at least, none of the
reporters or religious zealots can get
to Faith.
I have been home myself, of course, to shower and
change. The number of people has not really changed--
the cult's still there, and the Winnebago--although I have
seen neither hide nor hair of Ian Fletcher.
This doesn't surprise me. What does
surprise me is that he's had a live
broadcast since Faith was admitted to the
hospital, yet he did not mention her
injuries.
"Ma," Faith whines, "that's the third time
I've called you!"
I smile at her. "Sorry, honey. I
didn't hear."
"No, you were too busy brooding," my mother
mutters.
I ignore her. "What did you need,
Faith?"
"One of those Popsicle thingies. The red
kind."
"Sure." Rather than bother a nurse, I'll
get it from the refrigerator at the end of the hall.
I open the door and find Ian Fletcher on the
other side, arguing with the policeman
who's been thoughtfully stationed to keep Faith from being
accosted by any media that might slip past
hospital security unannounced.
"I'm telling you," Fletcher demands. "You
ask her, and she'll let me in."
"Ask her what?"
He smiles at me and indicates a bouquet
of roses. "I was hoping to see the patient."
"My daughter isn't available right now."
Right on cue, Faith's voice pipes up
through the open doorway. "Hey, Mom, who's
here?" She scurries to the end of the bed, spies
Ian Fletcher, and blushes. "I guess I'm
supposed to thank you for carrying me home the other
night."
Fletcher pushes his way into the room and holds
out the roses to Faith. "No need. White
knights like me are always looking around for damsels
in distress."
Faith giggles, and my mother takes the roses.
"Aren't these just to die for?" she exclaims.
"Faith, what should we put them in?"
With an apologetic shrug to the policeman,
I step back inside the hospital room and
close the door. "I never did meet a lady
who wasn't partial to flowers," Ian says.
"They make my mom sneeze," Faith
answers.
"I'll have to keep that in mind, then." Fletcher
turns to me. "So, how is she doing?"
"Much better."
His eyes remain locked on mine. "Yes,"
he says. "She looks wonderful."
We are interrupted by my mother, who bustles between
us with the water pitcher full of roses. As she
settles them on the nightstand, Ian sinks down
onto the edge of the bed. "Anyone tell you when you
can go home?"
"Not yet," I answer.
"I want to go now," Faith says. "It
smells bad in here."
"It smells like a hospital," Ian
agrees. "Like someone's always cleaning toilets."
"Were you ever in the hospital?"
A shadow falls across Ian's face. "Not for
myself." He glances up at me. "Could I speak
to you for a second?"
Again he gestures to the hall. With a silent
nod to my mother, I follow him out. This is where the
other shoe is going to drop, I tell
myself. This is where he will tell me that in spite of
his exemplary behavior and yellow roses, I can
expect a camera crew ready to record
Faith's exodus from the hospital. "You wanted
to talk?"
He stands just a foot away, our shoulders
leaning against opposite sides of the doorjamb.
Ian clears his throat. "Actually--"
"Mrs. White." The sound of Dr.
Blumberg's voice startles me. "I'm glad
you're here. I'd like to speak to you about Faith. Would
you join me in the lounge at the end of the hall?"
Although this is what I've been waiting for, I
begin to tremble. Somehow I know it is bad news;
doctors always want to talk about bad news when
they invite you to sit down. If Faith were well,
he would have come right into the room. He is going
to tell me that Faith has cancer, that she has
three weeks to live, that it is somehow my
fault. If I'd been a more competent mother, I
would have noticed something before now--a lump behind her
ear, a slow-healing cut on her knee.
"Mariah," Ian asks quietly. "May
I?"
He glances down the hallway, where the doctor
has already begun to walk, and then back to me. He
is asking a thousand questions, catching me at my
weakest, and, at the same time, offering his arm so that
my legs feel a little less shaky. He should not
be privy to this--and yet he was with Faith when it
happened; he has seen all there is to see. My
need for support edges out my better judgment.
"All right," I whisper, dazed, and together we
begin to walk.

Beside me, Ian is fussing with something, but I do
not look. If it's a tape recorder or a
notepad, I don't want to see. It is an
effort to keep my eyes trained straight ahead,
but when Dr. Blumberg asks Ian to borrow his
pen, it sparks my interest. He pulls a
plastic-wrapped package from his pocket. "You
see this danish?"
It's a tart layered with cherry filling and
cheese. Dr. Blumberg takes Ian's pen and
spears the danish, right through the Saran Wrap and
all the fillings and out the other plastic-coated
side. "This is a pretty good example of a
penetrating trauma. A puncture wound." He
hands Ian back his pen, now dripping and
sticky, and points to the hole in the center of the
danish. "See how the tart is ragged? How the
layer of cheese runs into the layer of cherry? And the
cherry, it's oozing. A penetrating trauma to the
hand tears and distorts tissue. There's skin
torn in the periphery or pushed into the wound.
Blood clots and mangled tissue from adjacent
injured areas fill the wound. More often than not we
find hematomas or shattered bones." Dr.
Blumberg lifts his eyes to me. "Your
daughter's wounds looked nothing like this."
"Maybe they weren't ... penetrating
traumas," I suggest.
"Oh, they were. Went clean through. The
operative word there being "clean." X rays--
I've got them in my office--showed these
perfectly round little wounds, with perfectly round
little gaps in the tissue and the bones ... but no
actual trauma."
Now I am completely lost. "That's a good
thing?"
"It's an inexplicable thing, Mrs. White.
I've spent the past two days, as you know, in
consultation with colleagues regarding Faith's
diagnosis. We all agree: There is no
way an object can enter the palm and exit the
other side of the hand without causing substantive
damage, or at the very least tearing some tissue."
"But she was bleeding. She passed out because of it."
"I'm aware of that," Dr. Blumberg says.
"Yet her hands were bleeding slowly. As opposed
to a laceration, she hadn't lost enough blood to account
for her loss of consciousness. Your daughter's
wounds act like punctures ... but don't look
like them."
"I don't understand."
"Have you ever read of people who suffer head trauma
and can suddenly speak fluent Japanese or
French?" the doctor asks. "They crack their
heads on a telephone pole, and for some reason
they can understand a language they've never understood
before. It's not something you see every day, but it
happens. Medically, it's very difficult
to explain." He takes a deep breath. "After
careful consideration, several physicians and myself
raised the question of whether Faith actually injured
her hands with anything--or if she just started
to bleed."
Fletcher whistles softly beside me. "You're
authenticating stigmata."
"I am not conclusively offering that
diagnosis at this juncture," the doctor
heatedly insists; at the same time I say,
"Stigmata?"
Dr. Blumberg hesitates, clearly
embarrassed. "As you know, stigmata are
supposedly replications of the crucifixion
wounds of Christ, Mrs. White, medically
inexplicable instances where people bleed from the hands,
feet, and side without any actual trauma to the
body. Sometimes they accompany religious
ecstasy. Sometimes these wounds vanish and
reappear, sometimes they're chronic. They're
almost always reported to be painful. There are
apparently several historical instances where
physicians have indeed gone on record with that as
a diagnosis."
"You're telling me my daughter-- No."
Faith is not in religious ecstasy, whatever that
is. And why would she have crucifixion wounds when
she doesn't know what crucifixion is? I
hunch my shoulders. "Those historical instances
... were from when?"
"Hundreds of years ago," Dr. Blumberg
admits.
"This is 1999," I say. "Those things
don't happen anymore. Those phenomena get
x-rayed and carbon-tested and scientifically
proven to be fakes." I turn to Ian
Fletcher. "Right?"
But for once he doesn't say a word.
"I want to see her hands," I announce.
Agreeing, Dr. Blumberg gets to his feet
and walks back toward Faith's hospital
room. "Honey," I say brightly as I follow
him through the swinging door, "the doctor wants
to examine you."
"Then can I go home?"
"We'll see." I stand at Dr.
Blumberg's side as he unwinds the thick
bandages. They've been changed daily, but after
Faith's scene in the ER, medical personnel
are very careful to keep her from getting a glimpse
of the wounds. Gently tugging at the gauze with
tweezers, the doctor switches on a
gooseneck lamp beside the bed and maneuvers his
body so that Faith's view will be blocked. He
peels back the last of the bandages on Faith's
right hand.
It is just a couple of millimeters
wide, the hole, but it is there. The skin
surrounding the edges is purple and bruised; there
are arrows of dried blood radiating outward.
Faith flexes her fingers and, inside, I can
see the flash of a needle-thin bone. Yet the wound
does not begin to bleed again.
Dr. Blumberg probes the edges of the wound.
Every now and then Faith winces, and at one point
he inadvertently moves out of the way enough to let her
get a look at her own hand. She lifts it
to her face, peering at the pinhole of light coming
through from the other side, while we all hold our
breath.
Then she starts to scream.
Dr. Blumberg rings for a nurse, and Ian
Fletcher struggles along with my mother to hold
Faith down. "Faith," I soothe. "It's all
right. The doctor's going to make it all right."
"Mommy, there's a rip in my hand!" she
shrieks. A nurse comes running into the
hospital room with a Styrofoam tray that
holds a syringe. Dr. Blumberg firmly
grasps Faith's arm and plunges the needle
into her thin biceps. After a moment of fighting, she
goes limp.
"I'm sorry about that," Dr. Blumberg
murmurs. "I think we ought to continue to keep her
here. My suggestion for treatment is to get a
psych consult."
"You think she's crazy?" I say, my
voice rising hysterically. "You saw her hand.
She's not making this up."
"I didn't say she was crazy. It's just that
the mind is a powerful organ. It can make a
person ill just as easily as a virus. And
frankly, I don't know the protocol in this
sort of situation. I don't know if the mind can
cause the body to bleed."
Tears fill my eyes. "She's seven.
Why would she want to do that?"
I sit down beside Faith on the hospital
bed, smoothing her hair while her face
relaxes in sleep. Her mouth parts, a bubble
rising between her lips. Behind me I hear the
doctor speaking softly to my mother. I hear the
door open and close twice.
Little girls, they dream of being princesses.
Of owning ponies. Of wearing jewels and ball
gowns. Not of bleeding for no reason at all, just
to be like Jesus.
Ian Fletcher's voice falls quietly
at my temple. "I interviewed a nun
once," he says. "Seventy-six years old,
a Carmelite. She'd been cloistered since she
was eleven. According to the Reverend Mother, Sister Mary
Amelia had been blessed with stigmata." Slowly
I turn so that I can look him in the eye.
"Everyone thought it was a miracle. Until I
found a sewing hook used for ripping out stitches
slipped into the hem of Sister Mary Amelia's
habit. Turned out there was a very fine line between
religious ecstasy and religious insanity."
You think she did this to herself. I don't have
to speak the words; he knows what I am thinking.
"Her hands--the sister's--looked nothing like
Faith's."
"What are you saying?"
He shrugs. "That this is different. That's
all."

All in all, Allen McManus figures
it's a cheap trade. A pepperoni pizza and a
six-pack for young Henry, who works part-time in
production at the Globe, and in return the
kid will get on the computer and hack his way into the
privileged information of the White family.
"How come it's taking so long?" Allen asks,
gingerly moving a piece of sweaty athletic
clothing so that he can sit at the edge of the bed in
Henry's room.
"My modem's only twenty-eight-point-
eight," Henry says. "Cool your jets."
But Allen can't. The more he's learned, the more
he's felt anxious. Lately Allen has
been remembering quotes from Revelation, hideous
stories told by Sister Thalomena in fifth
grade about sinners who went to hell. It has
been years since he personally went to confession
or took communion, and religion for Allen will
always be scarred by the bestiality of the nuns who
taught his parochial-school classes. But
Catholicism runs deep, and this girl has
made him rethink his choices. What if, all
these years, he's been wrong? How many Hail
Marys and Our Fathers comprise a penance for turning
one's back on God?
Suddenly the computer screen begins running with a
stream of information. "Credit-card purchases. This
is the missus's card."
Allen leans forward. Lots of
groceries, kids'-clothing stores, a couple of
L. L. Bean catalog buys. Nothing
dicey. "Jeez, they even paid the bill off every
month."
"She did. Let's check out her husband."
Henry's fingers fly over the keyboard, pulling
up a business American Express card.
Slowly, he whistles. "Looks like Mr.
White did a bit of socializing on his
business trips. Check this out--Lily's
Palace of Dancing."
Allen grunts. "So he was screwing around on
his wife. Big deal." Infidelity doesn't
naturally lead to setting up one's daughter as a
fake Messiah. You do something like that to make yourself
look better, to draw attention. Or else
you're just plain nuts.
"Hey, bingo!" Henry shouts. "The legal
search turned up a name. It's from the records
department of the state of New Hampshire. The
courts have to file away all the injunctions and
crap--just about anything that's brought before a judge.
Looks here like Mr. White tried to have the
missus locked up. No, correction: Looks
like he succeeded."
"Let me see." Allen sits down and
scrolls through the page. "Holy cow! He had
her committed to a mental hospital." He
glances at the original order that landed the woman
at Greenhaven, at the repeated hearings
Millie Epstein instigated to try to get her
daughter released.
Henry lounges on the bed, picking pepperoni
out of his teeth. "Lots of fucking crazy people in the
world, man."
But Allen does not hear him. A mental
hospital. Now it makes sense.
Seven-year-olds don't just start talking
to God; someone puts them up to it. And someone
who's crossed the edge once, he figures, is
more than likely to do it again.
Getting up from the chair, Allen reaches into a
paper sack for a Rolling Rock and tosses one
to Henry. "Cool," Henry says. "What are
we celebrating?"
Allen smiles slowly. "Atheism."

Somehow word has gotten through the hospital
grapevine about Faith. Nurses come on the
pretense of checking Faith, only
to wind up sitting by her side and speaking to her and,
in one case, giving Faith a medal of Saint
Jude to hold in her mittened hands for a moment.
Faith does not seem to know what to do. When she
is awake, she politely answers questions about
school and her favorite Disney movies; when
she is asleep, these strangers touch her hair and
her cheek as if even that small contact will
preserve them.
My mother has been in a state all day. "This
doesn't mean anything," she tells anyone who
will listen. "Stigmata, shmigmata. Jews have
been waiting fifty-seven hundred years for a
Messiah; we're not going to start believing in
Jesus now." At one point, when Faith is
asleep, she pulls me aside. "Doesn't this
bother you? This thing with Faith?"
"Well, of course," I whisper heatedly.
"You think I want her to go through this?"
"I mean the Catholic thing. Catholic, for
God's sake! All these people parading in and out of
here like Faith's some saint."
"Bleeding from her hands doesn't make her
Catholic."
My mother nods emphatically. "I should hope
not."
The one good thing that happens is this: My mother is
in the cafeteria, in search of Jell-O for
Faith, when Father MacReady walks through the
door that afternoon.
"Charlotte," he says to the nurse who's
brushing Faith's hair--and pocketing strands when
she thinks I'm not looking. "How are you? And the
children?"
"We're fine, Father," the nurse says. "I
guess you've heard what's going on?"
"One of the hospital volunteers works in the
church's business office." The priest waits
until the nurse leaves, then sits down in the
chair she's vacated. "Hi. I'm Father
MacReady."
"Why are you wearing that white thing around your
neck?" Faith asks.
"It's a special shirt that says he works in
a church," I explain.
"I thought he was someone's father," Faith says,
her brow wrinkling.
The priest grins. "Actually, that's the most
confusing thing of all." He gently lifts
Faith's bandaged hand. "I hear you
speak to God. I like to do that myself."
"Did she make your hands hurt, too?"
I stare at Faith. Until now, I had not
known that this God of hers had told her what would be
happening. I hadn't thought to ask.
"No, Faith," the priest answers. "God
didn't make my hands hurt."
Is that regret I hear in his voice?
At that moment my mother walks in bearing a tray
of lemon Jell-O. "No red today,
Faithele, but-- Oh." Her gaze rakes over
the priest. "Already it's starting," she says
sourly.
"You must be Mrs. Epstein," Father
MacReady greets her. "It's a pleasure
to meet you."
My mother purses her mouth. "I wish I could
say the same."
"Mother!"
"Well, it's true. I'm living life one
day at a time now, you know, and I'm not going
to cozy up to a man who's trying to convert my
granddaughter."
"Believe me, I have no intention of converting
your granddaughter--"
"Of course not! You think it's half done
already, what with the bleeding from the hands. Stigmata,
my Aunt Fanny!"
I roll my eyes and take the priest's
elbow. "Ma, maybe you could watch Faith and
help her with the Jell-O."
"Good," my mother announces. "In the meantime,
you get rid of him."
As soon as Father MacReady and I are in the
hallway, I apologize. "I'm so sorry.
My mother isn't exactly taking this well."
"And you?"
"I'm still getting used to the idea of Faith
talking to God. Taking it a step further--
well, I can't even get my head around that."
Father MacReady smiles. "Stigmata--if
that's what they are--are a gift."
"Some gift. To leave you in constant pain, and
make you a freak show." There is a reason, I
know, that the word "stigmata" is rooted in
"stigma."
"Millions of people would say your daughter is
blessed."
"She doesn't believe she's blessed."
To my embarrassment, my voice
wavers. "Do you know she put on dark gloves
when it first happened? She was too ashamed to show me
that she was bleeding."
Father MacReady seems interested by this. "From
what little I know of stigmatics, they don't show
their wounds to the world. They hide them."
After a moment of silence, I stop walking.
We have wandered to the end of the pediatric ward, to the
infant nursery where I stood with Ian
Fletcher. "I have a confession to make."
"I seem to bring that out in people."
"I sneaked into confession once."
"A confession about confession?" Father MacReady
laughs.
"I was only ten. I wanted to see what it was
like. But I thought some buzzer would go off, you know,
some sensor to show I wasn't Catholic."
"Nah, the Protestants are the ones with the
fancy technology." Leaning against the wall, he
grins. "Actually, I've always admired the
Jews for their lack of confession. You can pass that
along to your mother, as a matter of fact."
"I just might."
"See, a Catholic sinner confesses, says
a few prayers, and gets the shame wiped away.
It seems to me Jews carry guilt like
camels, forever. Which do you think is the more
effective deterrent?" Sobering, Father
MacReady turns. "I don't know if God
is speaking to Faith, Mrs. White. I'd like
to believe it, though. I don't care what other
clergymen say; I've never believed that spirit comes
from religion. It comes from deep inside each of
us; it draws people to us. And your daughter has a
lot of it.
"Okay, so it's not Judgment Day. There's
no Lake of Fire yawning in front of the green
at the town hall. No Book of Life with a
list of names in it. So she's a Jewish child with
wounds that might be stigmata; so she happens
to see a female God. I have to tell you that,
although my superiors would probably disagree, I
don't find it all that shocking. Maybe this is
God's idea of a winning ticket--a way to get
many different personalities to worship Him at
once. To worship Him at all."
"But she never agreed to it," I say. "She's
not anybody's savior, or anybody's
martyour. She's just a scared little girl."
Father MacReady stares at me for a
long moment. "She's also God's child, Mariah."
I cross my arms to hide the trembling. "You
know, that's where you're wrong."

Father MacReady locks the door that leads from
the rectory to his private quarters. He
walks slowly into the kitchen, sitting down at the
scarred table and watching the sun play through the dust
motes on a thin spotlighted ray. On
second thought, he stands up and gets a bottle
of Sam Adams out of the refrigerator. He's
not one to overdrink, but he feels that his dinnertime
beer might be better served right now, in the middle
of the afternoon.
The hell of it is that Father MacReady really,
truly likes Mariah White.
But he also really, truly loves his church.
"I'm not doing this to them," he murmurs
to himself. "I'm doing it for everyone else." Then
he finishes the entire beer.
In the decades he has been a priest,
he's counseled on visions twice. The first time
was in Vietnam, a soldier who said that the
Virgin Mary had come to him in the jungle. The
second time was much more disturbing--a
sixteen-year-old inner-city girl who claimed
that the Holy Ghost had impregnated her. That time
Father MacReady had called in the authorities,
who all waited with bated breath until the girl
delivered a perfectly ordinary baby with a
DNA match to the recently hired choir
director.
He's never run across stigmata.
With a sigh he removes a battered book from a
shelf beneath the telephone and looks up the number
of the Chancery in Manchester.

From The Boston Globe, October
17, 1999

Mother of Visionary "Mentally Unbalanced"

New Canaan, NH--IF you see it, they
will come.
Or so might be the slogan of the
seven-year-old New Canaan girl who is
allegedly envisioning God. The pious and the
curious have flocked to the small New
Hampshire town for a glimpse of the child who can work
miracles.
But the basis for such heavenly sightings might be
far more earthbound than these onlookers might
imagine. Sources have revealed that the mother of the
girl was hospitalized for mental illness several
years ago. A psychiatrist formerly employed
by the private psychiatric institution
Greenhaven, who wishes to remain unnamed,
confirmed that Mariah White was a patient at the
Burlington, Vermont, facility for four
months during 1991. When asked the nature of
her illness, the psychiatrist declined to comment.
According to Dr. Josiah Hebert, chairman of the
department of psychiatry at Harvard
University, some of the most common adult
psychotic delusions involve religion. "If
Ms. White's illness involved hallucinations
about God, it does not necessarily follow that
her daughter would experience the same sorts of
things," Hebert said. "However, in the normal
parent-child relationship, parental approval is
key, and the behaviors that bring it about are
infinitely varied. What we have may not be a
case about a visionary, but about a little girl
desperately trying to gain her mother's attention."
When asked about the alleged miracles effected
by the girl, Dr. Hebert was dismissive, calling
such phenomena beyond the range of both logic and
science.
As for the hoopla surrounding the girl's visions,
Hebert urges caution. "I don't think you can
seriously credit the claims of a child without examining
the formative influences on that child. Which in this case
may be more abnormal than paranormal."

When I least expect it, Rabbi Daniel
Solomon sneaks through my defenses.
We have only recently arrived home, Dr.
Blumberg's having discharged Faith that afternoon.
I've just finished tucking Faith into bed and washing
up the dishes from dinner when there is a knock at
the front door. I am so astonished by the fact
that Rabbi Solomon has managed to slip past
everyone outside that I step back to let him in
before I realize what I'm doing.
He is wild-eyed and disheveled, his long
ponytail straggling and his dashiki twisted around his
waist. He nervously fingers a string of amber
beads at his throat. "I'm sorry," he
says. "I realize this must be a bad time--"
"No, no," I murmur, gesturing
to his clothes. "It's the least I can do for someone
who manages to run the gauntlet."
He looks at his muddy shirt and jeans as if
surprised to find them in this condition. "They don't
call us the Chosen People for nothing," he quips, and
glances up the stairs.
Immediately my face tightens. "She's
asleep."
"Actually, I came here to see you. Do you
get The Boston Globe?"
"The newspaper?" I ask stupidly. I
wonder if he's had the nerve to speak on
record about Faith. Almost angrily I grab
the copy that he's holding out to me. There on page
four is a headline staring me in the face: MOTHER
OF VISIONARY "MENTALLY UNBALANCED"
The thing about having something hidden in your past is
that you spend every minute of the future building a
wall that makes the monster harder to see. You
convince yourself that the wall is sturdy and thick, and
one day, when you wake up and the horrible thing does
not immediately jump into your mind, you give yourself the
freedom to pretend that it is well and truly
gone. Which only makes it that much more painful when
something like this happens, and you learn that the concrete
wall is really as transparent as glass, and
twice as fragile.
I sink onto the stairs. "Why did you bring
this to me?"
"I knew eventually you'd see it. At the
time, I thought bringing it here in person would be a
mitzvah. I figured it was easier to get bad
news from a friend."
A friend? "I was hospitalized," I hear
myself admit. "My husband had me committed after
I tried to kill myself. But I wasn't
psychotic like this ... Hebert idiot says. And
I never had hallucinations about God. I
certainly didn't pass them along to Faith."
"I never thought you did, Mrs. White."
"What makes you so sure?" I ask,
bitter.
Rabbi Solomon shrugs. "There's a theory
that there are thirty-six people in every generation who are
truly righteous people. They're called the lamed
vavniks--lamed for "thirty," and vav for
"six." Usually they're quiet people, gentle,
sometimes even unlearned--not unlike your little
girl. They don't push forward. Most people don't
know about them. But they exist, Mrs.
White. They keep the world going."
"You know this for a fact. And you know that Faith is
one."
"I know that the world's been around for a very long time.
And yes, I'd like to believe that Faith is one."
Above us, the hall clock chimes. "Wouldn't
you?"

Monsignor Theodore O'Shaughnessy does
not get a chance to return Father MacReady's
phone call until the following night. He's
been busy untangling the administrative
nightmares in his little diocese--overseeing the
fiscal woes of parochial schools and
Catholic hospitals, researching competitive
insurance premiums, and, in one particularly
overwhelming chunk of time, dealing with a nasty trial
involving a Manchester priest and a group of
preteen boys at a retreat in the summer of
1987. He sits down in his favorite brown
cracked-leather wing chair, picks up the piece
of paper with Father MacReady's message, and
dials the phone.
"Joseph!" he says jovially when the priest
answers on the other end of the line. "It's
Monsignor O'Shaughnessy. Been a while,
hasn't it?" In fact, it has been a very long
while. The monsignor can conjure a face in his
mind, but he's not sure if it belongs to Father
MacReady of New Canaan or Father
MacDougal of New London. "You wanted
to speak about a youth mission?"
"No," Father MacReady says. "A youth's
vision."
"Ah. I'm afraid that Betty's a bit
old for the secretarial job. She's lost most of
her hearing, matter of fact, but I can't bear
to let her go. So--it's a vision? As in
apparition?" A youth mission--say, building
houses for Habitat for Humanity--is one thing.
It might even defray some of the bad press the
diocese is getting through the sexual-abuse
trial. This ... well, this is only going
to make them look even worse. "What kind of
vision?"
"There's a local child here, a seven-year-old
girl, who is apparently seeing God."
MacReady hesitates and then adds,
"Technically, she's of the Jewish faith."
"Then it's not our problem," the
monsignor says, greatly relieved.
"She may also have stigmata."
Monsignor O'Shaughnessy thinks that, all in
all, this has been a very tough week. "You know
what I'm going to do for you? I'm going to call
Bishop Andrews. This is really out of my range
of expertise."
"But--"
"No buts," the monsignor says
magnanimously. "My pleasure."
He hangs up before Father MacReady can tell
him that God, to Faith White, is female.
Exhaling heavily, Joseph sets the phone
back in its cradle and thinks that maybe this
omission is not such a bad thing at all.

October 17, 1999
The thing Colin White likes about Las
Vegas is this: It never shuts down. As a
sales rep, he's spent time in Washington,
Seattle, St. Paul, San Diego--all of
those cities roll up their sidewalks
by midnight. Las Vegas throbs like an artery,
sucks you in, seduces.
The thing Colin White does not like about Las
Vegas is this: He can't get a good night's
sleep. He doesn't know if it is because the city
burns just outside the hotel window, neon
casino signs bright enough to create an artificial
day. Or because he cannot get used to his new
wife's shifting in his bed all night long. Or
maybe he is thinking of Faith, of how he's
left her hanging, of what sort of father that makes
him.
He leaves Jessica buried in the spiral
curl of sleep and walks into the adjoining
living-room of the suite, letting his eyes adjust
to the darkness. There is a half-eaten apple from the
complimentary fruit basket balanced on the arm
of the couch. With a sigh Colin sinks onto the
cushions and picks up the core, gnawing as he
points the remote control at the television
set.
There is a commercial promoting vacations in
New Hampshire. Colin stares at the wash of
fall colors and the profile of the Man in the
Mountain, the steep ski runs. With a pang of
homesickness he sets down the apple and leans
forward, elbows balanced on his knees.
If it were not certain to upset
Jessica, he would cut the honeymoon short.
There is so much he needs to do to settle his
previous life before forging ahead with this new one.
He would like to apologize to Mariah for the simple
fact that they were not meant to live together. He would like
to feel the weight of Faith settled in his arms,
the sweet scent of her hair when he leans
close to pull up the covers as he puts her
to sleep. He would like to be able to say the word
"family" without his gut twisting like a sailor's
knot.
On television there's an aerial view of the
Mount Washington Hotel.
Snatching the telephone from its receiver, Colin
pushes in nearly all the digits of his former
number before realizing that in New Hampshire it
is four-thirty in the morning. He sets the
phone down. Surely Faith is asleep right
now.
The familiar theme music of Hollywood
Tonight! fills the small room. Figures
they'd air that crap in the middle of the night. He
stretches out on the couch and closes his eyes,
opening them just a slit when he hears the voice of
Petra Saganoff. He might be tired, but he
isn't dead.
Her smoky voice rolls over him like a
blanket, as a bright-blue banner fills the
screen: THE LITTLEST SAINT? "As you can see,"
Saganoff says, "we're on location, following
a story that began last week with Rafael
Civernos, the pediatric-Aids baby who was
miraculously cured after playing with a little girl in
the yard right behind me." Squinting, Colin tries
to figure out what's so familiar about Petra
Saganoff--something he can't quite put his finger on.
"Hollywood Tonight! has now discovered that the
seven-year-old miracle worker has been
hospitalized herself, for a mysterious, inexplicable
ailment." The footage changes to stock photos
of stained-glass windows. "For centuries,
Christian saints have manifested religious
ecstasy by receiving stigmata--medically impossible
wounds on the hands, side, and feet that mirror
those of Jesus on the cross." Saganoff's
voice-over begins to lull Colin to sleep. "For
one New Hampshire child, this is only the latest
in a growing list of proof that God has somehow
touched her."
Petra Saganoff is back again,
standing in front of a stone wall that is lined with people in
blankets and sleeping bags, carrying flowers and
rosaries and cameras. "As you can see, Jim, the
public acceptance of the girl's claims is
growing by the hour. By now there are over two hundred
people here who've heard about the visions and miracles
of this little girl and want, somehow, to come in contact
with her."
The screen pulls back to reveal the
Hollywood Tonight! anchor. "Any word on the
girl's medical condition to date?"
"We know she came home from the hospital,
Jim. It remains to be seen if this pint-sized
healer will now be able to heal herself. This is Petra
Saganoff, on location for Hollywood
Tonight!"
Colin sits up, suddenly realizing why this
all looks so familiar: Petra Saganoff
is standing on the eastern edge of his own driveway.

October 18, 1999
"You know what?" Ian interrupts, leaving
David with his mouth gaping. "I don't give a
flying fuck. All I know is that it's your job
to tell me what's going on between the pages of The
Boston Globe, and this one crucial tidbit
was something you managed to overlook." His voice
has risen with each word, to the point where he's
backed young David to the narrow door of the
Winnebago. Grabbing yesterday's paper from the
media assistant's shaking hand, he barely has
to scowl in the boy's direction before David
flees from the RV.
Ian sinks onto the uncomfortable couch and
scans the small piece again, searching for something
he's missed. It is an article that should be
sending him over the moon with joy--an indirect
dig at Faith's credibility that doesn't put
Ian himself in the position of muckraker. Allen
McManus did a better job than he'd
anticipated, not only accessing the records of the
court injunction that locked Mariah away but also
getting confirmation from a psychiatrist that she was
indeed a patient. If this were any other case,
Ian would be on his cell phone inviting
McManus to come speak at an impromptu
press conference. He would be subtly suggesting
other routes the reporter might use to slander the
White family in general.
Instead all Ian can do is wonder
why the hell he ever anonymously phoned
McManus's office in the first place.
Ian closes his eyes and knocks his head
against the wall of the Winnebago, trying to remember
when he'd set that particular ball rolling. Ah,
that's right--Millie Epstein's return from the
dead. Well, Ian almost excuses himself for that;
it's hard to beat. And if he's going to be honest,
he's done this sort of thing a hundred times before.
In his mind, the more doubts you sow, the more followers
you reap. The problem here isn't that he set the
reporter on the trail, it's that he set him on
the trail of Mariah White.
The hell of it is, he likes her. He
knows he shouldn't; he knows that it interferes with his
judgment--but there it is, all the same. A
physical attraction he could dismiss, but it
goes beyond that. There are times he's found himself
wishing she weren't involved in this case, so that in the
end she would not be the one hurt. And that foreign
feeling scares him to death.
A knock at the door interrupts his thoughts.
Ian yanks it open, expecting to find a
penitent David begging for his job, but instead
there's someone he's never in his life seen before. The
man is middle-aged, with a slight belly and
thinning blond hair. He wears a baseball
jacket with stains near the line of the zipper.
"Hey! I see you're already a fan of mine,"
says the stranger.
Ian glances at his fist, still clutching the
Globe article.
"Allen McManus," the man says, holding
out his hand. "It's an honor to meet you. I
came here to continue the series, and saw the
Winnebago, and ... what can I say? I
guess we're all after the same story. Great
minds think alike."
Ian ignores the man's hand. "And you're not
one of them."
"But you--"
He grasps McManus's fingers tightly in
what would look like a handshake to a passerby,
while actually causing great pain. "I work
alone," Ian says through his teeth. "And if you
ever suggest that I'm in any way affiliated with the
bullshit you're printing, I will find so many
skeletons in your closet that your boss won't
let you write the alphabet, much less the
obits." Then, with great satisfaction,
he slams the door in the reporter's face.

At age seven Constantine Christopher
Andrews sewed bits of barbed wire into the linings
of his clothes, figuring that the only way out of the
neighborhood he'd been born in and would
probably die in was to do enough penance for God
to notice him. His mother, who never bothered to learn
English after coming over on the boat from Sicily,
always assumed he'd become a priest--the
premonition having something to do with a strawberry
birthmark in the shape of the cross that clearly
marked his belly upon birth. Constantine grew up
hearing of his imminent ordination so often that he,
too, grew to accept it as fact.
He loved Catholicism. It was a weekly
dose of color and gilt and grandeur in a
piss-poor immigrant ghetto. His dedication was
duly rewarded, and he moved up the ranks of the
Catholic hierarchy to the point where, for the past
fifteen years, he's served as a bishop. He
wanted to retire five years ago, but the Pope
wouldn't let him. It's been so long since he's
mingled with grassroots Catholics--so long, in
fact, since his religion has meant anything more
than oiling the wheels in major fund-raising
campaigns--that when Monsignor O'Shaughnessy
calls with the story of an alleged stigmatic, he
is momentarily thrown for a loop.
"What are we talking here?" he asks,
exasperated because taking this call means he's going
to be late to the Heritage Breakfast at the
Italian Center, with some of the richest Catholic
businessmen in Manchester. "Hands, feet,
sides?"
"As far as I know," the monsignor says,
"hands only. Apparently the child is Jewish."
"Well, that's that. Let the rabbis take care
of her."
"They could. Except there's already been press
attention. According to Father MacReady, about three
hundred practicing Catholics have visited the
site." He clears his throat. "There's also the
small matter of an alleged resurrection."
"Press attention, you say?" Bishop
Andrews considers. One of the phenomena he's
noticed as a member of the Catholic hierarchy is
that donations to the Church get more frequent when the
faith is promoted as a result of good PR.
If he reaches his fund-raising goal
by December, perhaps he'll be able to take a little
time golfing in Scottsdale.
He wishes, not for the first time, that he were the
bishop of a big city like Boston, rather than a
small, poor diocese in southern New
Hampshire. "I sent three candidates down
to St. John's this year. They ought to be able
to spare us a seminary priest to look into the
matter."
"Very good, Your Excellency. I'll let
Father MacReady know."
The bishop hangs up the phone and then places
a call to the Rector of St. John's
Seminary in Boston, talking about the Celtics
game for a minute before getting down to business with the
same calculated charm he usually saves for
glad-handing. It takes less than ten minutes
for the rector to cough up a name, which Andrews
writes on a slip of paper and routes to his
assistant. By the time he leaves his office,
he's thinking about whether he'll have the waffles or
the French toast, having completely erased the young
girl with stigmata from his mind.

The way Faith knows it is not going to be a very
good day is that her mother has made banana
pancakes for breakfast. She likes
pancakes, on the whole, but when the bananas
hit the griddle they smell like feet, and the whole
time she's trying to swallow, she finds herself thinking
of sweaty socks instead, which at breakfast is enough
to make you throw up. She must have told her mother a
gazillion times that she doesn't like banana
pancakes, but, like most things she says, it
doesn't stick, causing Faith to wonder if
she's really making noise when she speaks or if
the volume is turned up only inside her
head.
"Ma," she says, sliding into place at the
table, "I want something else."
Without speaking, her mother sidles over and
removes the banana pancakes. Faith's jaw
drops. Whenever her mother goes to the trouble of
whipping out more than a cereal box for breakfast, it
means that she's put enough time and effort into the meal for
Faith to eat whatever is on her plate, thank
you very much. Faith watches her mother dump the
pancakes into the garbage disposal and
absentmindedly flip the switch.
"What am I supposed to eat?"
Her mother blinks at her. "Oh," she says,
coming back to earth. "I don't know. Oatmeal?"
Without waiting for Faith's approval, she rips
open a packet and dumps it into a bowl, then adds
water from the Insta-Hot tap. Faith hears the
bowl ring as her mother sets it down, and she sniffs.
Banana.
"I bet Daddy wouldn't make me eat stuff
that's totally gross like this," she mutters.
Her mother whips around. "What did you say?"
Faith lifts her chin. "I bet if I
lived with Daddy, he wouldn't make me eat this."
Her mother's eyes are droopy and red, and her
voice is so soft that it hurts Faith just to listen
to it. Immediately she feels as if she's been
kicked in the stomach. She watches her mother
swallow hard, as though the banana oatmeal were
stuck in her throat. "Do you want to live with
Daddy?"
Faith bites her lip. She loves her father,
that much is true, but there is something different about
her mother--something easier and more involved--and after all
these years of living on the fringe of her mother's
life, Faith is not willing to give up a
precious second.
"What I want," Faith says carefully,
"is to stay here."
It is worth it, the way her mother rushes the
space between them to gather Faith in her arms. What
is even better is that her mother sticks her elbow
in the banana oatmeal. "Damn," she says, and
then blushes. "I guess I'd better get you
something else."
"I guess."
She watches her mother rinse out her sleeve and
wet a sponge. "I'm not very good at this," she
says as she begins to wipe down the table.
Globs of oatmeal spill over the edge, landing
on Faith's lap and the floor. She looks up
at the way her mother's hair curtains half of
her face, at the little dimple in her cheek. As
a toddler, Faith would touch that spot on her
mother's cheek and then wait for it to cave in when she
grinned. She loved that, the way she could fall right
into her mother's smile.
"You're doing great," Faith says, and shyly
rises off her seat to kiss the bow of her mother's
neck.

Father MacReady sneaks a glance at
the priest in the passenger seat of his old Chevy
and thinks that having a graduate degree in
pastoral psychology isn't what makes you an
expert. Father Rourke, fresh from St. John's
Seminary, is still wet behind the ears. He's so young
that he probably wasn't even born when Father
MacReady was overseas in 'nam. And being stuck
in Boston, in seminary, only makes him an
ivy-tower type. He wouldn't know how to counsel
a parishioner if one fell into his lap.
But of course Father MacReady doesn't say
anything of the sort. "Pastoral psychology,"
he says amiably, turning onto Mariah
White's road. "What made you get into that?"
Father Rourke crosses his leg, a
Polarfleece sock and Birkenstock sandal
peeking out from beneath his black trousers. "Oh, a
gift for people, I guess. I would have been a
psychiatrist, I suppose, if I hadn't
felt another calling."
And the profound need to tell everyone about it.
"Well, I don't know how much the rector
told you about Faith White."
"Not a lot," Rourke says. "Just that I'm
here to check out her mental state."
"For the record, that's been done. By lay
psychiatrists."
Rourke turns in his seat. "You do realize that
the chance of this child's being a true visionary is
basically nonexistent?"
Father MacReady smiles. "Don't you ever
see a glass as half full?"
"If it's a mind we're talking about, half
isn't nearly as good as whole."
Father MacReady parks in the field across from the
Whites' driveway, in between a camper and a group
of elderly women on folding stadium chairs.
The seminary priest glances around, his jaw
dropping. "Wow! She's already got quite a
following."
They chat for a while with the policeman at the end
of the driveway, another parishioner, thank the
Lord, who easily lets Father MacReady pass
when he says they've made an appointment to see
Mrs. White.
"Have we?" Rourke asks as they walk up the
driveway. "Made an appointment?"
"Not exactly." Father MacReady
approaches the front door and knocks, to find
a small, elfin face peeking out at
them from the sidelight. There is the sound of tumblers
falling as a key is turned in a lock, and then
the door swings open. "They're better," Faith
says, holding up her hands for the priests'
perusal. "Look, I only need
Band-Aids."
Father MacReady whistles. "And they're
Flintstone Band-Aids. Very cool."
Faith glances at the second priest and
shoves her hands behind her back. "I'm not
supposed to talk to you." She suddenly
remembers.
"Maybe we could talk to your mother, then."
"She's upstairs taking a shower."
Rourke steps forward. "Father MacReady here
was telling me how much he liked talking to you when you
were in the hospital, and I was really looking forward
to doing that, too."
Father MacReady realizes Faith is
wavering. Maybe there's something to pastoral
psychology after all. "Faith, your mother knows
me. Surely she wouldn't mind."
"Maybe you'd better wait here till she
comes down."
Rourke turns to Father MacReady. "Well,
I don't know what I'm going to do now with all
those games I brought."
Faith rubs her sleeve on the doorknob,
bringing it to a high polish. "Games?" she
says.

Upstairs, I have just towel-dried my hair
when I hear the sound of male voices.
"Faith!" I dress quickly, my stomach
knotting as I race downstairs.
I find her sitting on the floor with Father
MacReady and another unfamiliar priest, using
a green crayon to circle answers on what is
clearly a psychological-assessment test.
Gritting my teeth, I make a mental note
to call the chief of police and have him send out a
Protestant patrolman. "Faith, you weren't
supposed to answer the door."
"It's my fault," Father MacReady
smoothly answers. "I told her you wouldn't
mind." He hesitates, then nods in the
direction of the second priest. "This is Father
Rourke, from St. John's Seminary in
Boston. He came all the way up here to meet
Faith."
My cheeks burn with disappointment. "How could
you! You were supposed to be on our side." Father
MacReady opens his mouth to apologize, but I
won't let him. "No. Don't think you can say
something that makes this all right, because you can't."
"Mariah, I didn't have a choice. There's
a certain procedure we follow in the Catholic
Church, and--"
"We're not Catholic!"
Father Rourke gets to his feet quietly.
"No, you're not. But your daughter has
attracted the attention of a number of Catholic
people. And the Church wants to make sure that they're
not being led astray."
I have visions of crucifixions, of martyrs
being burned at the stake. "Mariah, we're not
taking pictures," says Father MacReady.
"We're not going to broadcast the brand of
Faith's breakfast cereal on the evening news.
We just want to speak to her for a little while."
Faith stands up and slips her hand into mine.
"It's okay, Mom. Really."
I look from my daughter's face to the
priests'. "Thirty minutes," I say
firmly. Then I fold my arms over my chest,
sit beside her, and prepare to bear witness.

Father Rourke might just as well pick up his
diagnostic tests and his inkblots and head back
home on the next Amtrak. He does not need
the computer analysis to tell him that Faith
White is not a child who has lost touch with reality,
that hers is not the behavior of a psychotic.
He glances at Father MacReady, picking through
a decorative bowl of MandMore's on the coffee
table and extracting the yellow ones to pop into his
mouth. The mother's barely moved a muscle in over
twenty minutes. Rourke is at a loss. The
girl is not mentally ill, but she doesn't seem
to be particularly problematic from a religious
standpoint either. It's not as if she yaps about what
God's told her, like the woman he was sent
to Plymouth to examine. In fact, mostly Faith
White doesn't say anything at all.
Trying to figure out his next course of action,
he pulls his rosary from his pocket and
absentmindedly fingers it. "Oh," Faith
breathes. "That's pretty."
He stares at the polished beads. "Would you like
to see it?"
Faith nods, slipping the rosary over her
head like a necklace. "Is this how it goes?"
"No. It's for praying to God." At
Faith's blank look, Rourke adds, "Our
Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy Name.
..." He is interrupted by Faith's laugh.
"You've got that wrong."
"Got what wrong?"
Faith rolls her eyes. "God's a mother."
"I beg your pardon?"
"A lady. God's a lady."
Rourke's face reddens. A female God?
Absolutely not. His head swings toward Mrs.
White, who raises her eyebrows and shrugs.
Father MacReady, on the other hand, is the very
picture of innocence. "Oh," MacReady
says. "Did I forget to mention that?"

Just after 10:00 P.m., the doorbell rings.
Hoping not to wake Faith, I scramble down the
stairs and yank open the door to find myself staring
at Colin.
He looks terrible. His hair is flattened
on one side, as if he's been asleep on it;
his raincoat is wrinkled; his eyes are
bloodshot with lack of sleep. His mouth is a
thin slash, pinched tight with disapproval.
He glances over his shoulder at the vans and
cars parked in the cornfield across the road,
illuminated by a full moon. Faith stumbles
sleepily down the stairs and skids to a stop beside
me, her arms wrapped around my waist.
When Colin sees her, he crouches and reaches
out a hand. Faith hesitates, then dashes behind
me. "What in the name of God," he says
tightly, "have you done to my daughter?"

"Actually," Mariah answers, "it's funny
you should put it that way."
Colin uses every bit of his self-control
to keep from pushing her aside so that he can get his
hands on his daughter. Until he got here, he
did not really know what he would find. Certainly
those trashy telemagazines bent the truth, in the
same way the National Enquirer supposedly
stuck Elizabeth Taylor's head on Heather
Locklear's body. Colin thought maybe he'd
find that Faith had burned her palm on the
stove. Maybe she'd fallen off her bike and
needed stitches. There were a multitude
of ways to explain a bad camera shot of a little
girl's bleeding hands.
But Colin had reserved a coach ticket on
the first flight out of Las Vegas, fought with
Jessica over coming, traveled all day by plane
and rental car, only to arrive at the driveway
of his former home and find it blockaded by the
police, lined with shrines and tents and hordes of
curious people.
"I'm coming in," he says tightly, and
Faith lets go of her mother and skitters
upstairs.
"I don't think so. This is my house, now."
Colin needs a minute to pull himself together.
Mariah, telling him no? He shoves forward,
only to have her stop him with a bracing hand.
"I mean it, Colin. I'll call the
police if I have to."
"Go ahead!" he yells with frustration.
"They're just at the goddamned end of the goddamned
driveway!"
He is tired, crabby, and overwhelmed. When
he set their divorce in motion, he had not thought
twice about giving custody of Faith to Mariah.
He'd never assumed that she would balk when he was
ready to introduce Faith to the new mix of his
life. She was fair, and when she wasn't, she was
a pushover.
Was. "Look," he says calmly. "Can
you just tell me what this is about Faith's hands?"
Mariah looks down at her bare feet.
"It's not that easy."
"Make it easy."
She hesitates, then pushes the door wider
so that he can walk inside.

After tucking Faith in again, I explain it
all to Colin--the imaginary friend, the medicines for
psychosis, the steady parade of priests and
rabbis, the resurrection of my mother. For a moment
he just stares at me; then he begins to laugh. "You
had me going there for a while."
"I'm not kidding, Colin."
"Right. You really think that Faith has some
hotline to God." He laughs again. "She's
always had a hell of an imagination, Rye, you know
that. Remember the time she got the whole
nursery-school class to believe that when they went
outside for recess, they'd be in Disney World?"
I'm having trouble concentrating.
There's an anger brewing just below the surface in
me, resentment that Colin feels he can walk
back in here and issue commands, when he clearly
relinquished that right months ago. But there are other
emotions, too. Just being in the same room with
Colin still feels like a homecoming, as if my
body knows the right of it and is reaching for him before I
can convince my mind to do the same. A tornado
starts in the pit of my belly--one that whirls with the
assumption that he's come back for good and sucks
my good sense right down through its center.
I watch the play of Colin's mouth, listen
to him call me by my nickname, and wonder if I
am going to live through being this close to him knowing that
he no longer wants me.
"Whatever happened, it's out of control. Do you
think it's normal that she can't go to school? That
there are a bunch of people sleeping under the
rhododendrons who think our daughter--" He
snaps his fingers beneath my nose. "Hey ... are
you even listening to me?"
I stare at his long fingers. In spite of the
fact that there was a divorce decree, Colin is
still wearing a wedding band.
Then I realize it isn't the one I gave
him.
"Oh," Colin says, coloring. "T." He
covers the ring with the palm of his other hand. "I,
um, got married. To Jessica."
When I shake my head, my vision of Colin
reconfigures. He is no god, no tender
memory, but simply someone I will never understand.
"You married Jessica," I repeat slowly.
"Yes."
"You married Jessica."
"Rye, we never would have made it work. I am
sorry truly, truly sorry for that."
My anger returns full force. "We never
could have made it work? How could you know that, Colin,
when I was the only one willing to try?"
"Yes, you were. But, Rye--I wasn't."
He reaches for my hand, but I pull it away
and tuck it between my knees. "You were willing to try
again, Colin. Just not with me."
"No, not with you." He looks away,
embarrassed. "That's not important right now."
"It's not? God, what could be more
important?"
"Faith. It's not about you this time. You always
twist it so it's your problem, your
issue."
"It was about me!" I cry. "How can you say
Greenhaven wasn't about me?"
"Because we're not talking about Greenhaven!
Jesus Christ, we're talking about our
daughter!" He rakes his hand through his hair.
"It's been eight years, for God's sake. I
did what I thought I had to do. Aren't you ever
going to forgive me for that?"
"Apparently not," I whisper.
"I know," Colin says after a moment. "I'm
sorry."
"I'm sorry, too."
He holds out his arms, and I move into them.
With detachment I marvel at how you can know
someone's body so well, even after a separation, like
a land you visited as a child and return to years
later, with an eye toward the unfamiliar but a
feeling of confidence in your footing. "I never
meant to hurt you," he murmurs into my hair.
I plan to say the same to him, but it comes out
all wrong. "I never meant to love you."
Surprised, Colin draws back, a rueful
smile on his face. "That's the hell of it,
huh?" He touches my cheek. "You know I'm
right, Rye. Faith doesn't deserve this."
It strikes me then why he has come: not
to make his peace with me, but to take my daughter
away.
Suddenly I remember how, years ago, I
would sometimes wake him in the middle of the night and
ask him a ridiculous question: "What do you like best
about Cracker Jacks--the peanuts or the
popcorn?" "If you were going to be a day of the
week, which one would it be?" And others, as if I
expected to be a contestant on the Newlywed
Game. Colin would pull a pillow over his
head, ask why I needed to know. I see now that
I was storing away the answers, like a squirrel.
To give myself a modicum of credit: I did not
know that Colin was sleeping with another woman, but
I did know that he likes the yolks broken in his
eggs. That the smell of wallpaper paste makes
him dizzy. That given the choice to learn a new
language, he would choose Japanese.
Now Jessica will learn these things. Jessica
will have my husband, my daughter.
Faith didn't deserve this, Colin had said.
And I think, Neither did I.
The thought makes my heart catch--
what if I couldn't keep Faith?
Suddenly I feel strong enough to move a
mountain. To single-handedly sweep away all the people
who have stolen my privacy. To carry Faith to where
nobody has the chance to touch her in passing or
snag pilled wool from her sweaters or sort through
her discarded trash.
I am strong enough to admit that maybe I'm doing
all right as a mother, all things considered. And I
am certainly strong enough to admit that, for the first time in
my life, I wish Colin would just go away.
"You know," I say, "if Faith told me,
without a doubt, that the sky was orange, I'd
entertain the notion. If she says so, there's a
reason for it, and I'm going to listen."
Colin stills. "You believe she's talking
to God, and raising the dead, and all of this
garbage? That's crazy."
"No, it's not. And neither was I." I stand up.
"You made a decision to give me custody of
Faith. You have a visit coming up at
Thanksgiving. But until then I don't want
to hear from you, Colin."
I walk to the front door and hold it open,
although it takes a moment for Colin to get over the
shock of being dismissed. He moves briskly to the
door. "You won't hear from me," he says
softly. "You'll hear from my lawyer."

In spite of my newfound bravado, I
tremble for hours after Colin leaves. I turn
on all the lights downstairs and walk from room
to room, trying to find a comfortable place. Finally
I sit down at the dining-room table, gingerly
playing with the shutters on the model farmhouse I
made years ago. It isn't accurate now. The
wallpaper in the master bath has changed, and
Faith has a bed instead of a crib, and--of
course--it is now a residence for two instead of
three.
I'm furious at Colin for what he's done,
what he's threatened. My rage propels me
up the stairs, down the hall, to the doorway of
Faith's room, where I hover like a ghost. Did
he mean it? Would he fight to have Faith taken
away?
He would win; this I know. I don't stand a
chance. And if it is not Colin who comes for
Faith, it will be someone else: another official
from the Catholic Church ... the
tabloid-Tv reporter whose national coverage
brought Colin running ... or the thousands of others
who also saw the broadcast and want a piece of
her.
I tiptoe into the room and stretch out beside
Faith on the narrow bed, staring down at the slope
of her cheek and the spiral of her ear. How is it
that you never realize how precious something is
until you are about to lose it?
Faith shifts, turns, and blinks at me.
"I smell oranges," she says sleepily.
"It's my shampoo." I smooth the covers
over her. "Go back to sleep."
"Is Daddy still here?"
"No."
"Is he coming back tomorrow?"
I stare at Faith and make up my mind. It
is not what I want to do, but I don't really have
a choice. "He can't," I say. "Because you and
I are going away."

EIGHT

Ian Fletcher is a man destined for hell,
if ever there was one--unless he manages to prove
it doesn't exist before he gets there.
--Op-ed page,
The New York Times, August 10,

October 19, 1999
"For the record," Millie says, "I'm
against this."
"I'm not," Faith announces as Mariah
zips her jacket. "I think it's cool to be a
spy."
"You're not a spy. You're a sneak."
Mariah pats down the placket of the zipper.
"You ready?"
She knows Faith is; she's been ready since
6:00 A.m., when Mariah told her what was
going to happen. Of course, she'd couched it in the
vocabulary of suspense and adventure, so that
Faith would feel more like a young Indiana Jones
than a child being taken into hiding. And so far the
escapade has lived up to Faith's
anticipation--stealing into the car with little more
than a knapsack apiece, driving forty-five
minutes to the mall, blending into the crowds to lose
the two dogged reporters who'd tailed them there.
The reporters will no doubt stake out her
Honda, waiting for the three of them to appear. But
by the time Millie walks to the parking lot to drive
the car back home, Mariah and Faith will already have
changed clothes and met a taxi at an exit on
the far side of the mall, headed toward the
airport.
Now all she has to do is say good-bye.
Mariah glances at the mirror in the bathroom
at Filene's and catches her mother's gaze.
Millie walks forward and puts her arm around
Mariah's waist. "You don't have to let them
chase you away," she says softly.
"I'm not, Ma." Mariah swallows the lump
in her throat. "I'm getting a head start."
She cannot stand the thought of leaving her mother behind--not
only because of the recent heart trouble, but also for the
simple fact that Millie is Mariah's
closest friend, as well as her mother. Then again, even
Millie would agree--you do what you have to do to keep
Faith. With it put that plainly, Mariah cannot
let herself be steamrolled--again--by people and
circumstances beyond her control.
She has not told Millie about Colin's
custody threat, nor has she mentioned where she
plans to go. This way, when the lawyers get in
touch with her ... or the reporters, or Ian
Fletcher--her mother will not be forced to lie. Mariah
turns and throws her arms around her mother's neck.
"I will call you. When I can, when I know it's
all right."
Faith burrows between them. "Get dressed,
Grandma! We're going to miss the taxi."
Mariah touches Faith's hair. "Honey,
Grandma has to stay here."
"Here?"
"Well, not here. But at our house, to watch
over ... things."
The words do not register. "Grandma has to come with
us," Faith insists.
Mariah has not told Faith this part of the
plan, for exactly this reason; it is the one thing
that will make her balk. "Faithele," Millie
says, crouching down, "there's nothing I'd like more
than to go with you in the taxi on your trip. But I
can't."
"Because someone has to drive our car
home," she says after a moment. "But you'll come
later?"
Millie glances at Mariah. "You bet."
She zips Faith's spare clothes into the
knapsack, then pulls the straps over her
granddaughter's arms. "Be good," she adds, then
kisses Faith on the forehead. She watches
Mariah take Faith's hand and lead her out of the
bathroom, Faith turning at the last minute
to blow a kiss. Then Millie sits down in an
empty toilet stall, imagining a thousand things that
could go wrong now that Mariah and Faith have run
away, imagining a thousand things that could have gone
wrong even if they hadn't.

Malcolm Metz spreads his capable hands on
the surface of his highly polished desk. "Let
me get this straight, Mr. White. You
voluntarily relinquished custody of your
daughter ten weeks ago. And now you want her
to move in with you and your new wife."
Colin nods. He tries not to feel daunted
by the offices of Walloughby, Krieger and
Metz, but they were far less intimidating six
months earlier when he retrofitted the entire
place with electroluminescent exit signs.
Of course, back then he was only taking care of
business. This visit is far more personal, and
there's much more at stake.
"That's correct." He assesses Metz
slowly, from the man's close-cropped
salt-and-pepper hair to his Italian
loafers. Known for his bulldozing drive to win,
Metz is something of a New Hampshire
litigating legend.
The attorney taps the tips of his fingers
together. "Why the change of heart?"
Colin feels the beginnings of a slow burn.
"Because my ex-wife is crazy? Because my
daughter's been turned against me? Because I'm
worried about her welfare? Take your pick."
Metz has heard it all before. As a matter
of fact, he has a court appearance in less
than two hours as the divorce attorney for a
reputed Mafia wife, and he would much rather be in the
executive washroom perfecting his demeanor for the
cameras that are sure to be there. A custody
case like this--well, he should be able to win it in his
sleep.
"What has your ex-wife done
to endanger your daughter?"
"What have you heard about the little girl who's
seeing God?"
Malcolm stops drumming his fingers on his
desk. "That's your kid?"
"Yeah. No." Colin sighs. "Ah, shit.
I don't even know anymore. There are a
couple hundred people at the end of the driveway, and
they all believe that Faith's turned into some
prophet, and her hands are bleeding and ...
Christ." He looks at the attorney. "This
is not the little girl I left."
Malcolm silently extracts a yellow
pad from a drawer of his desk. The potential for
media coverage of this case is extraordinary--
far beyond the narrow range of New Hampshire.
He uncaps a pen and decides to sink his teeth
in. "You believe that you would be better able to serve
the interests of this child. You believe that living with her
mother, as it stands, is adversely affecting your
daughter." Colin nods. "Can you tell me why
you didn't believe these same things just four
months ago?"
"Look, if I'm going to pay you a
twenty-thousand-dollar retainer and five hundred
dollars an hour over that, then I don't have
to explain anything. I want my daughter. I
want her now. I heard that you could help me.
Period."
Malcolm holds his client's gaze for a
moment. "You want full custody?"
"Yes."
"At all costs?"
Colin does not have to ask what Metz means.
He knows that the surest way to prove himself the
better parent is to make Mariah look worse.
By the time this is over, Mariah won't lose
only Faith. She'll also have lost her
self-respect.
He shifts uncomfortably. It is not what
he wants to do, but he doesn't really have a
choice. Just as when he made the decision to have
Mariah committed, the ends here justify the means.
Just as then, he is only concerned for the safety of
someone he loves.
He has a painful flashback of the night
Mariah tried to kill herself--the blood everywhere,
his name still bubbling on her lips. He forces himself
to imagine Faith hiding when he appeared yesterday
at the door. "I want my daughter
back," Colin repeats firmly, convincing himself.
"You do whatever it takes."
Last Tuesday Ian Fletcher flew out of
Manchester, a little airport trying to pretend it
was several shades more cosmopolitan than it
actually was. It was, in a word, a nightmare.
Not only was his flight to Kansas City
delayed, but there was no Admiral's Club
to lounge in before the flight, meaning that he'd spent
the better part of an hour hiding in a bathroom
stall to avoid recognition. This week he was
flying out of Boston. It meant a longer limo
ride to the airport, but a considerably less
stressful journey.
"Sir? What airline are you traveling?"
At the sound of the chauffeur's voice, Ian
leans forward. "American." He gathers his
briefcase as the limousine snakes into a spot
at the curb, signs the credit-card receipt,
and hands the clipboard back to the driver without
saying another word. Keeping his head low, he
ducks to the right, toward the bank of elevators that
he knows will take him to the private first-class
passenger club, where he can wait in a secluded
room until his flight is called.

Mariah stands in front of the departures board,
skimming the list of destinations. So many places;
how is she to pick? It is not as if one destination
holds any edge over another--no matter where
they wind up, they will be starting from scratch.
"Mom?" Faith asks, tugging at her arm.
"Can we go to Vegas?"
A smile tugs at Mariah's mouth. "What
do you know about Vegas?"
"Daddy went there once. You can push
buttons, and money just comes flying out at you. I
saw it on TV."
"Well, it's not quite like that. You have to be very, very
lucky. And anyway, I don't even see a
flight to Las Vegas listed here."
"So where are we going?"
Good question. Mariah smooths her hand over her
purse, considering how much money she has inside.
Two thousand dollars in cash--God, she feels
like a walking target. But she knows better than
to leave a paper trail, and this was as much money as
she could get out of a local bank on short
notice. If they are frugal, she and
Faith should be able to remain undetected for a little
while at least. And if they manage to elude the
media, maybe the interest in Faith will just die
down.
Without a passport, she's limited to the
United States. Hawaii--she's always wanted
to go to Hawaii, but the tickets are sure to be
phenomenally expensive and eat into their budget.
Mariah's eyes run down the columns again.
There is a flight to Los Angeles at noon.
One to Kansas City, Missouri at
eleven-fifteen.
She leads Faith to the line where they can
purchase standby tickets, deciding that their
destination, quite simply, is whatever plane leaves
this airport first.

As they board, Mariah finds herself thanking
God that the story about Faith has only just gone
national, meaning that most people with whom they come in
contact--the flight attendant, the nice man who
offers to stuff their knapsacks into the overhead
compartment--look at them and see a mother and her child,
instead of a pair of media fugitives.
Faith has only been on a plane twice
before, once as a baby when her grandfather died and
once when they all went to Washington D.c.,
for a family vacation. She bounces in her seat,
craning her neck to get a better peek at the
first-class cabin, which they are seated directly
behind. "What's in there? How come the seats are a
different color?"
"It's where businessmen and people who have a lot of
money sit. They pay more for those seats."
"Why didn't we pay for them?"
"Because ..." Mariah throws an exasperated
look in her daughter's direction. "Just because,"
she says as the flight attendant unsnaps a
blue curtain to shield the cabin from view.

"Final boarding call for Flight 5456
to Kansas City ..."
Ian strides toward the gate and presents his
boarding pass. "Mr. Fletcher," the airline
representative says, "I enjoy your show."
He nods brusquely and hurries toward the
plane, handing the flight attendant his coat and
settling into his seat. "Good morning, Mr.
Fletcher. Can I get you something to drink before
takeoff?"
"Bourbon, straight."
There are three other passengers in first class,
a pain in the ass, but not a tragedy. It would have
been worse if one of them had been seated beside
him. The flight attendant returns with his
liquor. This weekly flight, like everything else
about his visits to Michael, is a routine. He
sets down the glass and closes his eyes,
drifting into a dream in which cards fall red and then
black, red and then black, in endless succession.

"I have to pee," Faith announces.
Mariah sighs. The drink cart is directly
behind them, blocking the route to the lavatories in the
rear; there's no way Faith will be able to hold it
in until the flight attendants finish the
beverage service. She eyes the blue curtain
that leads to the first-class cabin. "Come here."
She leads Faith through the short aisle strip
quickly, hoping that she can get her into the little
bathroom before a flight attendant busts them for
trespassing. "Here," she says, nearly hauling
Faith into the cubicle. "Don't forget to lock
the door so the lights come on." Then she leans
against the humming wall of the plane, glances around
first class.
And finds herself staring at Ian Fletcher.

Oh, God. There is nowhere to go on a
plane. Mariah takes the coward's way out,
hustling Faith back to their seats after she comes out
of the lavatory and thoroughly avoiding Ian
Fletcher's gaze the entire way. She closes
her eyes in disgust. There must have been--what,
fifty flights?--leaving Logan Airport this
hour, and she managed to blindly choose the one with
Fletcher on it. The person who had the most
to gain from giving up her and Faith's whereabouts.
Then it strikes her: This was no chance meeting.
Somehow Ian Fletcher managed to follow them to the
airport. She doesn't know why he doesn't
get it over with, just stomp back here to steerage and
tell her he's got her number. Maybe he's
using one of those little AirPhones even now
to arrange for a producer and a camera crew to meet
them in Kansas City.
She feels tears constricting her throat. Her
grand plan is over before it's even started.

For a full minute after Mariah
White flees like a frightened rabbit into the back
of the plane, Ian entertains the thought of calling
James Wilton and directing the hounds to the
fox; he even goes so far as to take a credit
card out and read the AirPhone instructions, but then
remembers why he cannot. The very last thing he
wants to do is bring the media crashing down within a
hundred miles of Michael.
Mariah White doesn't know it, but she has
just as much of an edge on Ian as he has on
her.
Ian finishes his bourbon and signals the
flight attendant for another. The easiest way
out of this is to go along with what Mariah is no
doubt thinking: that he tailed them from New
Canaan to the Boston airport. Otherwise
she'll wonder why he's on a plane bound for
Kansas City. It is one thing for him to learn
all her secrets, another thing entirely for her
to learn his. His entire trip will have to be changed
now.
A thought takes root in Ian's mind. What
if he can watch Faith put on her private
healing show at close range? What if he
handpicks the target of her so-called miracle,
so that she can't help but fail? The grandmother and the
woman with the AIDS baby, they could have been in on
the action somehow. But Michael--well, no one
knows better than Ian himself that Michael isn't
part of their charade ... and that Michael can't be
cured.
All he has to do is whittle away at their
sympathies, so that they agree to try to fix
Michael as a personal favor to Ian. And
while Faith White is attempting to pull off
her hoax, he gets an up-close, personal
look at how it's being done. Even Michael's
anonymity is preserved; Mariah White's not
about to go blabbing if it means revealing her location.
The ludicrous image of Faith laying hands
on Michael in some charlatan revue that's been
choreographed by her mother gives way in Ian's
head to the image he's tucked so far away that it
aches to bring it to the surface: Michael looking
him in the eye, Michael reaching for him of his own
volition, Michael clapping him on the back in
an embrace.
Ha--more likely he'd see Mariah White
scrambling to explain that the moon is out of
alignment or some other crap like that
to excuse the fact that her miraculous daughter
couldn't heal an autistic man.
If Ian were a man who believed in destiny,
he'd think it was fate that brought the Whites to this
particular plane. Instead he considers it an
opportunity that's dropped into his lap, one that
could potentially become the story of a lifetime.
He only has to charm Faith and her mother into thinking
that a cynic like him might not be the enemy after all,
might actually pin his hopes on a child with the
alleged power to heal, might stand by and act
devastated when Faith ultimately fails.
But would that really be an act?

Mariah isn't surprised when she steps off
the plane to find Ian Fletcher waiting for her,
nor is she surprised to have him ignore her--
entirely--for Faith. "Hey, there," he
drawls, getting down to her level. "Did
y'all come out on this plane, too?"
Faith's eyes widen. "Mr. Fletcher!"
"The one and only." He stands up and nods.
"Ma'am."
Mariah squeezes Faith's hand, a warning.
"We're here for a wedding. My cousin's wedding.
Tonight." Her voice is too high, staccato, and the
moment she volunteers information Fletcher didn't
even solicit, she feels as if she could kick
herself.
"That so? Don't believe I ever heard of a
wedding that took place on a Tuesday night."
Mariah's chin lifts a notch. "It's ...
part of their religion."
"Seems there's a lot of that goin' around."
He smiles at Faith. "On account of us
running into each other, what do you say we get an
ice cream?"
Faith, clearly excited by the idea, turns
to Mariah. "We don't have time," Mariah
says.
"But we don't have any--"
"Faith!" Mariah interrupts, then sighs.
"All right. We can get an ice cream."
Ian leads them to an airport cafeteria.
He orders a cone for Faith and Cokes for himself
and Mariah. "Faith, your mama and I want to have
a talk. How about eating your ice cream over there
at that table?"
As Faith runs off, Mariah tries to call
her back, but is stopped by Ian's hand
on her arm. For a moment she cannot breathe, cannot
move, until he takes it away. "Let her
go. You've got a clear view, and you're
fifteen hundred miles away from the people who want
to get to her."
Mariah defiantly turns. "We could just
walk away from you. You can't stop us."
"You gonna call the police? I doubt it.
First of all, that'd leave a paper trail. And
something tells me you don't want to leave one of
those." He smiles sadly. "Would you believe
me if I said I was here for any reason other
than you and Faith? I didn't think so. The
hell of it is, Miz White, that I admire you
for this. And I'd like to offer you some advice."
"Said the fox to the gingerbread man," Mariah
mutters.
"What was that?"
"Nothing."
"Huh. Well, what I was about to say was that you
can't be too careful. Have you given any thought as
to where you and Faith will be staying?"
Refusing to let him in on their plans,
Mariah tightens her mouth.
"A motel, I'll bet," Ian continues
breezily. "But sooner or later it'll cross
your mind that a lady staying with a little girl for some
time in a dingy motel will stick out like a sore
thumb. On the other hand, moving from motel
to motel is going to be awful hard on a child. So
that'll leave you at the mercy of a local friend--of which
I'm willing to bet you don't have too many--or
leasing some cheap apartment. Thing is, Miz White,
any landlord worth his salt is gonna want some
references. And they're hard to come by when you're
anonymous. Plus, that doesn't even address
the problem of how to rent yourself a car, when your
driver's license and credit card are surely
items you don't want recorded for posterity."
Having had about enough of this, Mariah starts to move
away. The hell with Ian Fletcher. The hell
with Kansas City. There are at least a hundred
connecting flights leaving this afternoon; all she has
to do is manage to slip past him once more. She
turns toward Faith, but he grabs her wrist,
holds her. "I will find you," he whispers,
reading her mind. "You know that."
Still, her eyes flicker toward the corridor,
the bathrooms, all the possible exits. "You said
you were going to give me some advice."
"That's right. I think you ought to look up an
acquaintance while you're in town."
Mariah chokes on a laugh. "Wait. Let
me think of all the sorority sisters I have in
Kansas City."
"I meant me," Ian says softly. "I
think you should stay with me."
For a long moment Mariah only stares at him.
"Are you crazy?"
His eyes are as blue as a pool, as inviting
to fall into. "I just may be, Miz White,"
he admits. "Because if I wasn't, I
surely would have told my producer about your little
girl's hands last week. I would have had a bunch
of cameras waiting to meet you when you got off that
plane, instead of just me. I would have spent that
flight thinking I was out to expose you to the world,
instead of thinking that maybe, this one time, I could do
the right thing and help hide you away." He glances
at Faith. "It's the ultimate cover. The very
last place anyone would ever expect you'd go
underground ... is with me."
"Unless you told them so yourself." Mariah's
gaze is unflinching. It is impossible for her
to trust this man, whom she never even would have met
if not for his interest in Faith as a juicy story.
But then again, she cannot fault his claims. As
blustery and vindictive as the public image of
Ian Fletcher is, in private, he has often
been sympathetic. And yet to run away from the
eyes of the press and into Fletcher's residence
seems like a direct and suicidal jump from the
frying pan into the fire.
He has not released her wrist, and his thumb
grazes the skin along the ridge of her scar.
"You have my word that I won't give away your
hiding place. And you will have your privacy." Then
he smiles. "What's worse, Mariah? The
devil you don't know ... or the devil you do?"

They're buying it. Ian is nearly giddy with
relief as Mariah walks toward Faith and
speaks to her daughter about the change in plans.
She's still wary, but that's all right. Let her think
he has a hidden agenda. After all, he does.
It's just not what Mariah White thinks. Getting
Faith to the point where she willingly comes to meet
Michael--and getting her mother to the point where she
allows this--will take the bulk of Ian's thespian
skills.
As she walks back with her daughter in tow,
Ian is struck again by her features. It's the
contradictions that draw him: the stunning green
eyes, puffy and tired; the soft mouth bracketed
by lines that have been carved by pain. "So," she says
hesitantly, "you have a home here?"
At that, Ian almost laughs. He wouldn't
live in this state if it were the last place on
earth. "Give me an hour and I will."
He leads them to an Avis dealership and rents
a car, signing it out on a Pagan Productions
corporate credit card. Mariah remains in the
background near a bank of phones, unwilling
to risk being seen by someone who might later
identify her or Faith. As he returns with
keys in hand, Ian checks his watch and scowls.
He has less than an hour to get to Michael.
"Do you know where you're going?" Mariah asks as
they turn onto the interstate.
"West. I thought it might be better to get
outside the city." And closer to Lockwood.
"You drive like you know your way."
"I come here a fair amount on business,"
Ian lies. "There's a little place in
Ozawkie that rents cabins on Perry Lake.
I've never stayed there, but I must have passed their
sign a hundred times. I figured we could stop
up there and give it a try first."
"Can we go swimming?"
Ian grins at Faith in the rearview
mirror. "Don't think your mama's gonna
let you swim when it's this cold. But I can't
imagine she'd get angry at a little fishing."
In a while they turn off and drive across the
flats from Missouri into Kansas. Mariah
glances out the window, staring at stubbled fields where
corn was recently harvested. Faith's nose is
pressed to the glass. "Where are the mountains?"
"Home," Mariah murmurs.

As Mariah looks at the beaten shacks that
comprise Camp Perry, she tells herself that
beggars can't be choosers. She and Faith might have
found more luxurious accommodations, but, as
Fletcher has said, they'd also be easily
traced. She watches him circle the manager's
office and knock on the door, then step up and
peer into a window. When no one answers, he
shrugs and walks toward the car. "Looks like--"
"Can I help you?"
A little old lady with the look of a wren about her
opens the door of the manager's office. "Why,
yes'm, you can," Fletcher says, his voice
dripping with charm. "My wife and I were hoping
to rent one of your charming establishments."
Wife?
"We're closed for the season," the woman
says. "Sorry."
Fletcher stares at her for a moment. "Surely
a good Christian woman like yourself would be willing
to make an exception if it furthered the work of
Our Lord."
Mariah nearly chokes on her tongue.
"Mommy," Faith whispers from the backseat,
"how come he's talking weird?"
She cranes her neck back. "Ssh. He's
putting on a show. Like a play for us to watch."
"Jesus told me to pack it all up
October first," the woman says.
"That is a pure shame, ma'am." Ian
shakes his head. "Because He told me to listen
to His voice right here at Camp Perry." He
comes forward, extending a hand. "Forgive me for not
introducing myself sooner. I'm Harry
Walters, a preacher from Lou'ville. This here's
my lovely wife, Maybelle, and my daughter
Frances."
"Frances is a fine name," the woman says.
"My maiden aunt's name."
"We thought so ourselves."
The woman cocks her head. "You say you're
a preacher?"
"That I am. And a musical one at that. I'm
the director of the Greater Kentucky Hymn
Sing, and this year the Lord's called me to fashion
a few new tunes in His name."
"I been to those hymn sings myself. Always did
believe in offering up a joyful noise."
"Amen, ma'am," Fletcher says.
The woman throws up her hands. "Well, who
am I to stand in the way of the Lord? I can't
promise you regular housekeeping, but I
imagine I can poke around and find some sheets
yet." She walks back into the manager's
house, presumably to find a key.
Ian Fletcher turns toward Mariah and
Faith and gives a nearly imperceptible bow.
Mariah bursts out with a startled laugh. The nerve
of the man! He approaches the car and opens her
door. "Maybelle, honey," he
says, smiling hugely, "looks like I got us
a temporary home."
"Maybelle? You couldn't have picked
Melissa, or Marion, or--"
"I like Maybelle. It seems ...
bovine."
Mariah glares at him, then turns to the
backseat. "Come on, Faith--"
"Frances," Ian interrupts.
"Whatever." She helps Faith tug her
knapsack from the car as the old lady comes out of the
manager's house.
"You got bungalow seven. I go to bed at
nine o'clock, and I don't care if it is Jesus
you're singing to--you make sure it's quiet
then." She turns and leaves them to their cabin.
Crossing the threshold, Ian becomes another
person entirely. "Christ. Did someone die
here last summer?"
Mariah, standing in the doorway, cannot fault his
observation. To call the cabin rustic would be a
stretch of flattery. A ratty braided rug with
numerous stains graces the floor. Off the
central room are two doors, one leading to a
bathroom the size of a closet and one leading to the
only bedroom. There's a coffee table, a
frayed plaid couch, and a battered kitchen table,
on which rests an assortment of mismatched, dusty
Tupperware.
"This is gross." Faith scowls. "I
don't want to stay here."
Mariah immediately forces herself to smile. "It's
an adventure. Like camping out, except we have a
bed." She peers into the bedroom. "Well, one of
us has a bed."
Ian snorts. "You and Faith can sleep in
it. I'll risk the communicable diseases growing on
the couch." He sits down heavily on it and bows
his head, his shoulders shaking in silence. For a
stunned moment Mariah thinks he might be crying,
but then a guffaw spills out of him as he tips
back his head. "God, if my producer could
see me now," he says, wiping his eyes. "The
Winnebago is a goddamned palace compared
to this."
It is at the mention of his producer that Mariah
realizes what's been niggling at the back of her
mind. She's terrified of being recognized, although
she and Faith are still far from familiar faces.
However, Ian Fletcher is a
household name, a celebrity. And yet he can
walk up to the Avis counter without causing a rush
of fans; he can pretend to be Preacher Harry
Walters and no one recognizes him. "How
come?" she asks quietly. "How come she
didn't know you?"
Ian grins. "This is the Bible Belt,
sweetheart. We got hymn sings and little old
ladies who want to please Jesus, but not a
huge population of atheists. I've got a
built-in disguise here, because I'm not real high
on the must-see-Tv list of most of these
religious folk."
Mariah raises a brow. "You couldn't have known
by looking at her that that old lady's never seen your
show."
"I'd stake my bets."
Annoyed by his certainty, she crosses her
arms. "Because she's elderly? Because she couldn't
see through your snow job?"
"No, Miz White." Fletcher leans forward
and flicks on the battered TV set to reveal a
screen of static. "Because she doesn't have cable."

By the time Ian gets to Lockwood he's an
hour and seventeen minutes late. He's left
Mariah and Faith at the cabin with the excuse that
he's going to find food at the market. Now he
flies into the recreation room, where he usually
finds Michael. Peering through the door, he sees
Michael still sitting in his usual corner, tossing
down cards.
Tempered with the wash of relief that Michael's
waited for him is the bitter realization that there's
nowhere for him to go.
"Hey." Ian pushes inside and draws up
a chair. Sweat runs down his temple, but he
doesn't remove his coat just yet. He knows the
routine; first Michael has to acknowledge him.
A red card falls. Then a black one.
Ian rubs his temple against his collar.
"Three-thirty," Michael says quietly.
"I know, buddy. I'm an hour and ...
twenty minutes late."
"It's four fifty-one. Twenty seconds.
Twenty-two seconds. Twenty-four--"
"I know what time it is, Michael."
Irritated, Ian shrugs off his coat.
"Three-thirty. Three-thirty on
Tuesday. That's the time that Ian comes."
Michael begins to rock gently in his seat.
"Ssh, Michael. I'm sorry now. I
won't let it happen again." Recognizing the
warning signs, he moves slowly, holding his
hands up as he comes closer.
"Three-thirty!" Michael yells.
"Three-thirty on Tuesday. Not on Monday.
Not Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday
Sunday! Tuesday Tuesday Tuesday!"
As quickly as the outburst has come, it's over.
He pulls his chair away from Ian, into the
corner of the room, his shoulders hunched over his
deck of cards.
"You were late."
Ian turns to find one of the psychiatrists who
come daily to Lockwood standing a few feet
away. His smile twists. "So I've been
told."
"Michael has a gift for that, doesn't
he?" The doctor laughs. "Your flight was
late?"
"No. I got hung up on my way here."
"Well, in his world there's no room for
mistakes. Don't take it personally."
Ian calls the man as he turns to go.
"What do you think would happen if I came back
tomorrow? Or a couple of days after?"
"You mean other than Tuesday at
three-thirty?" The psychiatrist considers
Michael, in the corner. "I think it would set
him off again."
Ian nods and looks away. He'd thought so,
too. It means that he has seven days,
exactly, to get Faith White back here.
He sighs and pulls up a chair directly
behind Michael. Ian can see the crown of his head,
peppered with gray now, and it depresses him.
What kind of life has it been here, for so long?
A better one than it almost was. The
voice in his head is an absolution.
Lockwood is a supervised-care facility, just
one step away from a residential group home,
and considerably better than an institution. One
day, maybe, Michael will be ready to live on his
own. Until then, this is the best care money can
buy.
Wearily, Ian glances at his watch, and
sits in silence for the rest of the hour, because even if
Michael is not speaking to him directly, he's
fully aware of how long Ian stays.
He watches Michael rock, a metronome,
and wonders how a man like himself, who has no use
for the Bible, has become his brother's keeper.

By the time Ian returns to the cabin, the sun
has set. Still rattled by Michael's outburst,
he absently walks up the gravel path, lets
himself inside, and stops dead. The small open
room of the cabin is lit by candles, the scarred
kitchen table covered with a checked table runner.
Clean silverware and chipped dishes are laid out
at place settings. Mariah has moved some of the
furniture around to hide watermarks on the
wooden floor and suspicious streaks on the
walls. It's still not the sort of room to which he's
accustomed, but it looks ... almost cozy.
Mariah and Faith freeze on the couch like two
deer caught in headlights. After a moment
Mariah gets to her feet and wipes her palms
on her thighs. "I figured if we were going to be
here awhile ..." she says, letting her voice
trail off.
Ian's gaze falls to Faith and to the battered
game of Yahtzee sprawled across the coffee
table in front of her. The girl draws her
knees up, hiding her face, and rattles the
dice in her cupped palm. He fights the urge
to sit beside her, to kick off his shoes and set his
stockinged feet beside the Yahtzee tumblers.
"... in the car?"
It is a moment before Ian realizes Mariah
is speaking to him. What stuff in the car?
Groaning, he remembers his excuse for leaving--
the groceries. "I, uh, haven't gotten around
to it yet," he says, backing toward the door.
"I'll head out now." He all but flees
outside, before Mariah can ask him where he's been
all this time, before he breaks down and simply
tells her.
It begins to rain as he drives away from the
cabin. In the rearview mirror he sees
Mariah standing in the doorway, silhouetted by the
yellow light from the candles. Where did she find
those candles? Or the board game? Or any of the
other stuff, for that matter? Ian's hands tremble
on the steering wheel as he tries to remember the
way to the nearest Piggly Wiggly. The frayed
rugs, the battered games, the woman waiting on
him--they circle in his mind. He forces himself
to make a mental list of what he'll
buy: milk and juice and eggs, cereal and soda
pop and macaroni, item after item crowding out the
unsettling thought that the life he has been leading,
for all its luxury, is nowhere near as fine.

Her mother keeps skipping the good parts. It's
bad enough that Faith has no books for a bedtime
story--in spite of what her mother said,
Reader's Digest doesn't count--but now her
mom can't even get through a memorized version of
Little Red Riding Hood without telling it wrong.
"The basket of food," Faith prompts. "For
Grandma. Remember?"
"Right." Her mother keeps looking at the door.
Faith guesses it's because she's hungry. Ian
Fletcher was supposed to bring dinner, but he'd
spaced out, and so all Faith had was a handful of
Tic-Tacs from her mother's purse. If she
closes her eyes and tunes out her mother's
voice, she can hear her stomach gurgling, like the
falls down by the New Canaan Dam.
"So Red Riding Hood gets to the door and
knocks and the wolf--"
"You didn't even talk about the wolf yet,"
Faith complains. "He has to eat Grandma."
"For God's sake, Faith, if you know it so
well, why don't you just tell it to yourself!"
When she was getting into her nightgown, Faith
had said something like she hoped God could find her
all the way out here in Kansas, and her mother had
jumped at her and said she absolutely,
positively couldn't talk about God in front
of Ian Fletcher. Now her mother doesn't even
want to tuck her in. Faith rolls onto her
side. If she cries right now, she doesn't
want anyone to see it. "Fine," she mutters.
She feels her mother's hand on her arm. "I'm
sorry. I shouldn't have snapped at you."
"Whatever."
"No, it was wrong of me. I'm hungry and
I'm tired, but that's not your fault." Her mother
scrubs the heels of her hands into her eyes and
sighs. "I'm not up for a bedtime story right now,
Faith, okay?"
"Okay," she murmurs.
Her mother smiles and kisses her hair.
"Thanks."
As she gets up, Faith reaches for her
sleeve. "I don't like it here." Her voice
catches in her throat, which embarrasses
her, but she doesn't know how to stop it. And before
she even has a chance to try to stop them, the tears
come. "It smells funny and they don't have the
Disney Channel and there's nothing to eat."
"I know, honey. But Mr. Fletcher's going
to fix that."
"How come he's even here? How come we have
to stay with him?"
Her mother suddenly looks so upset that Faith
wishes she'd never even asked the stupid question.
"We'll go one day at a time," her mother says.
"If living with Mr. Fletcher doesn't work out,
we'll just take a plane somewhere else. Las
Vegas, maybe."
That soothes Faith. She feels her mother curl
up behind her. It makes Faith think of a
hammock in their yard, a web of rope that she
thought would unravel the first time she leaned back on
it, but that managed to support her all the same.
"Maybe we'll get lucky," Faith
answers, yawning.
Her mother's arms come around her, hold fast.
"Maybe we will."

First thing, he smells the smoke. Twin
towers of fire reach up as far as he can see,
making black spots before his eyes, but he knows that
he has to get through them. His parents, Christ,
they're burning-- He dives headfirst into the heat,
ignoring the pain that races up his arms and legs and
flays the skin off his back. His eyes swell
with the heat and the soot, but he can see five fingers,
the outline of a hand, and he stretches toward it,
slips palm against palm, and closes around a
wrist. A yank--they're tumbling free now, and
he lands clear, only to find that he's holding
tight to his brother. His brother, who cannot be
touched, who cannot bear to be touched, who stares at
Ian's hands on his shoulders and screams loud,
loud, loud--

"Mr. Fletcher." He jerks away,
sweating, the covers pooled onto the floor.
Mariah White kneels beside the hideous couch,
touching his arm. "You were having a nightmare."
"It wasn't a nightmare," Ian insists,
although his voice is still hoarse. It wasn't a
nightmare, because that would mean he's been asleep
for a while, and the chances of that are next to nothing.
He shrugs away from her and huddles at
the far end of the couch, wiping his sweaty face with the
edge of his T-shirt.
He should have known better than to try to stay in
Kansas City and pretend that it would be all right.
The town holds nothing for him but rotten
memories. Even if his ploy to get Faith and
Michael together works, it's inevitable that he'll
experience some of the fallout.
Mariah offers him a glass of tap water.
Hand shaking, he takes it and drinks deeply.
His eyes follow hers to the counter, where he's set
the nonperishable groceries. When he'd come home
last night, the door to the tiny bedroom had been
closed and a stack of sheets and blankets left
on the couch. He'd told himself that rather than bang
around cabinets and wake the Whites, he'd just
get to it all in the morning. Then he'd pulled out
a pad and scribbled notes for next week's
broadcast. It is the last thing he remembers,
until finding Mariah White by his side.
"You were saying something about a fire," she says
hesitantly.
"I'm sure I was saying a whole lot of
things."
"I wouldn't know. I only just came out."
"I didn't wake your daughter, did I?"
Mariah shakes her head. "Faith sleeps like
a rock."
"Then I apologize for waking you."
"Well, you didn't exactly wake me."
A smile ghosts over her lips. "That
mattress was a torture device in a
previous life."
Ian laughs. "They probably used it
to finish off the prisoners who didn't succumb
to this couch."
His eyes meet hers. "I should check on
Faith," Mariah says softly.
"Right. You go on ahead. And I'm sorry."
She reaches for the sheets, tangled on the
floor, and snaps them into the air so that they billow
over Ian and settle like a whisper onto his
lap. Then she gives a quick, smooth tug at the
satin edge of the blanket, bringing it up to cover
him. A simple, instinctive move, a routine
any mother knows by heart, and yet Ian finds himself
holding his breath until she steps away, for fear
he might break the spell.
"Good night, Ian," she says, and he nods
at her, unable to find his voice. He
watches the small, smooth curves of her bare
heels as they strike the floor, watches as she
pulls the bedroom door shut behind her. Then he
picks up his pen and pad again and smiles,
realizing that, for the first time, Mariah White has
used his given name.

New Canaan, New Hampshire
Millie is going crazy. Would it have been so
much trouble for Mariah to at least call from a pay
phone and say they were all right? She's held up
her part of the bargain--driving the car home, and
taking care of the house in their absence, but she's on
borrowed time and she knows it. Everyone saw her
get out of the car alone. Sooner or later, when
Faith and Mariah don't turn up, they're
going to start asking questions.
Millie gets out of bed and draws back the
curtain, noting the small Sterno campfires and
portable lights of the TV reporters'
cameramen. Is it her imagination, or have they
nearly doubled in number?
Millie knows Hollywood Tonight! is still
here; unlike most of the TV reporters, who have
about three or four people around when they make their
daily broadcasts, Petra Saganoff seems
to need eight or ten. She's got lights and
makeup people and men carrying machines that do God
knows what. Personally, Millie could do without
Petra Saganoff. If there's going to be
reporting, she'd rather see that nice Peter
Jennings, in the bush vest he wears when he goes
on location.
It's just as well that Faith and Mariah are
gone. From the looks of things at the end of the
driveway, they're going to need a second
policeman before long, to keep order. Mariah was
unsettled by a handful of people; how would she react
to this? With a sigh, Millie gets back into bed.
She shuts off the light, then flicks it on and
lifts up the receiver of the telephone beside the bed
to make sure the dial tone is working, just in
case.

Lake Perry, Kansas--October 20,

To Mariah's surprise, Ian leaves
shortly after breakfast. "Gotta earn a
living," he says, grabbing the car keys and
striding out the door as if spending another
moment in their company were too painful to bear. He
has not mentioned his nightmare, and Mariah
decides that this must be the reason he's running--
embarrassment can't rest easily on the shoulders
of a man like him.
"How come he gets to go somewhere?" Faith
grumbles. "And we have to stay in this ugly place
where there's nothing to do?"
"Maybe we'll take a walk. Find a
phone and call Grandma."
This sparks Faith's interest. "Then she'll
come here?"
"In a little while, maybe. We need her
to watch our house right now."
Faith empties more cereal into her bowl.
"There's a whole bunch of people watching our house.
She doesn't have to do that, too."
Mariah stands at the window as Ian drives
away. He's taking the car, granted, but that
wouldn't stop them from walking to town and hailing a
taxi, returning to the airport and hopping on a
new flight. Mariah assumed, when he'd offered
his protection, that his good intentions were really much more
selfish--what better way to observe Faith
than to live in close quarters? Still, she'd
figured that Ian would see of Faith only what
she let him see--so she'd acquiesced.
However, she had expected him to stick to her and
Faith like glue.
Instead, he seems almost to ... trust them.
She watches Faith lift the cereal bowl to her
mouth to drink the remaining milk and starts to warn her
about manners, but then stops. With so many rules
to follow now that they are hiding, letting this one
small thing slip cannot hurt.
She's reasoned out what dangers Faith has
to face living with Ian Fletcher, but not herself.
What she'd forgotten was that it was much easier
to dislike a television character than an ordinary
man. To see Ian's shoes tucked under the edge
of the couch or his papers strewn over the coffee
table--even to walk into the bathroom and smell the
faint mixture of cedar and soap that clings to his
skin--well, it makes him real. It changes
him from a two-dimensional cultural icon with a
hell-bent desire to expose Faith into someone with
feelings, doubts, even nightmares.
If Ian Fletcher is able to trust them enough
to leave them alone, can't Mariah trust him enough
to believe that renting this cabin for them was not
a selfish act, but a kind one?
She turns to Faith. "Let's get
dressed. We're leaving."

It nearly breaks Ian's heart to buy
clothes at Kmart. A man who owns Armani
suits and Bruno Magli shoes shouldn't be
reduced to shopping off the bargain rack for jeans and
tennis shoes, but he knows that he's less
likely to be recognized there by a dull-eyed
clerk than by a salesperson at a more
exclusive boutique. He stands at the
checkout, behind a mother with three children screaming for
candy, and surveys the collection of items in his
basket.
"Did you find everything you needed?" the clerk
asks.
It's blissfully quiet; the mother has
succumbed and is wheeling out her children, their fingers
digging into packets of MandMore's. On impulse,
Ian grabs another one off the shelf and tosses
it onto the checkout counter, for Faith. "I
believe so."
At the sound of his voice, the woman looks
up. She squints a little, trying to connect the
Southern drawl with the face. For a moment, Ian
thinks the jig might be up ... but then she
returns to scanning the items. She must have
decided he's a look-alike. After all, what
would the illustrious Ian Fletcher be doing in a
Kmart?
"Oh, I love this," the woman says,
holding up a shirt-and-legging set with Tweety
Bird screen-printed on the front. "Got one
for my own daughter."
Ian's picked it out for Faith. He realized
last night that they couldn't have much in those
knapsacks, and would need clothes for this
unexpected stay just as much as he did.
Unfortunately, he's confounded by children's sizes.
What the hell is the difference between a 7 and a
7X?
It was easier to find clothing for Mariah. All
he had to do was imagine how high she came up on
his chest, how wide her hips were and how small her
waist, and he could easily match her body type
to one of the many women he'd dated. She has a
lovely figure, actually, but he found himself
tossing into the shopping cart baggy jeans and
flannel shirts, oversized
sweatshirts--things that would keep her covered, that
wouldn't draw his attention.
"That comes to one twenty-three thirty-nine," the
clerk says.
Ian unfolds his wallet and withdraws a
stack of twenties. He carries the bags to the
rental car, gets inside, and then takes out his
cell phone to call his producer.
"Wilton here."
"Well, it's a damn good thing one of us is,"
Ian jokes.
"Ian? Christ, I've been going crazy.
You want to tell me where the fuck you are?"
"Sorry, James. I know I said I'd be
back last night, but there was ... a family
emergency."
"I thought you didn't have any family."
"All the same, I'm going to be tied up for a
while." Ian taps his fingers on the steering
wheel, knowing that there's nothing James can do. Without
Ian, there isn't a show.
"How long is a while?" James says after
a moment.
"I don't know just yet. I'm definitely
going to miss the Friday broadcast, though.
You'll have to do a rerun."
He can practically see James seething.
"Well, that's just fabulous, Ian, because we've
already run the promos for a live show. Plus, there
are about ninety reporters here, including a few
national affiliates, who are dying to get the
story. Maybe I ought to go ask one of them to stand
in for you."
Ian laughs. "By all means, try Dan
R. He did a real fine impression of me on
Saturday Night Live, once."
"I'm glad you're so fucking congenial today.
Because you're not gonna have more than a smile left
to pitch when your show goes down the toilet."
"Now, James, you relax before you bust a
gut. Faith White isn't even there, right?"
There's a beat of silence. "How did you know
that?"
"I have my sources. And I'm only doing
what I told you I'd be doing--following a
story on the road."
James draws in his breath. "Are you saying
you're with her?"
"I'm saying that just 'cause I'm not three
feet away from you doesn't mean I'm
not still on top of things." He glances at his
watch. Christ, by now Mariah and Faith could be
halfway across Missouri--but it was a chance he
had to take. He'd learned long ago that the best
way to catch a butterfly was not to chase it at
all, but to remain so still that it made the choice
to light on your shoulder. "Gotta go, James.
I'll be in touch."
Before his producer has a chance to protest,
Ian turns off his phone and slips it into his
coat pocket again. Then he drives back
toward Camp Perry, slow enough to keep a watch out
for a woman and a child who may have decided to leave on
their own.

Mariah's sweating. Although it's fairly cool
outside, Faith balked at walking about a mile
down the road, so she had to carry her daughter
piggyback all the way to the gas station. Then she
called home, reversing the charges and speaking to her
mother, while Faith whined about getting candy.
"You're with who?" her mother had said.
"I know, I know. But we're going to leave."
At that point Mariah had spotted the number of a
local taxi service, etched into the wall of the
pay-phone booth. "I'll call you when we find
a place to settle."
As she speaks to the taxi dispatcher, she feels
a thread of guilt drawing tight. Ian
Fletcher has been nothing less than
solicitous up to this point. For whatever reason,
it is possible that his TV persona's ruthlessness
is only an act.
Still, she isn't going to stick around to find out.
Faith is sitting on the floor, picking at
dead bugs, when Mariah hangs up. The taxi
will arrive in ten minutes. "What are you doing?
You're going to be filthy."
"I want candy. I'm hungry."
Mariah digs into her pocket for fifty
cents. "That's it. Get whatever you can for this
amount." She wipes the sweat off her forehead and
watches Faith choose peanut MandMore's, hand
them to the man working behind the counter. He smiles at
Mariah; she smiles back.
"You're not from around here," the man says.
Mariah thinks she's going to be sick. "What
makes you say that?"
He laughs. "I pretty much know everyone in
town, and you're not one of those people. You get
your taxi all right?"
He must have overheard her conversation. Mariah
feels her mind spin into action. "Yes ... my,
uh, husband had an errand to run, and he was
supposed to pick us up here after I made a
phone call. But I think my daughter's running
a fever, and I want to get her back to the
motel ... so we're just going to take a cab."
"I'd be happy to tell him where you went, when
he comes looking."
"That would be great," Mariah says, edging toward
the door, wanting nothing more than to cut short this
conversation. "Honey, why don't we wait
outside?"
"Good idea," the man says, although she
hasn't included him in the invitation. "Wouldn't
mind a little fresh air myself."
Resigned, Mariah walks out the glass
door of the gas station and stands next to the pump,
shading her eyes to see down the road for anything that
remotely resembles a cab. But from the
opposite direction a car speeds into the station,
stopping a few feet away from them.
Ian gets out of the passenger seat, thrilled
to have spotted Mariah and Faith. "Hey there."
He smiles at Mariah. "Looking for a ride
home?"
"Hope you got some roses, brother," the
gas-station attendant says. "You're in the
doghouse."
Ian continues to smile, puzzled, but all he
can think of is something Faith once said, that her mother
sneezes at roses. Before Mariah can stop her,
Faith gets into the backseat of the car and sees the
pile of bags on the floor. "What's this?"
"Presents. For you and your mama."
Faith pulls out the Tweety legging set, and a
package of barrettes, and a sweatshirt with
hearts all around the neckline. Then she tugs
free a shirt that is clearly the right size for
Mariah.
This is where he went this morning? To buy them
all clothes?
"Guess you won't be needing the taxi," the
attendant says. "I'll call the dispatcher."
"That ... would be wonderful," Mariah
manages.
Ian waves at the man, then gets into the car.
Mariah slides into the front seat as well.
"Guess y'all wanted to take a little
walk around town," he says evenly. "I just
happened to see you as I was driving by."
Faith pipes up from the backseat. "Good, because
I was getting tired of walking."
Mariah tries to read an accusation in his words,
tries to make him into the sort of man she had
naturally assumed he was. He turns to her.
"Course, I can take Faith back, if you'd
still like to walk a spell."
"No," she says, to him and to herself. "This'll
be just fine."

New Canaan, New Hampshire--
October 22, 1999
Some people blamed it on the taxi driver who
took the young Father Rourke to the train station.
Others said it was clearly a reporter snooping.
Months later, no one clearly remembered how
word leaked from the visiting priest's files to those
gathered outside Mariah White's house, but
suddenly they all knew that the God Faith
White was seeing happened to be female.
The Associated Press reporter's
three-paragraph story ran in newspapers from
L.a. to New York. Jay Leno did an
irreverent monologue about a female Jesus
being worried about the fashion statement made by a
crown of thorns. A new group of devotees
arrived on the edge of the White property, letting
their dismay over Faith's absence only slightly
dampen their enthusiasm. Numbering about one
hundred, they came from Catholic colleges and
church ladies' guilds and taught at parochial
schools. Some had fought to be ordained as female
priests, but had not succeeded. Armed with Bibles and
texts by Naomi Wolf, they unrolled a
hastily painted MOTHERGOD SOCIETY banner and
very loudly chanted the Lord's Prayer in unison,
changing the pronouns where necessary. They held up
posters with photos retouched to look like holy
cards and others that read YOU GO, GIRL!
They were bonded and raucous, like a women's
hockey team, although most of the other followers
camped outside did not consider them dangerous.
But then again, they did not know that the MotherGod
Society had left another hundred members
spread up and down cities on the East Coast,
handing out pamphlets emblazoned with their amended
Lord's Prayer and Faith White's name and
address.

Manchester, NH--OCTOBER 22, 1999
"What in the name of Saint Francis is
this?" Bishop Andrews asks, recoiling from the
pink pamphlet as if it were a rattlesnake.
""Our Mother, who art in Heaven?"' Who wrote
this garbage?"
"It's a new Catholic group, your
Excellency," says Father DeSoto.
"They're promoting an alleged New
Hampshire visionary."
"Why does this sound familiar?"
"Because you spoke to Monsignor O'Shaughnessy
about her a week ago. Father Rourke--the
pastoral psychologist from St. John's--sent
you his report by fax."
Bishop Andrews has not read the report.
He spent the morning marching in the Pope Pius
XII Parochial School's homecoming
parade, positioned in an antique Ford in
front of a very large percussion band that gave him a
headache that has not yet gone away. Father
DeSoto hands him a piece of paper.
""Definite lack of psychotic behavior
..." He's too open-minded for his own good,"
Andrews mutters, then picks up the phone and
dials the Boston seminary.
A female God. For Pete's sake!
Why send a pastoral psychologist, when this
is clearly a case for a theologian?

Lake Perry, Kansas--October 22,

That afternoon, Ian and Faith are playing hearts
when Mariah falls asleep on the couch. One
moment she is talking to them, and then the next, just like
that, she's snoring. Ian watches her neck
swan to the side, listens to the soft snore from her
throat. God, he's jealous. To just be able
to drift off like that ... in the middle of the day ...
Faith shuffles the cards and manages to send
them flying. "Hey, Mr. Fletcher," she
says, scrambling to pick them up, her voice
strident.
"Sssh!" Ian nods toward the couch. "Your
mama's asleep." He knows that having Faith in
close, confined quarters with Mariah means it's more
likely than not to be a quick rest. "How'd you like
to go outside?" he whispers.
Faith pulls a face. "I don't
want to play in the grass again. I did that this
morning."
"I recall promising you some fishing." Ian
remembers seeing an old rod and reel gathering
dust in the shed beside the manager's office. "We
could give that a try."
Faith glances from Ian to Mariah. "I
don't think she'd want me to go."
Of course not, Ian thinks. Faith might
unwittingly tip her hand. "A quick trip, then.
What your mama doesn't know isn't gonna
hurt her." He stands up and stretches.
"Well, I'm gonna do some fishing anyway."
"Wait! I just have to get on my shoes."
He shrugs, pretending not to care whether he
has company. But this is the first time he's been
alone with Faith White, except for the night she
ran away bleeding. There's so damn much he
wants to know about her, he doesn't even know where
to start.
It's crisp and cool outside, and the sun is
hanging heavy in the sky. He walks with his hands
in his pockets, whistling softly, pretending not
to notice how hard Faith is huffing and puffing
to keep up with him. Retrieving the fishing rod and a
small gardener's spade, Ian strikes out
toward the lake.
He squats at the edge near a patch of
cattails and offers Faith the small shovel.
"You want to dig, or shall I?"
"You mean, like, for worms?"
"No, for buried treasure. What'd you think
we were gonna use as bait?"
Faith takes the spade and makes a
halfhearted attempt to overturn the thick marsh
grass. Ian stares at the Band-Aids still on
her hands, one on the outside and one on the inside
of each palm. He, of course, has studied
case histories of alleged stigmatics--in his
profession, you have to know the competition. He
remembers reading how painful the wounds are
supposed to be, not that he really ever bought it. Still,
he wrests the shovel from Faith. "Let me,"
he says gruffly.
He unearths a chunk of grass, peeling it
back like a scalp to reveal several purple
worms pulsing through the dirt. Faith wrinkles
her nose. "Gross."
"Not if you're a largemouth bass." He
gathers a few in a small plastic
bag and directs Faith toward the dock. "You go
on over there. Take the rod with you."
He finds her sitting with her bare feet
dangling in the water. "Your mama finds you like that,
she's going to pitch a fit."
Faith glances back over her shoulder. "The
only way she'd find out is if you told her
I'd come out here with you, and then she'd be too
angry at you to yell at me."
"Guess we're partners in crime, then."
Ian reaches out a hand to help her stand. "So--you
know how to cast? Your daddy ever take you fishing?"
"Nope. Did yours?"
Just like that, his hand stills on Faith's. She's
squinting up at him, her face partially hidden
by shadows. "No," he says. "I don't
reckon he did." He puts his arms around
Faith from behind and closes his hands on hers. Her
skin is warm and impossibly soft; he can feel
her shoulder blades bumping against his chest. "Like
this." He tips back the rod and lets the line
fly.
"Now what?"
"Now we wait."
He sits beside Faith as she digs her
thumbnail into the grooves in the planking of the
dock. She lifts her face toward the setting
sun and closes her eyes, and Ian finds himself
mesmerized by the tiny beat in the hollow of her
throat. There's a quiet between them he is almost
unwilling to break, but his curiosity gets the
better of him. ""Follow me,"" he says
softly, watching for her reaction, ""and I will
make you fishers of men.""
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, Mariah," 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,

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.
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 White, 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 ...
well, because I wanted to. And that's not all I
lied about. I let you think I was on that plane
because I followed you to Kansas City, but I was
booked on the flight before you probably ever thought
of running to the airport. I come here fairly
often, matter of fact, to see someone."
"Someone." Her voice is cool, and although
it's what Ian expected, it still smarts.
She is anticipating a producer, a
documentary filmmaker, some other satellite
person who might expose Faith. "A
relative who's autistic. Michael lives out
here in an assisted-care facility, because he can't
function by himself in the regular world. It's real
private to me, which is why no one knows about him--
not my producer, not my staff. When I saw you
and Faith on that plane, I knew you figured
I was tailing you. I wasn't, but I didn't
want you to know why I was there. So I did what
you expected--I followed you."
He rakes his hands through his hair. "What I
didn't figure on was what might happen when
I did that." Ian glances away. "Faith--
I've seen her day in and day out, now. And the more time
I spend with her, the more I wonder if maybe there
isn't something to her story, if maybe I'm
wrong." He swallows hard. "I go out during the
day and I see Michael and then I'll come back
home and see Faith, and-- God, the two of them
get all tangled up and my head starts spinning:
What if? What if she's telling the truth?
What if she could cure Michael? And then, just
as quick, I'm ashamed of myself--me, the great
disbeliever!--for even thinking such a thing." Ian
turns to Mariah, his eyes glistening, his voice
broken. "Can she do it? Can she make miracles
happen?"
He can read Mariah's heart in her eyes;
she sees him as a man in pain. She reaches for
his hand. "Of course we'll go see your
relative, Ian," she murmurs. "And if
Faith can do something, then she will. And if she can't,
it's no different from what you've been saying all
along."
Without a word Ian lifts her hand
to his lips, the very image of gratitude, even
as the tiny microphone and tape recorder hidden
in his clothing capture Mariah's promise.

October 26, 1999
Lockwood is an ugly place. The halls
and floors are the color of pistachio ice
cream. There are doors lined up like dominoes, and
each one has a little box outside with a chart stuffed
into it. Mr. Fletcher leads them to the end of a
hall, where they enter a room that's a lot nicer
than anything else Faith's seen. There are
books on the walls and a bunch of tables with board
games and even some classical music playing.
It reminds her a little bit of the library in New
Canaan, except the library doesn't have
nurses walking around in their soft white sneakers.
Her mother hasn't told her much of anything,
except that Mr. Fletcher has a sick
relative they are going to visit today. It's fine
with her; that cabin is so boring. Plus, some of the
rooms that they passed had TV. Maybe this
person has the Disney Channel, and Faith can
watch while the grown-ups all talk.
Mr. Fletcher walks to the corner of the room,
where a man is sitting with a deck of cards. The
guy doesn't even turn around when they get
close, but just says, "Ian's here.
Three-thirty on Tuesday. Just like always."
"Just like," Mr. Fletcher answers, and his
voice sounds strange to Faith, stiff and high.
Then the man turns around, and Faith's eyes
go wide. Why, if she didn't know any
better, she would have said it was Mr. Fletcher
himself.

Mariah's mouth drops open. His twin?
Pieces begin to fall into place: why Ian would
keep this a secret, why he visited on a
regular basis, why he had such a vested interest
in having Faith meet this Michael. She falls
back to the periphery, where Ian has asked her
to stand with Faith while he slowly approaches his
brother.
"Hey, buddy," Ian says.
"Ten of diamonds. Eight of clubs." The
cards fall in a pile, fanning out across the table.
"Eight of clubs," Ian repeats, settling
into a chair.
Ian has told her that Michael
has been diagnosed as severely autistic. His
survival strategy in the real world is to live
by a routine. To break the routine sets him off.
It can be as simple as someone's rearranging the
order of the eating utensils on his napkin, or
Ian's staying two minutes past the hourlong
visit. And he cannot stand to be touched.
Ian has told her that this is the way
Michael will always be.
Faith yanks at her hand. "Let go," she
whispers.
Michael turns over an ace. "Oh, no."
"Ace in the hole," the brothers say in
unison.
There is something of the scene that moves Mariah
greatly: Ian sitting inches away from a man who
could be his mirror image, trying to connect with words
that do not signify anything. She brings up her hand
to wipe at her eyes and realizes she's no
longer holding on to Faith.
Her daughter moves toward the card table. "Can
I play, too?"
Frozen, Ian waits for Michael's
reaction. He turns from Ian to Faith and then
back to Ian and begins to shout at the top of his
lungs. "Ian comes alone! Three-thirty on
Tuesday. Not Monday Wednesday Thursday
Friday Saturday Sunday; alone alone
alone!" With his hand, he thrashes at the cards so
that they scatter across his lap and the floor.
"Faith." Mariah tries to draw her away
as a member of the staff arrives to calm Michael
down. But Faith is crawling around on the
floor, picking up the fallen cards. Michael
is rocking, throwing off the soothing words of the nurse
who knows better than to lay a hand on him.
Faith awkwardly sets the pack of cards on the
table, staring curiously at the grown man with the mind
of a child. "It might be best if you and your friends go,
Mr. Fletcher," the attendant says softly.
"But--"
"Please."
Ian flings himself out of the chair and walks from the
room. Mariah reaches for Faith and follows
him, glancing over her shoulder once to see
Michael reach for the deck of cards, cuddle it
close to his chest.

Just outside the library, Ian closes his
eyes and takes great, deep breaths of
air. Just as whenever Michael has an episode,
he finds himself shaking. But somehow this seems
worse.
Mariah and Faith slip outside and wait beside
him quietly. He can barely even stand to look
at them. "That was your miracle?"
There is a phenomenal rage running through him,
like a poison working its way through his system. He
doesn't know why, or where it's come from. After
all, this is what he had expected to happen.
But not what he'd hoped.
The thought catches him unawares, pulls the world
out from beneath his feet. He feels himself spinning and
has to lean against the wall. All the bullshit
he'd fed to Mariah last night, all the little
concessions he'd made during the week to make them
think he was starting to believe in Faith ... they
weren't really lies. Professionally, Ian may
have wanted Faith to fail today. But personally, he
had wanted her to succeed.
Autism isn't something you can fix with a blink
or a touch of your hand; he's known that all along.
Faith White, for all her claims, is a
fake. But being right, this time, doesn't bring him
any sense of satisfaction. This little girl,
who's been playing everyone for a fool, has
managed to show Ian he's only been fooling
himself.
Mariah touches his arm, and he shrugs it off.
Like Michael, he thinks, and he wonders if
his brother cannot stand to be touched because he cannot bear such
open, honest pity. "Just go away," he mutters,
and he finds himself walking off. By the time he
reaches the doors, he's nearly running. He
circles around to the back of Lockwood, to the
small pond with its brace of swans. Then he
rips the microphone from beneath his lapel. He
takes the microcassette recorder out of his
pocket, tape still turning. He throws them both
as hard as he can into the water.

It is nearly three-thirty in the morning before
Ian returns to the cabin. Mariah knows
exactly what time it is; she's been waiting up
the whole night, worried. After running from
Lockwood, Ian had driven off in the car,
leaving her and Faith to find their own transportation
back. And even after the taxi had dropped them off
and the car was nowhere in sight, Mariah assumed
Ian would return by dinnertime. By nine
o'clock. Midnight.
She's been picturing the car in a ditch,
wrapped around a tree--clearly, he is too
upset to be out driving. Relieved that he's
safe, she walks from her bedroom to the living
room. The fumes of alcohol reach Mariah before
she even sees Ian lounging on the couch with his
shirt unbuttoned, gripping a bottle of
Canadian Club by the neck. "Please, just go
away."
Mariah wets her lips. "I'm so sorry,
Ian. I don't know why Faith was able to help
my mother but not Michael."
"I'll tell you why," he says tightly.
"Because she is a goddamned hoax. She couldn't
heal a fucking paper cut, Mariah! Just give
up the act already, will you?"
"It's not an act."
"It is. It's all an act." He waves
the bottle, sloshing liquor on the couch
cushions. "I've been acting since the minute
I saw y'all on the plane, and God knows your
daughter's gunning for a goddamned Oscar, and you
... you--"
He leans so close to Mariah, she can taste
the Canadian Club on his breath. She
hesitates, then leans forward and kisses him.
It is slow at first, a gentle rubbing of his
lips against hers. She reaches around his head and
brings him closer, kissing him deeply, drawing
out whatever is hurting him so badly.
Ian's throat works for a moment before he can
speak. "What was that for?"
"I'm not acting, Ian."
Setting his palms on her cheeks, Ian
tips his forehead to hers. "You don't understand."
Mariah stares at his haunted features, but
sees instead Ian sitting beside his twin, trying
to play by the odd rules of engagement because it's
better to have that than nothing at all. Ian's
wrong. She knows him better than he might
think.
"I'd like to understand," she says.

Ian Fletcher had been born two and a half
minutes before his brother Michael: bigger,
stronger, more active than his twin, a circumstance
for which he'd been paying for the rest of his life.
Clearly, Ian had taken the lion's share of
nourishment and space in the womb, and although
no doctor ever said so, he felt responsible for
his brother's ill health and slow responsiveness,
perhaps even for the autism that Michael was diagnosed
with as a toddler.
Their parents had been rich, jet-setting
socialites from Atlanta who married late in
life and held their Learjet, their restored
plantation manor, and their condo on Grand
Cayman in much higher esteem than they did their
twin sons. Ian and Michael had been a
mistake, and clearly one they didn't talk
about, since something was obviously not quite right with one
of the boys. They lived high off the hog,
traveling around the world for months at a time and
leaving Ian and Michael in the hands of whatever
tutor or nanny had been hired to deal with them.
Ian knew he was responsible for Michael; he
understood that as soon as he was able to understand the
differences between them. Privately tutored, Ian
did not have friends or playmates. What he had,
what he'd always had, was his brother.
When Ian was twelve, his father's lawyer
arrived in the middle of the night with the local
sheriff. His parents' plane had crashed in the
Alps, and there were no survivors.
Overnight the world changed. Ian learned that the
lifestyle to which they'd been accustomed was courtesy
of an immense credit-card debt, one that left
the boys bankrupt before an inheritance could even be
considered. Ian and Michael were placed in the
reluctant custody of his mother's sister and her
Bible-thumping husband, and uprooted to Kansas.
But his aunt and uncle had no intention of trying
to understand Michael's psychological problems, and
they didn't have the resources to hire someone else
to do so. The state's public-education system would
have paid to send Michael anywhere in Kansas, but
no one researched the choices, and so Michael was
sent to the nearest institution with an open bed, a
place that reeked of feces and urine, a place
where Michael was the only patient even able
to talk.
Ian visited him, even when his aunt and
uncle stopped coming. He went to the library and
found out which residential homes had the best
reputations, but no one would listen. He spent
six years wondering what horrors Michael had
suffered that made him regress, unwilling
to dress himself in the morning and rocking more often in
silence and absolutely, positively
refusing to be touched.
On the day that Ian and Michael turned
eighteen, Ian dressed in a secondhand suit
from a thrift store and petitioned a Kansas
City court for custody of his brother. He got
a scholarship to Kansas State and worked around the
clock to pay for his books and to save money. He
learned all about group homes for autistic
adults and met with doctors who told him
Michael was not capable of such an independent
arrangement yet. He learned about assisted-care
facilities--how they took both federal and
state aid, and would take some indigent cases, but
very few. How you had to know someone in the right place
at the right time, or you'd be told there were no beds
available. How you then paid for a quality of care,
and continued to pay, lest that precious bed be given
to someone else.
Ian's drive to succeed was fueled by his
brother. It dovetailed naturally with the fact that
a long time ago, he'd stopped believing in
God. What God would have taken away his
parents, his childhood? Most important, what
God would have done this to his brother? Ian was
angry, and, to his surprise, people wanted
to listen: first, grade-school English teachers,
then theology professors, then radio listeners,
and then TV producers and viewers. The more
famous he became, the easier it was to pay
Michael's board at Lockwood. The more
outspoken he became, the more quickly he clawed his
way back to a lifestyle he had only barely
remembered.
When Michael was twenty-two, he began
to feed himself again. At twenty-six he was able
to button his own shirt. At thirty-seven he still
refuses to be touched.

Suddenly Mariah understands what has fashioned
a man like Ian Fletcher. He spent years
making himself into someone other than that lost little boy--
into someone whose cornerstone is disbelief in God--
and with good reason. How painful it must have been to find
himself hoping--praying--that a miracle might come
about after all.
She also realizes that Ian might have gotten his
brother into Lockwood, and might have reached the
financial peak he'd staked out in order to pay for
his brother's care, but her intuition tells her that
Ian hasn't gotten what he needs
most of all. He's been taking care of
Michael all his life--but it has been years
since anyone has taken care of Ian.
Mariah starts out slowly, running her hand over
his hair, then flipping it over so that her
knuckles graze his throat and his jaw. She
raises her palms to his cheeks and draws them
down the slope of his shoulders, watching him close
his eyes like a cat in the sun. Then she wraps
her arms around him tightly, fits her face into the
crook of his neck, and feels him shudder.
His arms close about her with such force that she cannot
breathe, cannot do anything but ride out the crest of his
need. His hands map her back and her shoulders, his
lips falling at her ear. "Thank you," he
whispers.
Mariah draws back and kisses him. "My
pleasure."
Ian smiles. "Let's hope so." He
kisses her and lets his lips silver her skin.
He undresses her, reaches into his wallet
for a condom, and uses his hands and his tongue
to navigate her body.
Is it her imagination, or does he linger at
her wrists, the places that still make her ashamed?
Mariah pictures herself shrinking, small and
malleable beneath Ian's hands, until she feels
that surely she would be able to fit inside one of her
dollhouses, walk on its pristine floors and
look into its spotless mirrors. She opens her
eyes as Ian moves over her, into her.
It has taken years to find out, she thinks, but
this is what it was like to be a perfect fit.
Ian's rhythm becomes stronger. Mariah
strains toward him, her fingers clutching his
shoulders, her mouth round on the salt of his skin.
She stops thinking about Ian's past, about
Faith's future, about anything at all. And just
before Mariah splinters around him, she hears
Ian's voice fanning past her temple.
"Oh," he cries, lost in her. "Oh,
God!"

"I didn't," Ian says, chuckling.
"You did."
"Why do you think that is? I mean, it happens
all the time, but if it's just you and me in bed, why
would I call out God's name?"
Mariah laughs. "Force of habit."
"For you, maybe." He wraps his
arms around her, still amazed by the lull of peace
inside him now, steady as a flat-line. "I'm
thinking it has more to do with divinity."
Mariah turns in his embrace. "Does it?"
she says, her eyes darting away. "Was it
... okay?"
Ian's brows rise. "You have to ask?"
Her shoulders rise and fall, and his body
instinctively tightens. "It's just--well, I
always wondered what would have happened if I was
thirty pounds lighter, or platinum blond, or
sexier. I thought that might have kept Colin's
interest."
Ian is quiet for a moment. "If you were
thirty pounds lighter, you'd blow away in the
wind. If you were platinum blond, I wouldn't
recognize you. And if you were any sexier, you'd
probably kill me." He kisses her on the
forehead. "I've seen your handiwork. You told me
how you make those miniature houses. You made
one hell of a daughter. So what is so hard about
believing that anything you make ... including love
... might be any less exquisite?"
Ian frames Mariah's face in his hands,
effortlessly sliding between her legs again. "You're not
perfect. You have this freckle here." He points
to her collarbone. "You can be downright stubborn. And
your hips are--"
"I had a baby!"
Ian laughs. "I know. I'm just trying to show
you that if you want to get clinical about perfection,
none of us would pass muster. Me least of all."
He strokes her hair. "Colin is an
idiot. And I do mean it this time when I say:
Thank God."
Mariah smiles and snuggles closer on the
nest of blankets they've made on the rug.
"Do you know what the most beautiful word in the
English language is?"
"Let me think on it a minute." Ian
wrinkles his brow in concentration.
""Mellifluous.""
Mariah shakes her head. ""Uxorious,""
she breathes. "Excessively fond of one's
wife."
In his whole life, Ian cannot remember ever
feeling this sense of peace, right here in this
hellhole of a Kansas cabin. This is his
temporary reprieve, he knows. His truce.
Tomorrow he will have to tell Mariah that he
has been lying all along, that he cultivated
her sympathy from the moment they stepped off the
plane just so that he'd be able to set Faith up for a
fall. Tomorrow he'll have to tell her that he
intentionally recorded Faith's disastrous meeting with
Michael, even if he no longer has the tape.
Tomorrow he'll have to decide how much to reveal to his
producer.
Tomorrow will be soon enough to have her hate him.
"Penny for your thoughts," she says, yawning.
A penny? They're worth a far piece more.
"I don't think we get a choice in who we
fall for," Ian whispers. "I think we just
do."
But Mariah's breathing is even and regular, and
Ian realizes she's already drifted off. He
savors the weight of her numbing his arm and warming
his skin, and moments later--for the first time in years--
Ian falls into a deep, easy sleep.

It is just after five in the morning when Ian
slips away from Mariah. He covers her with the
blanket, unsure of whether or not she sleeps
naked as a matter of course and not wanting Faith
to come bounding in to find her sprawled that way. He
dresses quickly and writes Mariah a quick note
that says when he'll be back, where he is going,
and nothing important at all.
He drives to Lockwood. Why he is
returning, he cannot say. Clearly, if his
brother was set off by the presence of Mariah and
Faith interrupting the regular schedule, then a
6:00 A.m. visit isn't going to go
smoothly. It's just that things had been left so
rough. Michael shouting, and Ian storming off ...
He doesn't want a week to pass before he
sees him again. If Michael is asleep,
Ian can just peek in, make sure he's all
right, and get on his way.
The staff gives Ian a wide berth as he
walks to his brother's room and pushes open the
door. Michael is snoring softly, his face
relaxed, his big body sprawled over the
covers. "Hey, buddy," Ian whispers, and then
hesitates before he touches his brother's hair.
Michael's eyes open with a start. "Ian?"
"That's right." He quickly withdraws his hand and
glances at the clock over the door, certain that
Michael is about to start screaming, but instead his
brother yawns and stretches.
"How come you're here so early?" Michael
says. Ian blinks at him, stunned. "What,
you've got no place better to go?"
His brother, who has not spoken about anything but
cards for the past three years, is teasing him.
Ian narrows his eyes, taking in the spark of
understanding, of connection, in his brother's eyes.
"God, Ian. And they say you're the smart
one." Michael holds out his arms, an invitation.
"Michael," Ian breathes, folding his twin
into an embrace. When Michael's hand pats him
clumsily on the back, he loses the power of
speech.
Gaining control, he draws back to talk--
really talk!--to his brother, but finds
Michael's expression remote. Ian watches
him take the deck of cards from the nightstand.
"Four of diamonds. Three of spades.
Seven of diamonds. Ian comes at
three-thirty on Tuesday. Not Monday
Wednesday Thursday--"
Dumbfounded, Ian steps back from the bed.
He walks out of Michael's room before a
full-blown tantrum begins, certain that he's
imagined the whole surreal encounter, that his brother
was actually asleep the entire time. With a sigh
Ian digs for his car keys and pulls something
unexpected from his breast pocket--the jack of
hearts, slipped there minutes before by someone close
enough to truly touch him.

NINE

Spirits when they please
Can either sex assume, or both.
--John Milton,
Paradise Lost

The first time Colin kissed me, I was a
college junior, sitting in an empty
gymnasium, conjugating the French verb
vouloir. "To want," I had said, a test, and
I tried to concentrate on the hard plane of the
bleachers beneath me, instead of the light reflecting off
Colin's face.
He was, quite simply, the handsomest boy I'd
ever seen. He was from the South, a member of the
good-ol'-boy network; I was a Jewish girl from
the suburbs. His granddaddy had endowed a chair in
the history department; I was at the
school on an academic scholarship. I had
learned his name from the Saturday football
rosters: COLIN WHITE, QB, 5ft
11inch, 185 lbs., HOMETOWN: VIENNA,
VA. I braved the cold and my own ignorance
of football to watch him flash across the
deep-green field like the needle of a skilled
embroiderer.
But he was just a daydream for me; our worlds were so
far apart that finding common ground seemed not only
unlikely, but ludicrous. Yet when the coach
of the team called the Student Tutoring Service
and asked for someone to help Colin pass French,
I snatched up the assignment. And then spent
three days gathering the nerve to call and set up a
tutoring schedule.
Colin turned out to be unfailingly polite,
always pulling out my chair and holding open doors.
He was also the worst French student I'd ever
met. He ruined the melody of the language with his
Virginia drawl and stumbled over the simplest
forms of grammar. I was doing him no good, although
I didn't mind. It meant that I would get
to keep coming back.
"Vouloir," I had said that day. "It's
irregular."
Colin shook his head. "I can't. I don't
get this the way you do."
It was one of the nicest things I'd ever been
told. Although I would have been entirely out of
place in Colin's sports or social world,
I was in my element right here. "Je veux."
I sighed. "I want." I pointed at the
book, to show him.
His hand came over mine, and I went
absolutely still. Afraid to look him in the
eye, I found something fascinating about that page of the
textbook. But I could not stop myself from feeling the
heat of his body as he leaned closer, hearing the
swish of his jeans as he stretched out his legs,
imprisoning me. And then his face was all I could
see.
"Je veux," he murmured. His mouth was
softer than I'd dreamed, and then he pulled
away, waiting to see what I would do.
I glanced at him long enough to realize that the
invincible Colin White, Star Quarterback, was
nervous. My heart pounded like a timpani, so
loud in my ears that for a moment I did not hear the
distant sound of catcalls, of someone
clapping.
I stood up and ran out of the gym.
October 27, 1999
The night after Ian and I make love, I
dream that we are getting married. I'm wearing the
gown from my wedding to Colin and carrying a bouquet
of wildflowers. I walk down the aisle by myself
and smile at Ian, and then we both face the
person officiating. For some reason I am
expecting Rabbi Solomon, but when I open my
eyes I am standing in front of Jesus on the
cross.
Faith is cuddled beside me. "How come you're
naked?" she asks. "And how come you slept out
here?"
With a start I glance around the living room,
searching for Ian. When I realize he's
missing, all my doubts creep in: He is
used to one-night stands. He makes a living out of
seducing people in one form or another. I am one of
those people, for more than one reason. I remember our
discussion about a truce; was last night a way of
saying that it is over?
"Ma-a!" Faith whines, yanking my hair.
"Hey!" I rub my scalp and try to focus
on her. "I got hot, so I took off my
nightgown. And you were snoring."
Faith seems to accept this. "I want
breakfast," she announces.
"Get dressed and we'll find something to eat."
With Faith gone, a thousand thoughts run through my
mind, none of them with happy endings. I am not
sophisticated enough for someone like Ian. He's
left because he cannot look me in the eye. He's
gone back to New Hampshire, and he's going
to tell the world everything he has learned about
Faith, from her shoe size to her bumbling
experience with Michael. He does not even
remember what happened last night. I close
my eyes, disgusted. I have already lived this story.
I have already fallen in love with a man whom my
mind inflated to such mythic proportions that I could
stare right at him and still not see him clearly.

"I didn't mean it," Colin told me
years ago, after our first kiss. He admitted that
two of the wide receivers had bet twenty dollars
he couldn't seduce me before the end of that first
tutoring session. Then he shook his
head. "No, I take that back. I wanted
to kiss you. For the money at first, but then it
happened, and it wasn't about that at all. I would
really like it," he said, "if you'd go out with me
sometime."
We went to a movie three nights later. And
then to another movie. And out to dinner. And soon,
as unlikely as it seemed, when Colin was walking
across campus, I was wedged beneath his arm. For someone
small and skinny and brainy, someone who had never
moved in popular circles, it was a heady
feeling. I would pretend that I did not hear
cheerleaders snickering as we passed, teammates
asking when he'd switched over to screwing little
boys.
Colin liked me, he said, because I was sweet
and could talk about nearly anything with knowledge and conviction
--unlike most of the Magnolia Queen
debutantes who had always been trotted out in
front of him. But Colin was accustomed to that type
of girl all the same. And whether it was
unconscious or by intent, he turned me into one
of them little by little--bringing me headbands to pull the
hair off my face, introducing me to Bloody
Marys on Sunday mornings, even buying me a
cheap strand of fake pearls, to wear with everything from the
Izod knit shirts I borrowed from his dresser
to my own corduroy jumpers. I did whatever
he asked, and more, intent on being as good a student
at turning into a WASP as I had been at any
academic subject. It never occurred to me that
Colin was interested in what he could make me
into, instead of what I already was. What struck
me, then, was simply that he was interested.
The night of Winter Formals I put on a
simple black dress and hooked on my pearls
and even wore a special bra that made it look
as if I had something to support. We were going
to Colin's fraternity, and I was bound and
determined to pass muster. But fifteen minutes
before Colin was supposed to pick me up, he
called. "I'm sick. I've been throwing up for
an hour."
"I'll be right over," I said.
"Don't. I just want to sleep for a while."
He hesitated, then said, "Mariah, I'm
sorry."
I wasn't. I could not be sure of myself at a
fraternity dance, but I knew how to take care of
someone ill. I got into my faded jeans
again and walked into town, where I bought chicken soup
at the grocery store, fresh flowers, and a
crossword-puzzle book. Then I went
to Colin's dormitory room.
Which was empty.
I left the chicken soup still steaming on the
threshold of the door and wandered aimlessly around the
campus. Hadn't I expected this, deep down?
Hadn't I told myself this was coming? Snow began
to settle on the shoulders of my coat as I
turned onto Fraternity Row. The parties were
loud, with steam and laughter and fumes of grain
alcohol spilling through the open windows. I edged
to the back of Colin's frat house, stood on a
milk crate, and looked inside.
A group of football players and their dates
formed a Gordian knot--black tuxedos
threaded with splashes of colored satin on a lap
or draped over a neck. Colin was facing me,
laughing at a joke I had not heard. His arm was
looped around the waist of a beautiful redhead. I
stared for so long that it took me a moment to realize
that Colin was looking at me, too.
He chased me across campus to my room.
"Mariah! You've got to let me explain!"
I yanked open the door. "You were sick,"
I said.
"I was! I swear!" His voice turned low
and smooth. "When I woke up, I tried
to call you, but you weren't here. The guys came by and
convinced me to go over to the House for a while.
Annette ... well, she's nothing. She was
someone who was hanging around."
Was I nothing? Was I someone who was hanging
around?
Colin's fingers framed my face. "But I
left her to be here with you," he said, reading my
thoughts. His breath fell onto my mouth, a
curious mix of mint and scotch, and I
remembered how Colin had described gentling the
horses he'd worked with in Virginia--by blowing
into their nostrils, so that they would not fear his scent.
"Colin," I whispered, "why me?"
"Because you're different from them. You're smarter,
and better, and--I don't know--I just keep
thinking that maybe if I'm with you, it's going to rub
off, so I'll be different, too."
It was an amazing concept--that somehow Colin had
a new explanation for why I'd always remained on
the fringe: not because I wasn't good enough for
others, but because I was just waiting for others to flock
around me. I leaned forward and kissed him.
Later, when we were undressed and Colin was
rising over me like a great bird blocking out the
sun, he asked, "Are you sure you want to do
this?"
I was not only certain, I'd been waiting my
whole life for this first time with a man who knew me
better than I knew myself. I nodded and reached
toward him, expecting magic.

When Ian comes into the cabin, we both
freeze. With great precision I lay my spoon
down beside my cereal bowl; he methodically
closes the door behind him.
This time, I tell myself, I am not going
to let it happen. I clasp my hands in my
lap so that Ian cannot see them trembling. He's
not Colin, but I am just as powerless now as I was
then.
Suddenly I realize why I could not have turned
Colin away years ago. I realize why I
am getting involved, once again, with a man bound
to hurt me. In my experience, falling in love
has little to do with wanting someone. It is much more
enticing to me to be wanted.
Without saying a word, Ian meets me
halfway across the kitchen and pulls me into his
arms. Inside, I am tumbling. He doesn't
kiss, or stroke, or do anything but hold me,
until I give in to the urge to close my eyes
and let him lead.

Ian hands Mariah his cell phone and watches
her disappear into the bedroom for privacy while she
calls her mother. He can't blame her. As
wonderful as it is to touch her, they are still
strangers of a sort. He has not told her about
his morning visit to Michael; she prefers to be
alone when she speaks to Millie.
"So," he says amiably to Faith, "how about
a game of gin?"
She looks up from her coloring book, wary.
Well, he can respect that, too. The last time
he was with her--at Lockwood--he'd
practically snarled. He widens his grin a little,
determined to be charming, if only for Mariah's
sake.
Suddenly Mariah is standing at the doorway
of the living room, her face white.
"We have to go home," she says.

Boston, Massachusetts
In the Vatican there is an official whose
sole responsibility is to find the holes in
each proposed case of sainthood. He
examines every action and writing and word spoken by the
allegedly virtuous person in an effort to find
one slip, one swear, one lapse from the faith that
might prevent canonization. For example, he
might unearth the fact that Mother Teresa missed
vespers on July 9, 1947. Or that she
took the Lord's name in vain when seized with fever.
The Catholic Church even has a certain name for
this position: Promoter of the Faith, or more
irreverently, the Devil's Advocate.
It is a job Father Paul Rampini thinks
he'd fill splendidly.
He doesn't live in Rome, though. And he
is hardly important enough to be chosen for such a
critical job, since he's only taught at
seminary in Boston for sixteen years. But still,
Father Rampini has met his fair share of the
falsely venerated. As one of the foremost
theologians in the Northeast, he's been called
in to consult on many occasions when visionaries began
spouting claims. Of the forty-six cases he's
examined, not one received a favorable report to the
bishop from Father Rampini. And most of them only
chattered on about the usual: glowing images of
Mary, a crucifix appearing in the mist over a
valley, Jesus telling people the hour of reckoning
was at hand.
The idea of a female God does not sit
well with Father Rampini.
He turns off the ignition in his Honda and
opens his briefcase. The pink pamphlet from the
MotherGod society lies on top. Father
Rampini can barely stand to look at it. It is
one thing for someone like him--a priest who teaches at
seminary, a man who has devoted his life
to theology--to reconsider the procession of
persons in the godhead. It is another thing
entirely for a seven-year-old girl--Jewish,
at that!--to start proclaiming God as a mother.
It is said that she's a healer. Well, that he
might even accept, with the proper sorts of proof.
And that she has stigmata--again, he'd like to see it
with his own eyes. But to say that God is visiting
her in a clearly female form ...
certainly it is heresy.
Father Rampini checks his reflection in the
rearview mirror before opening the door of his car.
He tucks the leather portfolio beneath his arm and
steps out, smoothing the placket of his black
shirt and adjusting the white collar.
The door to the rectory sweeps open, and Father
MacReady stands on the threshold. For the
briefest of moments they size each other up:
parish priest to seminary priest, confessor
to researcher, Irish to Italian. Father
MacReady steps forward, filling the doorway,
making it impossible for the visiting priest to enter.
Just as quickly, he steps back. "Father." He
nods. "I hope your trip was all right?"
"A little bit of rain near Brattleboro,"
Paul says, the mutual antagonism vanishing
into professional politesse like smoke.
"Come in," Father MacReady says, glancing
around. "Can I get your bag for you?"
"That's all right. I don't imagine I'll
be staying."
This is news to Father MacReady. Although he
isn't thrilled to share his home with some pompous,
published yahoo from St. Joseph's, he knows
that it will reflect poorly on himself if he
fails to offer enough hospitality. "It's no
trouble."
"No, of course not. I just believe I'll be
able to wrap this case up in a matter of hours."
At that, Joseph MacReady laughs. "Do
you? Maybe you'd better come inside."

On the plane home from Kansas City Ian
sits apart from Faith and me, since we don't
want to attract attention by being seen together. An
hour into the flight, while Faith is busy
listening to the movie, I hesitantly creep
into the darkened first-class cabin and take the seat
beside him. He reaches over the seat divider and
squeezes my hand. "Hi."
"Hi."
"How's everything back there?"
"Fine. We had cereal for breakfast. You?"
"Waffles."
"Oh," I answer politely, thinking that this
is not the conversation two people who made love so
magically the night before ought to be having.
"Have you thought about the hearing?"
I've told Ian everything my mother
told me: Joan Standish has received word that
Colin's suing me for custody of Faith. "What
can I do? He'll say that Faith shouldn't have
to live with a hundred people shoving to take her
picture and ask her questions every time she leaves the
house. Who's going to disagree with that?"
"You know I'll do what I can to help," Ian
says, but I do not know that, not at all. Now that
we are headed home, the differences between us have
sprung up, a minefield that makes it
impossible to recall the seamless landscape of the
night before. When we step off this plane,
by necessity, Ian and I will be on very different
sides of a controversial issue.
We both sit silently, brooding. Then
Ian reaches for my hand, turning it over in his own
before he starts to speak. "I have to tell you something,
Mariah. I wanted Faith to fail. I thought you
were putting her up to this ... prophet show for the
attention. I deliberately set out to win your
sympathy, so that you'd take her to Michael."
"You already said this to me the other--"
"Hear me out, all right? I did and said
whatever I could to get you there--including when I
told you I was starting to believe in Faith. That was
a lie, just one more thing to make sure you'd go
to Lockwood. I was hot-miked that night. I
taped you saying that Faith would give her healing
powers a try. And when we got to Lockwood,
I taped that whole damned fiasco. I was going
to show the way you two ran your sting."
Stricken, I have to force my lips to move.
"There's your proof, then."
"No. After Michael pitched his fit and I
realized Faith hadn't been able to work a
miracle, I was furious. I had my story, and
it didn't make a heap of difference so long as
Michael was still rocking back and forth. I lied
to you, Mariah, but I lied to myself, too. I
didn't want Faith to be a fraud, not when it
came to my brother." He looks at me. "I
tossed the tape into the pond in Lockwood's
garden."
I glance into my lap, one question tumbling through my
mind. I have to know, I have to. "Last night
... were you lying to me, then, too?"
Ian lifts my chin. "No. If you believe
nothing else I've told you, believe that one
thing."
I let out the breath I've been
holding and pull away from him. "I would just ask you
one favor--if you could hold off on your show
until after the preliminary hearing ..."
"I'm not going to get on the air and say
Faith couldn't work a miracle."
His voice is so soft that I realize what
I've overlooked: Any reference to Faith is
going to circle right back to Ian's own brother.
"You don't want anyone to know about Michael."
"That's not why. It's because Faith did work
one."
I sit back, stunned. "She did not. I was
there. I watched you leave the room."
"When I went back this morning, Michael and
I had a real conversation. He made fun of me.
And he reached right up and hugged me."
"Oh, Ian."
"It didn't last for long, and at first I thought
I'd just dreamed it. But I didn't. I really
had that minute with him, Mariah. One minute in
twenty-five years." He smiles sadly.
"One hell of a minute." His expression clears
as he turns to me. "Autism ... it isn't like
that. It doesn't switch on and off like a
faucet. Even on Michael's good days, he's
always been ... apart. But this morning he was the
brother I'd always wanted to have--and that's beyond the
power of science. I can't tell you that I believe
in God. But, Mariah ... I do believe
Faith can heal."
The wheels of my mind turn. I imagine
Ian stepping onto the front lawn and convoking the
press. I imagine them hanging on his every word.
I imagine the furor that will ensue when Ian, the
most influential doubting Thomas of them all,
announces that he's found the real thing.
They will never let go of Faith.
"Lie," I say quickly. "Tell everyone
Faith couldn't do it."
"I don't lie. That's the whole point of the
show."
By now I am on the verge of tears. "You have
to lie. You have to."
Ian takes my hand and brings it to his mouth,
kisses each finger. "Hush, now. We'll
figure it all out."
"We?" I shake my head. "Ian, there is
no "we." There's you and your show, and there's me
and custody. If one of us wins, the other one
loses."
He tucks my head onto his shoulder, his
voice soothing. "Ssh. Let's pretend it's
six months from now. And I already know the name of the
high school you went to, and your favorite
Disney dwarf, and how you take your coffee."
I smile hesitantly. "And we sit around
on Saturday nights watching videos."
"And I wear my boxers to breakfast. And you
let me see you without makeup."
"You already have."
"You see?" Ian brushes his lips across my
forehead, erasing the worry. "We're halfway
there."

No. Haverhill, New Hampshire
A. Warren Rothbottam likes his show
tunes. He likes them so much, in fact, that
he's personally paid to have his judge's chambers at
the Grafton County Superior Court rewired
with a state-of-the-art stereo system and cleverly
hidden Bose speakers, which make it seem as if
Carol Channing is robustly singing from behind the neat
row of New Hampshire Procedural Law
books. The music, however, is too big for the
room, and often spills into the hall or through the
walls. Most people do not mind. If anything, it
gives a certain character to the courthouse that the
squat, unremarkable building in the middle of
nowhere does not manage by itself.
Today, before settling down behind his desk, Judge
Rothbottam selected Evita. He closes
his eyes and slices his hands through the air, humming
loudly enough to be heard in the hall.
"Your Honor."
The timid voice cuts through his orchestration, and
Rothbottam scowls. Punching a button on his
intercom, the music dulls. "What,
McCarthy? This better be good."
The clerk of the court is shaking. Everyone knows
that when Judge Rothbottam puts on an
original-cast recording, he isn't to be
disturbed. Something about the sanctity of the music.
But then again, an emergency motion is an
emergency motion. And Malcolm Metz is too
famous a lawyer to be put off by a county clerk.
"I'm sorry, Your Honor, really. It's
just that Mr. Metz called for the third time in
response to his emergency motion."
"You know what you can tell him to do with his
emergency motion?"
McCarthy swallows. "I can guess, Your
Honor. Would that be a denial, then?"
Scowling, Rothbottam reaches beneath his desk,
and the glorious voice of Patti LuPone cuts
off in the middle of a high C. The judge has
never met Malcolm Metz, but one would have to be
blind, deaf, and dumb to move in the circles of the
New Hampshire legal system and not know about
him. A highly paid rainmaker in a prestigious
Manchester law firm, Metz has managed
to reel in case after case receiving plenty of TV
coverage: the custody battle for Baby J that
resulted in a nasty courtroom war between a
surrogate mother and an adoptive family, the
sexual harassment suit won by a secretary
against her senator boss, the current fiasco
involving the split between a Mafia don and his
bimbo wife. Rothbottam does not care for
grandstanding; he leaves that to the legitimate theater.
If his courtroom has to be violated by some
asshole like Metz, the counselor will damn
well play by the judge's rules.
"Just a second," Rothbottam says to the
clerk. He thumbs through the motion to modify
custody that Metz has filed that morning and the
accompanying brief requesting an ex parte
hearing. According to Metz, the child is in grave danger
and needs to be removed from the mother's influence
immediately; the ex parte motion is necessary before the
defendant even gets wind of the motion to modify
custody.
Just the kind of dramatic bullshit he'd
expect from Malcolm Metz.
Rothbottam scans the brief. White very.
White. He just heard the divorce a month
ago, and there hadn't been any custody issues
then. What the hell is going on?
He does not realize that he's spoken aloud
until he hears McCarthy on the intercom.
"Well, Your Honor, she's that girl. The one
who's been on the news."
"Who is?"
"The one the father wants custody of Faith
White."
The seven-year-old who is raising the dead and
speaking to God and showing stigmata. Rothbottam
groans. No wonder Metz is deigning to come
to New Canaan, New Hampshire. "You know,
I don't know Metz at all. I don't even
want to know him, although I guess I'm
not going to be so lucky. But I do know Joan
Standish, who represented the mother in the divorce.
Call Metz and tell him to be here at three
o'clock. Let him know that Joan and her client will be
joining him. I'll listen to his argument about the child
being in danger, and we'll set a date for the
custody hearing."
"All right, Your Honor." The clerk beeps
off the intercom after agreeing to find the judge the
latest newspaper stories about Faith White.
Rothbottam sits at his desk for a moment, then
walks to the bookshelves and extracts a new
original-cast recording from the many stacks.
The music from Jesus Christ Superstar
fills his chambers, and Rothbottam smiles.
There is nothing wrong, nothing at all, with getting
in the mood for what is yet to come.

Manchester, New Hampshire
Malcolm Metz moves so gracefully in the
leather swivel chair that he looks like a
twentieth-century version of a centaur as he
gestures to his three minions and finishes
telling the joke. "So Saint Peter opens the
gates of heaven and lets in a pope and a lawyer.
"Come in," he tells them. "I'll show you
to your new quarters."" Metz glances around. A
skilled litigator, after all, is at best a
superb actor.
"Saint Peter stops off at a tremendous
golden penthouse, built on top of a cloud.
He leads them inside and shows them the gold
faucets in the bathrooms and the silk bedding and the
expensive rugs in the halls. Then he turns
to the lawyer and says, "This is your new
home." He leaves with the pope, and takes him
to a tiny cell with a little twin bed and a washstand.
"And this," he says, "is where you are going
to live from now on.""
Metz adopts a lilting Italian accent.
""Now, wait a second!" the pope cries.
"I've lived a pious life and led the
Catholic Church--but I have to live here while that
lawyer gets a penthouse?"' Saint Peter
nods. "Yes," he says. "See, we've
got plenty of popes up here. But this is the first
time we've ever had a lawyer!""
The conference room erupts into laughter--no one
likes lawyer jokes more than lawyers. But
Metz is equally aware that he could have
read a perfectly dull legal statute aloud,
and if he'd expected his associates to find it
funny, they would have been rolling on the floor.
At the sound of the intercom, he holds up a hand,
and the younger lawyers fall silent. "Peggy,"
Metz says to his secretary, "put him through."
They watch him with expectant faces. "All
right. Yes, I see." Metz hangs up the
receiver and folds his hands on the polished table.
"Gentlemen and lady," he says, "the ex parte
motion has been denied."
He turns to Hunstead, his first associate.
"Call Colin White. Tell him to get himself
into a good suit and meet me at the Grafton
County Courthouse at two-thirty P.m.
Lee," he says to a second man, "tip off
the media. I want them to know the father thinks his
daughter's in danger."
The two associates run off, leaving Metz
alone with the third. "I'm sorry, Mr.
Metz," Elkland says. "A lucky break
would've been nice."
Metz shrugs, collecting his papers and
files. "Actually, I never expected the
judge to rule in my favor." He taps the
legal pads on their edges, aligning them. "I
only filed it so that the judge could deny it, and
get that out of his system. Let's face it--no
small-town judge wants someone like me cruising
into his courtroom. I'd much rather have Rothbottam
use this motion as a pissing contest to show me who's
boss, instead of something intrinsic to the case."
The associate is surprised. "Then this was just
strategic? Isn't the kid in danger?"
"Hell, who knows? Filing an ex parte motion
keeps the father happy. Denying it keeps the
judge happy. And you know what makes me
happy?"
"Knowing that you're going to win?"
Metz pats her shoulder. "I knew I
hired you for a reason," he says.

New Canaan, New Hampshire
"The mother isn't going to let you near Faith,"
Father MacReady says, watching the visiting
priest move about the rectory's tiny guest
room. "I can't blame her."
Father Rampini turns in a smooth motion.
"Why not?"
"She's Jewish. We've got no
right to be there."
"She's spouting heresy," Father Rampini
corrects. "If we don't have jurisdiction
over the person making the claims, we at least can
control what she says that misleads good
Catholics." He lifts a jacket and hangs
it in the closet. "Surely you take issue with a
female apparition?"
"No. The Church has accredited plenty of
visions of Mary."
"Are we talking about Mary? No. God in a
dress, God as a mother." Rampini frowns.
"You have no problem with this?"
Father MacReady turns away. He has
taken vows that hold him to helping others for the rest
of his life, but that doesn't take away the
occasional urge to plant a facer. He sits
at the small table and drums his fingers on its
surface, casually glancing at the stack of
books Rampini has placed there and the
Saint-A-Day desk calendar, open
to November 7. Saint Albinus, he
reads. If he remembers correctly, Saint
Albinus killed an evil man by breathing into his
face.
"Maybe God just looks different to a
seven-year-old," Father MacReady muses.
"Tell that to the children at Fatima," Rampini
says. "Three kids, who--unlike Faith
White--all saw the same vision of Mary. They
didn't say she was wearing pants or smoking a
hookah. They saw the Blessed Virgin the way
she's traditionally pictured."
"But not everyone has traditional visions.
Saint Bernadette said the Virgin spoke to her
in French patois."
"Cultural resonance isn't part and parcel
of a vision. So what if the Virgin was speaking
French to Bernadette? She was still too
uneducated to know what Mary meant when she
referred to herself as the Immaculate Conception."
Rampini zips his duffel bag and slides it beneath
the bed. "Everything you've told me and everything
I've read suggests that this is a crock. It's
a hallucination, one the girl's managed to pass
along into a mild hysteria. If Faith White
is seeing God, there's no way He would
appear in the form of a woman. Either an apparition
is Jesus Christ or it is not." He shrugs.
"I'm more likely to consider the visions
satanic than divine."
MacReady runs his finger along the tabletop,
scattering a fine layer of dust. "There's
concrete, objective proof."
"Right. The resurrections and the healing. I'll
let you in on a little trade secret: I've
read about Lourdes and Guadalupe and a hundred
others, but in my lifetime I've yet to see a
bona fide miracle worker."
Joseph MacReady meets his gaze. "For a
good Catholic, Father, you sound an awful lot like
a Pharisee."

I am still half asleep when I hear Ian,
speaking from the plane seat beside Faith. "I
didn't get to thank you." I will my eyelids
to stay slitted, and just listen.
Faith doesn't answer him. "You did it,
didn't you?" Ian presses. "You gave
Michael those few minutes."
"I didn't do anything."
Ian shakes his head. "I don't believe
that."
"You don't believe a lot of stuff."
He grins. "Call me Ian."
"Okay." They stare at each other. Faith
smooths down the front of her shirt, and Ian
uncrosses his legs. "Ian? You can hold my
mother's hand if you want."
Ian nods gravely. "Thank you." He
hesitates for a moment. "Can I hold yours?"
Faith slowly extends her hand, with the
Band-Aid at its center. Ian slips his fingers
around hers carefully. He does not examine the
Band-Aid, doesn't even give the supposed
stigmata a second glance.
Maybe, just maybe, Faith has worked a
miracle after all.

Millie Epstein opens the front door,
expecting to see Mariah and Faith back from their
flight, and instead lays eyes on yet another
man in a black shirt and backward collar.
"What are they doing in Rome? Cloning you
fellows?"
Father Rampini draws himself up to his full
five feet ten inches. "Ma'am, I'm here
to speak to Faith White at the request of His
Excellency, Bishop Andrews of Manchester."
"Who asked him?" Millie says.
"I don't mean to be rude, but I find it
highly unlikely that my daughter or
granddaughter called His Highness--"
"His Excellency--"
"Whoever," Millie interrupts. "Look.
We've had more priests around here than the St.
Patrick's Day parade in New York.
I'm sure that one of them has the information you
want. Have a nice day."
She begins to wedge the door closed but is
stopped by the priest's foot. "Mrs ...?"
"Epstein."
"Mrs. Epstein, you're interfering with the
process of the Roman Catholic Church."
Millie stares at him for a moment. "And your
point is?"
By now Father Rampini is sweating. He
wonders if he should have taken the insufferable Father
MacReady up on his offer to accompany him
to Faith White's home. At the time, the thought of
twenty minutes on back roads with the
ridiculously liberal priest had seemed like more
penance than any man of God should have to face. Of
course, he hadn't known about this particular
dragon at the gate.
"All right," he says, "why don't you just
get it over with?"
"I beg your pardon?"
"You don't like me, Mrs. Epstein. You
don't like priests. Go ahead and tell me why."
"You see? You hear my name, know I'm
Jewish, and assume I'm prejudiced."
Father Rampini grits his teeth. "My
apologies. Is Faith available?"
"No."
"What a surprise," he says dryly.
Millie crosses her arms. "Now I'm a
liar? Next you're going to assume I'm some
kind of shyster moneylender, I suppose?"
"No more than I'm a Bing Crosby
look-alike who drinks too much and seduces
altar boys," Rampini says tightly. "Now,
I could always go ask for the cooperation of that police
captain at the end of the driveway."
"Fortunately, we already fought the war
to separate church and state," Millie says.
"My granddaughter isn't home, thanks to all
of you."
Rampini feels a muscle tic at the base
of his jaw. This is the resurrected
grandmother? And what did she mean by "all of you"?
Who had driven the girl away?
He looks into her feisty, lined face and
sees, in a flicker of her eye, a monumental
sadness that it has come to this. For a moment he even
feels guilty. "Mrs. Epstein, maybe if
you set forth some guidelines, I can take them
back to the bishop and we can compromise on the best
way to examine Faith without upsetting her ...
or you."
The woman snorts. "You think I was born
yesterday?"
"Actually, from what I've heard, that's not so
far off the mark."
"Where's the other one? The nice priest?"
Millie looks around the front yard for a sign
of Father MacReady. "Mariah likes him."
Then she narrows her eyes. "Are you two doing a
good-copstbad-cop thing?"
By now Father Rampini has a headache. He
thinks this woman might have done very well on their
side, during the Inquisition. "We aren't
partners. I swear to God."
"Oh?" Millie says. "Yours or mine?"

It has been a two-hour ride from Boston,
but the heating system in the silver rental car has
not warmed me at all. In the rearview mirror
I can see Ian's rental, a black
Taurus, driving behind me. We decided that it
would be best to arrive separately. Otherwise,
how do we explain why we're coming home together?
"Lies," I mutter. "More and more lies."
"Ma?" Faith's voice comes, drowsy and
rich.
"You have a good nap?" I capture her
attention in the mirror and smile. "There's something
we have to talk about. When I get home, I'm
going to have to leave you with grandma and go visit the
lawyer."
Faith sits up. "Does it have to do with Daddy
again?"
"In a way. He wants you to live with him.
And I want you to live with me. So a nice
judge is going to decide where you ought to be."
"How come nobody wants to know what I
think?"
"I want to know," I say.
But now that she's on the spot, Faith hedges.
"Do I have to pick just one of you forever?"
"I hope not, Faith." Hesitating, I
consider how best to phrase this next sentence.
"Since a lot of people are going to be watching us
while the judge decides, it might be best if
you ... told God ... that you need to keep Her
a secret for a little while."
"Like when we were at the cabin."
Not quite, I think. Faith failed pretty
miserably at keeping her light under a bushel.
"God says it's no one's business."
But that's wrong. It is a business, a booming
one of donations and salvation and even atheism. "Just
do this for me, Faith," I say wearily.
"Please."
She is quiet for a moment. Then I feel her
hand slip through the narrow slat of the headrest, into my
hair, to rub the muscles of my neck.

Ian arrives at the house a half hour before
Mariah, having driven straight through during the time
she stopped at McDonald's to get Faith a
snack. He turns his car into the street, stunned
at how the crowd has grown. All the network
affiliates have vans there, there's some group with a
banner, and the cult hasn't given up its
stronghold around the mailbox. And that doesn't
even take into consideration the sea of eager faces
that have come to be healed or touched or blessed.
He slips into his own small knot of
production personnel unobtrusively,
simply because it is so crowded. James is nowhere
to be seen. His assistants fall into file behind
him, but he shoos them away when he reaches the
Winnebago. "Not now, y'all. Let me catch
my breath."
But inside, he only paces. He waits
until the commotion outside reaches him like a
current on the air, and then he exits the
Winnebago and watches, from a distance, as Faith
and Mariah get out of their car.
She's dazed, he can see from here. She
hustles Faith to the house, shielding her from
view, although there is no way to block out the roar
of a crowd that has waited on the child for a week. But
she only trades her daughter off to Millie,
and then an unfamiliar woman--the lawyer?--
marches Mariah right back to the driveway and into a
Jeep.
Ian pushes his way to the front of the crowd, a
swarm of people who touch the fenders and doors
of the Jeep as it slows to a stop at the end of the
driveway. The police push them out of the way,
and the SUV inches forward. Ian stares at the
passenger window, willing Mariah to look up.
As the Jeep pulls out of the driveway, she
does. He smiles at her for encouragement, and
she cranes her neck as the car continues to move,
turns in her seat, taps her fingers to the glass
as if she would touch him.

KEEPING FAITH

BOOK II
THE NEW TESTAMENT

TEN

When love begins to sicken and decay,
It useth an enforc`ed ceremony.
There are no tricks in plain and simple faith.
--William Shakespeare,
Julius Caesar

October 27, 1999
Mariah stands beside Joan in the middle of the
judge's chambers, terrified of making a wrong
move. She is uncomfortably aware that she's
wearing leggings and an oversized sweatshirt, while
Joan is wearing an olive suit, and both
Colin and his attorney are dressed in Armani.
She stands ramrod straight, as if posture
might count when it comes to deciding who will retain
custody of Faith.
"Mariah," Colin whispers behind his lawyer's
back, but the man hushes him.
The judge has been diligently scribbling
away at his desk, and although it is past three
o'clock, neither Joan nor the other lawyer has
made any move to remind him that the hearing was
supposed to start. Mariah realizes that the judge
is wearing earphones. Very tiny ones, like news
anchors wear--the kind that snake over the shell
of the ear like a hearing aid. He reaches beneath his
desk, pushes at something, and then tugs the tiny
plugs from his ears. "All right," he says,
turning to Colin's lawyer, whom Mariah thinks
she may have seen on the regional news. "Mr.
Metz, what do you have to say?"
The man smooths his tie with a feline preening that
makes Mariah think of a ferret. "This is a
matter of life and death, Your Honor. Mariah
White is endangering my client's child."
Mariah feels everyone's eyes settle on
her. A flush works its way up her neck.
"Your Honor, my client only recently
became aware of the dog-and-pony show that has
become his child's life, and the constant threat of
physical endangerment. He's in a position now
to provide her with the safety and security she
needs, and he feels that it is of the utmost
importance that she get out of her mother's
household. It's why we felt strongly about an
ex parte hearing, and it's why we're confident that
you'll decide my client should have full custody.
But in the interests of safety, we want her
removed from the home right now, before any more
irreparable damage is done."
Judge Rothbottam purses his lips.
"Six weeks ago your client legally ceded
custody to his ex-wife, which leads me to believe
he didn't consider her a threat to the child's
welfare then. As far as I can see, the only thing
that's changed is a little press activity on the
front lawn. What's life-threatening about that?"
"In addition to the psychological stress of
being paraded in front of the media daily, my
client's daughter has been hospitalized for
intense trauma to the hands."
"Trauma?" Joan sputters. "Your
Honor, there's absolutely no medical proof
that Faith's injuries were caused by trauma. In
fact, several doctors have gone on record
saying as much, and, as I'm sure you know, there's
an issue here that Mr. Metz is conveniently
ignoring, which is that the child is apparently performing
miracles and speaking to God. And as for the media--
well, their descent on the household has
absolutely nothing to do with my client. She has
done everything humanly possible to provide her
daughter with a normal life in spite of them.
Mr. Metz's charge of endangerment is nothing but
a thinly veiled attempt to turn a weak case
into the sort of wildly dramatic spectacle in
which he prefers to be involved."
Mariah cannot take her eyes off Joan
Standish. She's never heard the woman string together
that many words, and so compellingly.
Judge Rothbottam snorts. "Well,
Ms. Standish, that was some pretty histrionic
grandstanding yourself."
Metz sits forward at the edge of his seat, a
pit bull ready to spring. "Your Honor, the
issue that Ms. Standish is trying to obscure is
that a child is in jeopardy. Three months ago,
when my client left, his daughter was a
well-adjusted little girl. Now she's a victim
of psychotic hallucinations and serious bodily
injury. I urge you to err on the side of
safety here, and give my client temporary
custody of the child until the hearing."
Joan completely ignores Metz.
"Judge, the divorce has been hard enough on
Faith. The last time she saw her father, he was
half naked and carousing with some other woman."
"I beg your pardon!" Metz says,
livid.
"Don't beg mine. The last place Faith
White should go is to her father's house, Your
Honor. Please let her stay with my client."
Judge Rothbottam picks up his earphone
and begins to laboriously wind the wires into a
tight sailor's noose. "I think I've had
enough for one afternoon. It doesn't appear to me that the child
is in any immediate crisis, Mr. Metz.
We'll have a custody hearing in five weeks.
I trust that's enough time?"
"The sooner the better, Your Honor,"
Metz says. "For Faith's sake."
The judge does not bother to look up from his
calendar. "I'm appointing a psychiatrist,
Dr. Orlitz, whom I want to evaluate your
client, Metz; and your client, Standish; and their
daughter as well. It's a court order, which
means that you all will cooperate. You're free
to get your own psychiatrists, of course, but
you'll also speak to Dr. Orlitz. I'm also
appointing Kenzie van der Hoven as guardian
ad litem, and I'll expect you to give her
any information she needs. If you have an objection
to Ms. van der Hoven, I want to hear it
now."
Joan whispers to Mariah, "She's good."
Metz feels his client's eyes on him, and
shrugs. He doesn't know jackshit about
GAL'S in New Canaan, New
Hampshire. Manchester is one thing, but for all
he knows Kenzie van der Whatever is Joan
Standish's sister. "We think that's fine, Your
Honor," Metz announces in a strong, clear
voice.
"We do, too," Joan adds.
"Marvelous. The custody hearing will begin
Friday, December third."
"I have a conflict," Metz says, poring
over his calendar. "I'm scheduled to be taking a
deposition in the case of a boy who's divorcing
his parents."
"Is that supposed to impress me, Mr.
Metz?" Judge Rothbottam asks. "Because it
really doesn't. Find someone else to do it.
You're the one who wants this case tried
expediently."
Metz folds the leather binding of his
Filofax. "I'll be here."
"Joan?"
"I don't have any conflicts."
"Excellent." The judge pushes the
earphones into place. "I can't wait."

Joan pulls into the driveway and touches
Mariah's arm. "Remember what I told you.
This isn't the end of the world."
Mariah's smile does not quite reach her eyes.
"Thank you. For everything." She folds her hands
in her lap. "I was impressed."
"Girl, you ain't seen nothing yet." Joan
laughs. "I might have taken on this case for
free, just to stand up to Malcolm Metz. Now, you
go on inside and play with your daughter."
Mariah nods and gets out of the Jeep, flinching
at the questions hurled from distant reporters, and at
the sight of a tremendous poster of Faith's face
held by a large group of women. She feels
fragile, an ornament made of spun sugar, but
she steels her composure while she climbs the
porch steps. As soon as she opens the door,
her mother and Faith come running into the parlor. After
a searching look at Mariah's face, Millie
turns to her granddaughter. "Honey, I left
my reading glasses on the arm of the couch. Could you
get them?"
As soon as Faith is out of hearing range,
Millie closes in. "So?"
"In five weeks we have to go to court."
"That son of a bitch. I knew you--"
"Ma," Mariah interrupts. "Don't do this
now." She sinks down on the stairs and scrubs
her hands over her face. "This isn't about
Colin."
"It's not about you, either, Mariah, but I'll
bet five weeks from now it will be."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"That your Achilles' heel, unfortunately,
is a target as big as a barn. And that Colin and
his fancy lawyer are sure to strike there."
"By then Joan will have come up with something,"
Mariah says, but she knows she is trying
to convince herself as well as Millie. What court
would pick her as the better parent?
Maybe Colin's right--maybe it is her
fault. She has made poor choices
before regarding Faith; this could be yet more proof of
her inadequate parenting: one rash decision, one
selfish move, one conversation that took root in
Faith's imagination and brought her to this point. There
have been times, after all, when Colin questioned
Mariah's judgment with good reason.
"Oh, no you don't," Millie mutters,
pulling Mariah upright. "You go right upstairs and
steam that look off your face."
"What--"
"Take a hot shower. Clear your head.
I've seen you get like this before, all full of
doubts about whether you've got the good sense God
gave a beetle, much less a competent mother. I
swear, I don't know how Colin does it, but the
man's a Svengali when it comes to your mind."
She pushes Mariah up the stairs as Faith
comes into the parlor with her grandmother's eyeglasses.
"Oh, good," she says to the girl. "Let's go
see if we can find Sunday's comics."
Aware of Faith's eyes following her,
Mariah smiles with every step. She deliberately
shoves aside the thoughts that batter away at her:
what Joan will say in court, what the judge will
make of Mariah's hasty escape to Kansas
City, what Ian will say and do now that they have
returned. She undresses and turns the shower
on so that a white mist fills the bathroom.
Inside the stall, the water pounds heavy and hot,
but Mariah cannot stop shivering. Like the survivor of
an accident, the close call hits all at
once, and she is by turns frightened and stunned.
What if, five weeks from now, her daughter is
legally removed? What if, once again, Colin
gets his way? Mariah slides down to the tiled
floor, arms crossed tight, and lets herself
fall apart.

After Faith is bathed and put to bed, Mariah
walks into the living room to find Millie peering
out from the edge of the curtains. "Like Yasgur's
Farm," she murmurs, hearing Mariah come up
behind her. "Look out in the field. You can see
all those little flickering lights ... What were they
holding up back then--candles?"
"Cigarette lighters. And how would you know about
Woodstock?"
Millie turns and smiles. "Don't
underestimate your mother." She reaches for Mariah's
hand and squeezes. "You feeling better
yet?"
At the simple, sweet concern, Mariah almost
breaks down again. She lets her mother lead her to the
couch and lays her head in her lap. As Millie
begins to smooth Mariah's hair back from her
brow, she can feel some of the tension ebb, some of the
problems fall by the wayside. "I wouldn't say
I'm feeling better. Numb is more like it."
Millie continues to stroke her daughter's
hair. "Faith seems to be holding up all
right."
"I don't know if she understands what's
happening."
There is a moment of silence. "She isn't the
only one."
Mariah sits up, color flooding her
face. "What do you mean by that?"
"When are you going to tell me the rest?"
"I already told you everything that happened in
court."
Millie tucks a strand of Mariah's hair
behind her ear. "You know, you look just the way you did
when you stayed out with Billy Flaherty two hours
past curfew."
"It was a flat tire. I told you that almost
twenty years ago."
"And I still don't believe you. God, I
remember sitting up in bed watching the clock and
wondering, What on earth does Mariah see in
him, with his brooding and his moods?"
"He was only sixteen, and his father was an
alcoholic, and his parents were in the middle of a
divorce. He needed someone to talk to."
"The thing is," Millie continues, as if
Mariah has not spoken, "the other night I was
lying in bed watching the clock and wondering, Why
on earth is Mariah staying with Ian Fletcher?
And you come home, and you've got that same face
on all over again."
Mariah scoffs and turns away. "I don't
have any face on."
"Yes you do. It's the one that says it's already
too late for me to keep you from going over the
edge." She waits for Mariah to look at her
again, slowly, and with great reservation. "So you tell
me," Millie says softly. "How hard was the
fall?"
A stillness settles over Mariah as she
realizes that her mother is no more prescient than
Mariah herself. All the moments she's
awakened in the middle of the night a split
second before Faith's cries fill the dark,
all the times she has looked at her daughter's
face and cleaved a lie in half with a single
look. This is the codicil of motherhood: Like it
or not, you acquire a sixth sense when it comes
to your children--viscerally feeling their joy, their
frustration, and the sharp blow to the heart when someone
causes them pain.
"Fast." Mariah sighs. "And with my eyes
wide open."
As Millie opens her arms, Mariah moves
into them, drawing close the comfort of childhood with a
great rush of relief. She tells her mother of
Ian, who was not following her when she thought he
was, who was not the person he made himself out to be.
She describes the way they would sit on the
porch after Faith went to sleep, and how they would
sometimes talk and sometimes just let the night settle
over their shoulders. She does not tell Millie
of Ian's brother, of what Faith might or
might not have briefly done for him. She does not
tell Millie how it felt to have Ian's body
pressed against hers, heat from head to toe, how even
during hours of sleep, he held on to her hand as
if he could not bear to let her go.
To her credit, Millie does not act
surprised or ask if they are speaking of the same
Ian Fletcher. Instead she holds Mariah
close and lets the explanations fall where they
may. "If this happened between you," she says
carefully, "where do things stand?"
Mariah glances through the gauzy curtains at the
smattering of lights that attracted her mother. "With
him out there and me in here," she answers, smiling
sadly. "Just like before."

Sometimes in the middle of the night Faith thinks
she can hear something crawling under her bed, a serpent
or a sea monster out of water or maybe the
tiny, hooked feet of rats. She wants
to toss off her covers and run into her mother's
room, but that would mean touching the floor, and there's
a very good chance that whatever is making the noise will
wrap itself around her ankle and eat her with its rows
of sharp teeth before she ever makes it into the hall.
Tonight Faith wakes up, certain it's coming for
her, and screams.
Her mother comes rushing into the room. "What's the
matter?"
"They're biting me!" she cries. "The things
that live under the bed!" But even as she speaks, the
world comes back to her, strange black shapes
turning into lamps and dressers and other ordinary
things. She glances down at her hands, still fisting the
covers, Band-Aids covering the small holes
beneath the knuckles. They don't hurt at all
now. They're not bleeding either. They tingle a little,
as if a dog were pushing his wet nose into them.
"You okay?"
Faith nods.
"Then I think I'll go back to sleep."
But Faith doesn't want her mother to leave.
She wants her to be sitting here, on the edge of the
bed, thinking of nothing but Faith. "Ow!" she
cries impulsively, clutching her left hand.
Her mother turns quickly. "What? What
happened?"
"My hand hurts," Faith lies. "A big,
sharp, needle pain."
"Here?" her mother asks, pressing.
It doesn't hurt at all. It feels
sort of nice, actually. "Yes," Faith
whimpers. "Ow!"
Her mother crawls into the bed, gathering Faith
into her arms. "Try to rest," she says, her own
eyes closing.
In the dark, Faith falls asleep smiling.

October 28, 1999
Clearly, her mother has been eating like a pig.
That's the only explanation Mariah can come up
with to make sense of the absolute dearth of food in
the house. Having been gone for a week, she'd have
expected the fruit and the milk to go bad, but there's
no more bread, and even the peanut-butter jar is
empty. "God, Ma," she says, watching
Faith pick at a dry bowl of Rice
Krispies. "Did you host a party?"
Affronted, Millie sniffs. "That's the kind
of gratitude I get for keeping house?"
"I would have expected you to replenish the
pantry, that's all. For your own comfort."
Millie rolls her eyes. "Oh, and of
course the vultures out there would have just waved
politely as I went on my merry way."
"If they harassed you, you could have harassed them
right back." Grabbing her purse, Mariah
strides to the door. "I'll be back in a little
while."
But eluding the reporters is not as simple as
Mariah expects. Inching out of the driveway, she
nearly hits a man who pushes his daughter's
wheelchair in front of her car. Police
notwithstanding, hundreds of hands pat her windows,
her bumpers, her trunk. "God," she breathes,
astounded by the sheer numbers of people, gratefully
picking up speed a quarter mile past her own
driveway.
She believed that, without Faith in tow, there was
less of a chance that she'd be pursued, but three
cars tail her as she makes her way into the
grocery store in a neighboring town. Keeping
careful track of them in the rearview mirror,
she deliberately takes side streets instead
of main roads, hoping to lose them before she reaches
her destination. Two of the cars are gone by the time she
leaves the outskirts of New Canaan. The
third follows her into the parking lot but turns in
a different direction, leading Mariah to realize
sheepishly that this might have been a neighbor or
ordinary citizen, rather than a reporter on her
trail.
In the grocery store she keeps her head
ducked, reaching for melons and lettuce and
English muffins and not making eye contact with other
shoppers. She rounds the aisles with grim
determination, set on making it through the checkout
line without being noticed. But she has just reached
into a frozen-food locker when a hand closes
around her wrist and pulls her behind a tall display
of ice-cream cones.
"Ian."
He is dressed down in jeans and a tattered
flannel shirt, a baseball cap pulled low
over his face. He has not shaved. Mariah
touches his cheek. "This is your disguise?"
His hand slides from her wrist to her shoulder.
"I wanted to know what happened in court."
A small light goes out inside Mariah.
"Oh."
"And I wanted to see you." Ian's fingers
curl around the soft skin of her inner arm. "I
needed to."
She looks up at him. "We go back to the
judge in five weeks." She can just make out his
eyes beneath the bill of his cap, pure Arctic
blue and focused with the most singular intensity,
pinning her like a butterfly.
Another shopper rounds the corner,
toddler twins hanging on either side of her cart like
docking buoys. She glances dismissively at
them, then continues down the aisle. "We can't be
here like this," Ian says. "One of us is bound
to get recognized." But he makes no move
to leave, and instead strokes his fingers under her chin,
making her arch like a cat.
Just as suddenly, he steps away. "I'll do
anything I can to make sure Faith stays with you."
"The only way the judge is going to let me
keep her is if he thinks her life's
perfectly normal," she says evenly. "So the
best thing you could do, Ian, is leave." She
grants herself permission for one more glance at him,
one more touch of his hand. "The best thing for Faith,
and the worst thing for me." Then she reaches for the handle
of her shopping cart and continues down the aisle,
her heart tripping, yet her face as serene as
if she'd never seen him at all.

The telephone rings when Mariah is nearly
asleep. Groggy and dazed, she reaches for it
assuming that Ian is on the other end, and too
late realizes that even before dreams descend, he
has already claimed a part in them.
"I am so glad to hear that you're still answering the
phone."
"Father MacReady," Mariah says, sitting
up in the bed. "Isn't it a little late?"
He laughs. "For what, exactly?"
"Calling."
There is a beat of silence. "I've been led
to believe that it's never too late for a calling.
Sometimes they just catch you behind the knees and knock
you down like a linebacker."
She swings her legs over the edge of the bed,
pleats the edge of the top sheet. "You're twisting
my words again."
"For what it's worth, I prayed for you," Father
MacReady admits quietly. "I prayed that
you'd be able to take Faith and get away."
"Your hotline is apparently a little rusty."
"It may be, you know. Which is why I wanted
to talk to you. Your mother had the pleasure of turning
away a colleague of mine today who'd like to take
a look at Faith."
"My daughter isn't the Catholic Church's
lab specimen, Father," Mariah says
bitterly. "Tell your colleague to go back
home."
"That's not up to me. It's his job. When
Faith starts saying things that don't match up with
two thousand years of teachings, they have to come
evaluate it."
It makes Mariah think of that old adage--
if a tree falls in the woods and no one's there
to hear it, does it make a sound? If you do not
want religion, do you have the right to send it away?
"I know you're not going to want to hear this," Father
MacReady says, "but I'd consider it a
personal favor if you'd allow Faith to speak
with Father Rampini."
There are people at the edge of her property now who
have gathered in the name of Christianity. She did not
ask them to come; she would certainly like them to leave.
The judge would consider it a mark in her favor
if she managed to get them to leave.
The simplest way to do that is for them to hear,
straight from the mouth of their Church, that Faith is
not who they would like her to be.
But then again, it means exploiting Faith, and
Mariah is not sure she wants to do that even if
it leads to a greater good. "Faith and I don't
owe you any favors. We're not Catholic."
"Technically," Father MacReady says,
"neither was Jesus."
Mariah sinks back into her pillow, feels it
brush against the sides of her face. She thinks
about those trees falling in the woods, silent and
unobserved, until one day someone comes along and
notices with a start that the entire forest is gone.

October 29, 1999
Father Rampini knows many ways to make a
statue weep, none of which have anything to do with
Jesus. You can rub the marble face with calcium
chloride, which makes water condense from the air in
false tears. You can press small balls of
lard into the eyes, which melt when they warm to room
temperature. You can even use sleight of hand,
dabbing at the statue with a sponge to make moisture
when your audience is distracted. He's seen
fake magician's blood hidden up a
sleeve, stigmata spontaneously bursting with a
flick of the wrist. He's watched rosaries go from
silver to gold, scientifically explicable
metallurgic reactions.
His gut feeling? Little Faith White is
full of crap.
He believed, at first, that it would be
easy to discredit the child. A couple of discreet
inquiries, a tearful admission, and he'd be
back at the seminary before supper. But the more he
learns about Faith White, the more difficult it
is becoming to dismiss her out of hand.
Yesterday he interviewed many of the reporters
on the front lawn, trying to uncover a secret
book deal the mother might have made or word of a
TV exclusive. Historically, true
prophets didn't profit--either by money,
esteem, or comfort. Had he found even the
subtlest hint of self-aggrandizement, he'd have
been on the Mass Pike that afternoon.
All right, so she wasn't trying to become rich
and famous by acting like a visionary. But neither was there
proof apart from Faith White's alleged vision--
like the spring at Lourdes that cures ailments, or
the picture of the Virgin not made by human hands,
given to Blessed Juan Diego and still hanging four
hundred years later in the shrine in Mexico
City. He said as much to Father MacReady, who--
maddeningly enough--barely looked up from the sermon
he'd been writing in his office. "You're
forgetting," MacReady said. "She's a healer."
That morning Father MacReady accompanied him
to the medical center. While the parish priest
visited members of his congregation who were
recuperating on the patient floors, Father
Rampini spent hours reading the reports about
Millie Epstein, with no firm conclusions.
Medically, the woman had died. Certainly she was
alive and kicking now. And yet rumor had it that
Faith touched the woman to bring her back--a
laying-on of hands smelled a little fishy.
The only way to prove that Faith White was
an out-and-out liar would be to interview her
directly. And that is what he's slated for today.
Father Rampini has decided on a three-pronged
attack: First, he will narrow down the truth
regarding this female vision--Mary maybe, but
certainly not God. Second, he will prove that
the vision is inauthentic. Finally, he'll
examine the alleged stigmata and list the reasons
they aren't the genuine article.
Father MacReady asks him to remain silent
during his introduction to Mariah White, and out of
professional courtesy Father Rampini agrees.
"If you wait here," the woman says, "I'll
get Faith for you."
Father MacReady excuses himself
to use the bathroom--Lord knows, he eats enough
breakfast sausage to fell a horse, much less
upset his bowels--while Rampini idly glances
around. For a farmhouse, it is in remarkably good
shape, the exposed beams of the ceiling straight and
sanded, the floors buffed to high polish, the steely
milk paint and flocked wallpaper meticulous.
It looks like a residence featured in Country
Home, except for the glaring evidence that real people
abide here: a Barbie doll wedged between the
bananas of a decorative fruit bowl, a child's
mitten snugged like a skullcap over the knob of the
banister. He sees no Palm Sunday
crosses tucked behind mirrors, no Sabbath
candles on the dining-room table, no evidence of
religion whatsoever.
He hears footsteps on the stairs and draws
himself erect, ready to stare down this heretic.
Faith White skids to a stop three feet in
front of him and smiles. She is missing one of
her front teeth. "Hi," she says. "Are you
Father Rampenis?"
Mariah White's face goes scarlet.
"Faith!"
"Rampini," he corrects. "Father
Rampini."
The parish priest appears in the doorway,
laughing. "Maybe you should just call him Father."
"Okay." Faith reaches for Rampini's hand,
pulling him toward the stairs. Rampini is aware
of two things at once: the rasp of Band-Aids
against his own palm, and the extraordinary
magnetism he feels when their gazes connect.
It reminds him of being a child and seeing the first big
snow stretch over his family's Iowa farm--so
diamond-bright and pure that he could not tear his
eyes away. "C'mon," she says. "I thought
you wanted to play."
MacReady folds his arms across his chest.
"I'll stay down here. Have a cup of coffee with
your mom."
Rampini can see by the look on the woman's
face that she believed she'd be present for the
interview. Well, good. It will be easier to get
out the truth in her absence.
Faith leads him to her bedroom and sits down
in the middle of the floor with a Madeline doll and a
collection of interchangeable outfits. Pulling out
his notepad, Rampini jots down several
ideas. If he remembers
correctly, Madeline lived in a parochial
school. It is possible that this so-called
religious innocent knows more than people think.
"Do you want her skating clothes," Faith
asks, "or her party dress?"
It has been so long since he's played with a
child--since he's done more than examine hoaxes and
heretics and write lengthy dissertations on his
findings--that for a moment he is nonplussed.
Once this might have come easily to him. Now he
is an entirely different man. "What I'd
really like is to play with your other friend."
Faith's mouth pinches shut. "I don't
want to talk about her."
"Why not?"
"Because," she says, and jams Madeline's
leg into a set of tights.
Well, Rampini thinks, surprised. The
visionary who chatters away about what she's seen
is usually lying. Genuine seers, in fact, often
have to be coerced into discussing their visions. "I bet
she's very beautiful," he urges.
Faith peeks up from beneath her lashes. "You know
Her?"
"I work in a place where a lot of people study and
learn about God. That's why I wanted to talk
to you so badly, so that we can compare what we know.
Does your friend have a name?"
Faith snorts. "Duh. It's God."
"Your friend told you this. She said, "I am
God.""
"No." Faith slides a shoe onto the
doll's foot. "She said, "I'm your
God.""
He writes this down, too. "Does she come
whenever you need her to?"
"I guess."
"Could she come now?"
Faith glances over her shoulder. "She
doesn't want to."
Against his better judgment, Rampini looks
toward the same spot. Nothing. "Is she wearing
a blue dress?" He struggles for a term for
Mary's mantle that would be familiar to a
seven-year-old. "One with a hood?"
"Like a raincoat?"
"Exactly!"
"No. She wears the same thing over and over.
It's a brown skirt and top, but it's all together
in one piece, and it looks like the things people
from olden times wear on TV. Her hair is
brown and comes to here." Faith touches her
shoulders. "And she has those shoes that you can wear
on the beach and even into the water and everything without your
mom getting mad. The ones with Velcro."
Father Rampini frowns. "She has
Tevas?"
"Yeah, except hers don't have the Velcro
and they're the color of throw-up."
"I bet you wanted to see this friend of yours for a
while, before she first appeared to you."
But Faith doesn't answer. She rummages
in the closet, returning with the Lite-Brite
box. Father Rampini feels a pang of sentiment
--he remembers giving the toy to his own son,
long before he was ordained. Has it been around so
many years?
Faith is watching him curiously. "I'll
let you do the yellows."
Rampini shakes his thoughts back to center. "So
... you asked to see her?"
"Every night."
Father Rampini has seen enough alleged
visionaries to make comparisons. The religious
devotees who pray to see Jesus for years and
then have Him suddenly appear are always the ones
who've simply gone off their rockers. Even,
sad to say, in the case of that very sweet elderly
nun from Medford whom he was sent to evaluate the
previous winter. Compare that to the Fatima children,
who were simply tending sheep when Mary appeared,
unexpected. Or Saint Bernadette, who was
gathering wood near a garbage dump when Our
Lady materialized.
Heavenly visions come from heaven, but out of nowhere.
Yet, according to Faith, she'd been asking for one--
religiously, one might say.
"I wanted a friend really bad," Faith
continues. "So every night I wished on a star.
Then she came."
He hesitates before writing on his notepad.
Desiring a friend wasn't quite the same thing as
praying for a miraculous appearance, but there were
cases of child visionaries who'd played, so
to speak, in the fields of the Lord. Saint
Herman-Joseph romped with Mary and a boy
Jesus; Saint Juliana Falconieri had
visions where the Christ Child wove her a garland of
flowers.
His eyes fall on Faith's hands,
grasping the tiny pegs and stuffing them into the gridded
holes of the Lite-Brite. "I heard that you
hurt yourself."
She quickly hides her fists behind her back.
"I don't want to talk anymore."
"Why? Is it because I asked about your hands?"
"You'll make fun of me," she whispers.
"As a matter of fact," Father Rampini
says gently, "I've seen other people who have the
same kinds of cuts you do."
This catches Faith's attention. "Really?"
"If you let me take a look, I can tell
you if yours are the same or different."
She takes one hand and places it on the
floor between them, uncurling her fingers like the
petals of a rose. With her other hand she peels
back the Band-Aid. In the center of her palm
is a small hole. The flesh around it isn't
mangled on either side of the hand, and neither are there
protuberances such as Saint Francis of
Assisi had, as if nails were stretching the skin
from beneath its surface. "Do they hurt?" Rampini
asks.
"Not now."
"When your hands are bleeding," he asks
slowly, "do you sometimes think about Jesus?"
Faith frowns. "I don't know anyone named
Jesus."
"That's the name of God," the priest explains.
"No it's not."
A seven-year-old can be very literal. Is
Faith saying this because God specifically told
her He is not Jesus? Or simply because He
hasn't said His name at all? Or is it because this
vision, far from being heavenly, is satanic?
Rampini wants to ask her more about God's name
--like the story Rumpelstiltskin, guessing
until he gets it right. It is not Mary, not
Jesus. But is it Beelzebub? Yahweh?
Allah? Instead he hears himself say, "Can you
tell me what it feels like when God talks
to you?"
Faith looks down into her lap, not speaking.
Father Rampini stares at her and thinks of the time he
first saw his son. He remembers watching the
baby fingers spider over Anna's breast as she
rocked him. Although he has learned, in
ascetical theology training, that feelings are not
important, and that celebrating mass and
administering the sacraments are the moments
one is closest to God, he is not thinking about it
now. That fullness of heart, a divinity spilling
over, he's only felt twice in his
fifty-three years. Once watching his wife after
childbirth. And then again six years later, when the
Holy Spirit settled over him like one of those early
Midwestern snowstorms, numbing him to the pain of the
car accident that had taken his family, and leaving
forgiveness in its place.
It takes Father Rampini a moment to notice
that Faith has taken one of the Lite-Brite
pegs, a red one, and pushed it into the hole on her
right hand. The peg sticks at the halfway point.
The wound doesn't reopen, though, and as Faith
flexes the muscles of her hand, it eventually
falls out. Then she plugs in the
Lite-Brite, and Father Rampini is jolted
by the incandescent blaze of the flower. "When She
talks, I feel it here," Faith says, making
a fist and bringing it up to his heart.

Father Rampini has known for a long time that he
moves in a world skeptics consider to be
impossible, but, to him, Catholicism--
specifically, its theology--has been a haven
of logic. The world makes no sense--what other
reason could there be for the drunk driver who picked
his family's station wagon to plow into, instead of the
other three hundred cars he passed that night?
Religion, with its godhead, its order, and its
salvation, has literally been Rampini's saving
grace.
He runs the cold water in the bathroom sink
and splashes it on his face. As he dries himself
off and looks up into the mirror of the medicine
cabinet, he hesitates for a moment. What is
he going to say about Faith White? On the one
hand, she has the humility of the blessed, and she's not
gaining anything but a notoriety she does not
seem to want. On the other hand, she's spouting
heresy.
He begins mentally to chronicle the pros and
cons. Rampini has yet to see a verified
case, but Faith may indeed suffer from stigmata.
However, she's also seeing something that no one
else has ever seen. Technically, God isn't
a man. But that does not mean He is a woman.
He sits back down on the lid of the toilet
and stares blankly at the collection of naked
Barbie dolls in the bowl of the tub.
Faith White is, for all intents and
purposes, a perfectly ordinary secular
girl. She doesn't structure her life around
prayer; she probably couldn't tell a Hail
Mary from the Pledge of Allegiance. It is in
her favor that verified visionaries like the Fatima
children and Saint Bernadette weren't likely
candidates for visions either.
But at least they were Christian.
Rampini sighs. Father MacReady was
correct--there are many compelling things about Faith.
But, ultimately, her vision isn't one of them.
She's saying things that quite simply are completely
out of line.
Father Rampini opens the bathroom door and
starts back down the hall, his decision made.
Yet with each step he thinks of the saints of the
sixteenth century, who were scorned and vilified
for their radical beliefs. Saints whose
autopsies, years after the persecution, revealed
strange scars etched onto the walls of their
hearts that looked like the letters of Jesus' name.

Malcolm Metz looks at the beat-up
Honda that belongs to Lacey Rodriguez, one
of a battalion of excellent private
investigators his firm has used over the years.
He points to a tiny statue of Mary glued to the
dashboard with a piece of double-edged tape.
"Nice touch."
"Yeah, well." Lacey shrugs. "I
didn't know if someone might see the car."
"From the way it sounds, you'll probably have
to park a mile away. You'll be in touch with me
later?"
"This afternoon, when I get there. And twice a day
after that."
Metz leans against the rusted hood of the car.
"I don't need to tell you how imperative it
is for you to dig up dirt on the mother."
Lacey lights a cigarette and offers one
to Metz, but he shakes his head. "How hard could
this be?" she says, exhaling. "The woman was in
a freaking mental institution."
"Unfortunately, possession is nine tenths
of the law, and the child is still living with her mother. I
want to hear if she keeps the girl up too
late or feeds her something with Red Dye Number
Two or talks on the portable phone too
close to the tub when the kid's in it. I
want to know what the hell she's saying to those
priests and rabbis who keep coming to the house."
"You got it."
"Just don't do anything that won't be admissible
in court. No dressing up like the plumber's
assistant and going to check the pipes, only to come
out with evidence seized without a warrant."
"I only did it once," Lacey says,
chagrined. "Are you going to bring it up forever?"
"I might." Metz claps her shoulder. "Go
to work." He watches the Honda weave down the
street, and then walks toward the building that
houses the law office. His eyes flicker toward
his name, carved on the stone plaque outside. The
glass-and-chrome doors swing open on sensor,
as if they have been waiting for him all along.

Mariah takes refuge in the basement
workshop. With determination she picks up a thin
block of maple, intent on turning it into a
miniature kitchen table, but she is too
distracted to do it well. Frustrated, she sits
beside her half-finished dollhouse and rests her
head in her hand.
She can see the tiny bathroom fixtures and the
knotty-pine floors in the bedrooms and the kitchen
cabinet that is still ajar. She can see into the most
private parts of this house without even having
to try.
This is what it's like, she thinks, to be
God.
She considers this for a moment, thinking of all the
young girls who play so easily at being a
divine being--able to put their dollhouse families
through their paces. Mariah glances up at the
ceiling and wonders if God is doing the same
thing to her and Faith.
She remembers, suddenly, why as a child she
never had people in her dollhouses. The family dog
would butt up against the house and the miniature baby
would tumble down the stairs before Mariah had a chance
to grab him. Or the mother figurine would be
facedown on the bed, and Mariah would think that the
doll had been sobbing her heart out all night
while she herself slept. It made her feel
guilty--she couldn't play with all of the dolls
at once, couldn't take care of all their needs.
It was no great bargain to be godlike, to have the
power to help and soothe and comfort and know that she couldn't
save everyone all the time.
So she grew up to build houses without
dolls, places where furniture was bolted down
and glued into position, homes where nothing was left
to chance. And yet, Mariah realizes that she still
didn't make a clean escape.
Manipulation, responsibility, watchfulness.
It is not so different, really, from being a mother.

From the Manchester Diocese of the Catholic
Church
Manchester, NH, October 29, 1999--
His Excellency the Bishop of Manchester has
issued a notice in response to the queries
by priests, religious, and laity regarding the
activity of Faith White, resident of New
Canaan, NH, who claims to be allegedly
hearing and seeing heavenly revelations.
A serene and attentive examination of the matter
was undertaken by the diocese, and Faith White's
visionary claims have been ruled false. It is
our duty to underline one major doctrinal error:
erroneous language regarding Christ, who is not
and should not be referred to as a woman or mother of any
kind.
The MotherGod Society, which has been
primarily responsible for transmitting the
message of Faith White via pamphlet and
preaching, is spreading teachings which are not regarded as
Catholic dogma and which must be ignored.

That night, when the MotherGod Society first
hears of Bishop Andrews's official
denunciation of Faith White, they hand out
apples. They dispense more than three hundred
Jonagolds from a local orchard and invite people
to take a bite out of the myth of male religion.
"The Garden of Eden was just the beginning," they shout.
"Eve didn't cause the fall from grace."
The woman who has become their leader, Mary
Anne Knight, mills through the crowd shaking
hands. She knows this is not as radical and new a
movement as people might think. Twenty years ago,
she'd studied at Boston College with Mary
Daly, who went on to leave the Catholic church
after saying it was rooted in sexism. But Mary
Anne loved Catholicism too much to renounce
it. One day, she prayed, there will be room for
me in the Church.
Then she heard about Faith White.
She stands on an overturned apple
crate, her cohorts gathering around and waving
half-eaten cores. Pulling her fleece
jacket tighter, she covers a T-shirt
provocatively printed MY GODDESS
GAVE BIRTH TO YOUR GOD.
"Ladies," she cries out, "we have the pastoral
letter from Bishop Andrews here." She extracts a
Zippo lighter from her pocket. "And this is what
we have to say in response." With a flourish, she
sets fire to the corner of the missive and lets it
burn all the way to her fingertips.
As the crowd of enthusiastic women cheers,
Mary Anne smiles. Let the Manchester
diocese think that a gaggle of women are just
letting their petticoats hang out; let the stuffy
old bishop write warnings till he's blue in
the face--there are some things His Excellency
hasn't taken into consideration. The MotherGod
Society still has Faith White. And two
representatives en route to the Vatican,
planning to launch a formal protest.

Mariah is brushing her teeth and flipping through
the late-night channels on the television when
she sees Petra Saganoff's face, and the
backdrop of her own house. "Hollywood
Tonight! has uncovered a new development in the
case of Faith White. In an unexpected
move, the father of the child, Colin White, has
reappeared in New Canaan to seek full
custody of his daughter."
Millie, wearing cream on her face and a
flannel nightgown, comes rushing into the room.
"Are you watching this?"
The screen changes to shots of the courthouse,
where Colin and his attorney appear to speak
into several microphones at once, their shoulders
hunched against the bitter wind. "It's a
tragedy," Colin says to the cameras. "No little
girl should be raised like that--" His voice breaks,
seemingly unable to continue.
"Oh, for crying out loud," Millie says.
"Did he hire an attorney or an acting
coach?"
Petra Saganoff's face reappears.
"Malcolm Metz, the attorney for Mr.
White, alleges that being placed in Mariah
White's custody is physically and
psychologically endangering Faith. Of course,
the pending custody case is now a
matter of public record. We'll have more on this
story as it unfolds. This is Petra
Saganoff, for Hollywood Tonight!"
Millie walks to the television set
briskly and turns it off. "It's drivel.
No one with a brain is going to believe anything
Colin says."
But Mariah shakes her head and spits
toothpaste into the sink. "That's not true. They're
going to see him crying over his daughter, and that's
what they're going to remember."
"The only person who you should worry about is the
judge. And judges don't watch garbage
TV like that." Mariah, rinsing out her mouth,
pretends not to hear. She wonders if Joan
saw it, if Ian saw it, if Dr. Keller
saw it. Her mother is wrong. You can reach a lot
of people, without even trying--Faith is proof of that.
She keeps the water running, until she hears
Millie walk out of the room.

He knows when to call her, because he has
repositioned the Winnebago so that it faces
Mariah's bedroom. After the light goes out,
Ian closes his eyes, trying to imagine what
she is wearing to bed, whether her legs scissor
between the cool sheets. Then he picks up his
cell phone and dials, his gaze on the small
pair of windows. "Turn on the light," he
says.
"Ian?"
"Please." He hears her shift, and then there
is a golden glow to the room. He cannot see her,
but he pretends he can; he imagines her sitting
up and gripping the phone and thinking of him. "I've
been waiting on you."
Mariah settles into her bedding--he can tell
by the soft sigh of the fabrics. "How long?"
"Too long," Ian answers, and there is more
to the words than easy flirting. Watching her walk
away from him in the grocery store without being able
to follow took all his self-control. He
pictures her hair, spread over the pillow like
a spray of gold, the curve of her neck and
shoulder a puzzle piece made to fit flush
against him. Curling the phone closer, he
whispers, "So, Miz White. You gonna tell
me a bedtime story?"
He expects to hear a smile in her voice,
but instead it is thick with tears. "Oh,
Ian. I'm all out of happy endings."
"Don't say that. You have a long way to go between
here and that custody battle." He stands up,
willing her to come toward the window. "Don't cry,
sugar, when I can't be there."
"I'm sorry. I-- Oh, God, what you
must think of me! It's just this whole thing, Ian.
One nightmare after another."
He takes a deep breath. "I'm not going
to do a story on Faith, Mariah. I may even
pull out of here entirely, make it look like
I'm onto something else. At least until after
the hearing."
"It won't make a difference. There are
plenty of other people left around to turn Faith
into some kind of martyour. Did you see
Hollywood Tonight!?"
"No--why?"
"Colin was on, breaking down and saying that
Faith can't live like this."
"He's putting the media to work for him,
Mariah. His lawyer's just savvy enough to get his
client's face out in front of the public for
sympathy." He hesitates for a moment. "It's
not such a bad idea, actually. You ought to turn
right around to Hollywood Tonight! and invite them
to hear the other side of the story. Give ol'
Petra an exclusive."
Mariah goes absolutely silent. "I
can't do that, Ian."
"Why, of course you can. I'll coach you through
it, just like the lawyer did for your ex."
"It's not that." Her voice is small and
suddenly distant. "I can't have a reporter asking
me all kinds of questions, because there are things that have
happened to me that I don't want spread around.
Things I haven't even told you."
He learned long ago that sometimes the wisest
course is to keep quiet. Ian sits on the
edge of the Winnebago's couch and waits for
Mariah to tell him what he learned weeks before.
"I was suicidal seven years ago, and Colin
had me sent to an institution."
"I know." Ian thinks of The Boston
Globe, and feels his gut twist.
"You ... you do?"
"Well, of course," he says, aiming for a
light tone. "Before I was smitten by your considerable
charms, I was doing a story on you and your
daughter."
"But--but you didn't say anything."
"Not in public, no. And not in private, because
it didn't make any difference to me. Mariah,
you're the sanest person I know. And as for not
having anything to live for anymore, well, I'm
doing my damnedest to keep you from thinking that these
days."
He hears it then, the joy breaking over her.
"Thank you. Thank you so much for that."
"I aim to please."
"If memory serves, you hit the mark,"
Mariah says, and they both laugh.
Then there is a comfortable quiet between them,
punctuated by the distant calls of owls and barking
dogs. "You should do it, though," Ian adds after a
moment. "Have Petra Saganoff over. It's the
best way to show a great number of people that your little
girl is just a little girl. Tell Petra she can
shoot B-roll and do a voice-over as she
sees fit, but no interviews." He smiles
into the phone. "Fight back, Mariah."
"Maybe I will," she says.
"That's my girl." He sees a shape
appear at the window of the bedroom. "Is that you?"
"Yes. Where are you?"
He watches her turn, scan the darkness for a
face she cannot see. Ian flickers the lights in
the Winnebago. "Here. See?" Her hands come
up to press against the glass, and Ian remembers
them against the flat of his chest, cool and curious.
"I wish I was with you now."
"I know."
"You know what I'd do if I were with you now?"
"What?" Mariah asks breathlessly.
Ian grins. "Go to sleep."
"Oh. That wasn't what I had in mind."
"Maybe that, too, then. But I haven't had
a night's rest like I did with you in ... God,
well, years."
"I think ... I think I'd like to wake up with
you," Mariah says shyly.
"That would be a fine thing, too," Ian
agrees. "Now, get away from that window. I
don't want the whole crowd out here laying eyes
on you." He waits until he hears the covers
rustle, Mariah pulling up the sheets to cover
herself. "Good night."
"Ian?"
"Hmm?"
"About what you said before--you won't
leave now, will you?"
"I'll stay as long as you like," he says, and
then watches the small square of light in her
bedroom go black.

Mariah has no sooner put the phone on the
cradle than she realizes her mother is standing in the
slightly open doorway. She does not know how
much Millie has heard, how long Millie was
standing there.
"Who was calling so late?" her mother asks.
"No one. Wrong number." With the weight of
Millie's gaze thrown over her like another
quilt, Mariah turns onto her side, toward
the window, toward Ian.

For reasons Father MacReady does not understand,
Father Rampini has not hightailed it back
to Boston after sending along his recommendation that
afternoon to Bishop Andrews. He has spent several
hours in the guest room at the rectory, not
packing but instead tying up the telephone line with
faxes he sends from his laptop computer. So it
is a surprise when Father MacReady comes
downstairs for a glass of milk before bedtime and
finds the visiting priest sitting at the kitchen
table with a bottle of wine.
"Chianti?" Father Rampini says, a corner
of his mouth lifting. "Why, Joseph," he
jokes in an Irish brogue, "where are you
hidin' the good malt whiskey?"
Father MacReady grins. "I find it useful
to break across cultural barriers every now and then."
"Want some?" Rampini hands the other priest
a glass filled to the rim with wine, then lifts his
own and downs it in one swift motion.
Well, it's not milk, but it'll put him
to sleep all the same. Father MacReady tips
his own glass and finishes every drop.
Rampini laughs. "Wanna have a spitting
contest now?"
"No thanks. I already feel sick. But I
was taught it's not good manners to let someone drink
you under your own table."
The other priest smiles. "I'll be a good
guest. I promise to pass out neatly in my
chair."
MacReady drums his fingers on the tabletop.
"How long do you think you'll .be a guest?"
"If you need--"
"No, no," he says placatingly. "Stay
as long as you want."
Rampini snorts. "You're trying to think of a
nice way to ask why I'm still here."
"The thought did cross my mind."
"Mmm." The visiting priest scrubs his hands
over his face. "I've been asking myself that,
too. Do you know what I was doing all afternoon?"
"Ringing up a tremendous telephone bill?"
"Yes, but the diocese will pay for it.
Actually, I was reading the work of a psychiatrist
who talks about a young child's image of God.
There's a theory that the earliest roots for God
are tied to an infant looking up at his mother and
knowing that it's okay to close his eyes and imagine
her, because when he opens his eyes she'll still be
there."
Father MacReady nods slowly, unsure of
where this is going.
"Then a kid gets to be six, seven. He
hears about God on TV, sees pictures of
angels. He doesn't know what God is,
really, but he knows from context that God is big and
powerful and sees everything. There are two people the kid
knows who fit that bill--his mom and dad. So
he uses them as raw material. If he was
cuddled a lot, he may come up with a
representation of an affectionate God. If he
was raised strictly, God might be more stringent."
Father Rampini tips the Chianti bottle over
his glass again. "Conversely, the kid might
attribute to God the things she wishes she had in
a parent--unconditional love, protection,
whatever."
He rubs a small circle of condensation into the
tabletop. "So now we look at Faith White,
whose mother--by her own admission--hasn't always been
the most devoted of parents. What happens to a child
who's always wanted her mother's attention? And then
winds up, miracle of miracles, with only a
mother in her life? What is she most likely
to imagine God to be?"
"A loving mother," Father MacReady murmurs,
and then picks up the Chianti and drinks straight
from the bottle. He wipes his mouth with the back of
his hand. "I thought you already wrote your
recommendation to the bishop."
"I did." Rampini winces. "There's just
... something." He leans back in his chair, his
gaze roaming the worn walls of the
rectory kitchen. "If I could just make sense
of why she's seeing a woman. Why. That would tip
the scales, you know? I mean, that crap I just
told you--it's psychology. Not theology. I can
read it, but I can't believe it in my heart."
"Maybe it's not what she's seeing," Father
MacReady says slowly. "Maybe it's the
way she's interpreting it."
"How is that any different from what I just said?"
"It is. Did you ever see that drawing, the one
that if you look at it one way, turns into a
bottle, and if you see it a different way,
looks like two people kissing?"
Father Rampini takes the wine away. "I
think it's time for you to stop."
"I'm perfectly sober. You know ...
whatchamacallits ... optical illusions!
Well, it could just be Faith's frame of reference
that's wrong, not her vision." At Father
Rampini's blank look, MacReady
continues. "Say you're a little girl who knows
nothing about religion. Any religion. And you
live in the nineties, in a fairly conservative
town, where most people look the same. Then one day
someone appears out of thin air. The person is about
so tall, and has long brown hair, and is wearing
a dress and sandals like your mother. What do you
assume you're seeing?"
"A woman," Father Rampini murmurs. "But
it's Christ--maybe young, without the beard--in
traditional clothing."
"There's no reason to assume that a little girl
from New Canaan would know what men wore in
Galilee two thousand years ago." Father
MacReady is smiling so hard, he thinks his
face might split. He feels himself being
yanked to his feet as Father Rampini grabs him
in a bear hug.
"Do you know what this means? Do you?"
"That you're going to make another long distance
call on my phone," Father MacReady says,
laughing. "Go ahead. Call Bishop Andrews
on my dime."
He follows Rampini to the guest room, where
the other priest scrabbles around his cluttered desk
for the Manchester phone number. "Of course,"
Rampini mutters, "the Bishop's Conference will
say that Christ would make Himself known as the Lord
fairly quickly, dress notwithstanding ... but at
least it'll go to conference. Ah, here we
are. Hand me the phone?"
Father MacReady is not listening. He holds
the portable phone in one hand and Father Rampini's
Saint-A-Day desk calendar in the other.
He's ripped off the page, so that the display is
for tomorrow. Wordlessly, he hands it to the visiting
priest.

Saint Elizabeth of Schonau. Died
1146. Saint Elizabeth beheld a vision
of a young woman sitting in the sun and asked an
angel to tell her what it meant. The angel
said, "The young woman is the sacred human
nature of our Lord Jesus."

Father Rampini dials the phone. "I know,"
he says after a moment into the receiver. "Wake him
up."

ELEVEN
To whom then will ye liken God?
or what likeness will ye compare unto him?
--Isaiah 4018

When I was Faith's age, I learned that I
was going to hell.
Ursula Padrewski sat behind me that year in
school. She was tall for seven, with long braids
that her mother coiled on top of her head like a
sleeping rattlesnake. Her father was an
assistant rector at the Episcopal church.
One day on the playground she took each
girl's Barbie and plunged it headfirst into a
puddle of rainwater. She came up to me with her
hands on her hips and said Malibu Barbie had
to get baptized.
"What's baptized?" I asked.
She gasped, as if this were a word I should have
known. "You know. Where you get dunked underwater for
God."
"God didn't dunk me underwater," I
told her.
"They do it in church when you're a baby," she
said, but not before she took a step back.
"If you don't get baptized," Ursula
confided, "you get thrown into a pit of fire and go
to hell."
I was old enough to understand that my family didn't
go to church, which meant I probably had not been
baptized, after all. That left in my mind the
image of the ground opening up and flames reaching as
high as my throat.
I started screaming so loud that even after the
playground monitor had wrestled me to the
nurse's office, no one could calm me enough
to figure out what was wrong. My mother, summoned
with a phone call, arrived ten minutes later.
She skidded to a stop on the worn linoleum,
laying her hands on my body to check for broken
bones. "Mariah, what's the matter?"
She motioned the nurse away. "Mommy," I
asked, breath hitching, "did I get
baptized?"
"Jews don't get baptized."
I burst into tears again. "I'm going to hell!"
My mother wrapped her arms around me, and
muttered something about prayer in public schools and
Reverend Louis Padrewski. Then she tried
to tell me about the Jews being the Chosen People, that
I had absolutely nothing to worry about, and that
there was no pit of fire.
But I knew that my family was nothing like
Joshua Simkis's, who were also Jewish but worked
very hard at it. Joshua, in third grade,
couldn't have milk whenever the cafeteria served
hamburgers. And he wore a little crocheted
yarmulke to school, tucked into his hair with a
bobby pin. My family, well, we didn't go
to church--but we didn't go to temple either. I
hadn't been baptized, but I didn't think we
were going to be Chosen.
Eventually I was ready to go home. But as we
walked to the car, I was careful to leap over the
cracks of the sidewalk, thinking that at any moment
they would split to reveal Ursula's pit of
fire. And that night, when my parents had long
been asleep, I filled the bathtub with water and
dunked Malibu Barbie. Then I stuck my
head in and repeated a bedtime prayer I'd heard
Laura Ingalls say on the TV show Little
House on the Prairie. Just in case.

October 30, 1999
In the morning, Joan calls me. "Just
wanted to make sure you're still alive," she
says, and although she is joking, neither of us laughs.
"I thought I might stop by this afternoon, talk about a
defense strategy."
The very concept makes me think of what Ian
said the night before, about fighting back.
Self-defense, by definition, involves putting
oneself on the line. "Joan, did you happen to see
Hollywood Tonight!?"
"I'd rather do a bikini wax than sit through that
show."
Not for the first time, I wonder who is
responsible for their huge number of viewers.
"Colin was on. With Malcolm Metz. They
spoke outside the courthouse yesterday, and
Colin talked about how Faith's in danger and then
started to cry."
"Well, you don't have to worry about the media
distorting your case. Thank God, the only
person who will be hearing it is the judge, and--"
"I think I ought to let Hollywood Tonight!
come into my house and film Faith."
"You what?" It takes Joan a minute
to get over her surprise, and I can fairly
hear her stiffen. "As your legal counsel, I
highly recommend against that particular course of
action."
"I know it has nothing to do with the hearing, Joan.
But the judge needs to see Faith as a normal
little girl, playing with dolls and Legos and what
have you. And for that matter, so do the other people who think
she's some saint. I don't want to look like
I'm hiding anything."
"You should never mix the media with the courtroom,
Mariah."
"I shouldn't sit here and let Colin walk
away with my daughter either. I don't want him
planting ideas in people's heads about me and Faith,
when we're perfectly capable of speaking for
ourselves." Hesitating, I add, "I've been
at this point before, with Colin. And I'm not going
to let him do it to me again."
I can hear her tapping something--a finger? a
pencil?--against the edge of the phone. "No
interviews, with either you or Faith," she says at
last, starting to hammer out a list of conditions.
"Fifteen minutes of film footage, tops,
and only in rooms that have been contractually agreed
upon beforehand. And you don't sign a
goddamned thing until I see it."
"All right."
"You know this means I'm going to have to watch that
damn show."
"I'm sorry."
Joan sighs wearily. "Yeah," she says.
"So am I."

Lacey Rodriguez believes in starting at
the beginning. And as far as she can see, the furor
surrounding Faith White blossomed after the
incident with her grandmother's resurrection. She
takes a small notebook from her tote bag and
smiles at Dr. Peter Weaver, the
cardiologist in charge of Millie Epstein's
case.
For an attractive man, he's a pill.
He flattens his hands on the surface of his
desk and glares at Lacey. "I understand that
you're only doing your job, Ms. Rodriguez.
Which is why you must see that I can't divulge any
information about my patient."
She turns up the wattage on her smile.
"And I wouldn't ask you to. In fact, the
attorney with whom I'm working is more interested in
your knowledge of Faith and Mariah White."
Dr. Weaver blinks. "I don't know them at
all. Except, of course, for the rumors that
we've all heard about the child. But medically, I
can't substantiate any claims of healing. For
me the issue was not how Mrs. Epstein was
resuscitated, but simply that she was."
"I see," Lacey says, pretending
to record every single word on a page of her
notebook, when in fact the man's said nothing at
all of value.
"The only times I've even come in contact with
Mrs. White were at her mother's bedside and
subsequent checkups."
"Did she seem ... fragile to you at the
time? Emotional?"
"As much as anyone would have been, given the
circumstances. I'd have to say that, overall, my
impression of her was one of concern and
protectiveness for her mother." He shakes his
head, his thoughts spooling backward. "And her
daughter."
"Could you give me an example?"
"Well," Dr. Weaver says, "there was a
moment during Mrs. Epstein's stress
test, when the cameraman must have gotten the little
girl in his range and--"
"Pardon me--you filmed the stress test?"
"No, not me. Ian Fletcher. That
television guy. Mrs. Epstein and the hospital
had signed waivers to allow it. I'm sure it's
already been aired. But the point was, Mrs.
White clearly didn't want her daughter
filmed, and did everything in her power to stop it.
Went after the cameraman, even, screaming and pushing
at him. The very picture of a fierce maternal
instinct rearing its head." He smiles
apologetically. "So, you see, I don't
really have much to say that is going to help your
case."
Lacey smiles back at him. Don't be
so sure, she thinks.

November 2, 1999
Kenzie van der Hoven comes from a long line
of legal-minded men.
Her great-grandfather had started van der Hoven and
Weiss, one of the first law firms in Boston.
Her father, her mother, and her five older brothers were
all currently partners there. When she was born,
the last of the lot, her parents were so sure she was
another boy that they simply gave her the name
they'd already picked out.
She grew up as Kenneth, confusing the hell out
of schoolteachers and doing everything she could to shorten
her name to a diminutive, although her parents never
bowed to her wishes. Following in the deep treads
of everyone else in her family, she went
to Harvard Law and passed the bar and litigated
exactly five trials before deciding that she was
tired of being what other people wanted her to be. She
legally changed her name to Kenzie, and she turned
in her shingle to become a guardian ad litem, a
court-appointed child's advocate during custody
cases.
She's worked for Judge Rothbottam before, and
considers him a fair man--if a little partial
to Broadway musicals that have starred Shirley
Jones. So when he called her yesterday with the
White case, she accepted on the spot.
"I should warn you," the judge said. "This one's
going to be a doozy."
Now, as Kenzie walks wide-eyed around the
White property, she understands what he meant.
At the time she had not connected the name with the
religious revival occurring in New Canaan
--most of the papers she read referred to Faith
simply as "the child," in some semblance of
protecting a minor's privacy. But this--well,
this is indescribable. There are small knots of
people camped out under pup tents, heating lunch over
Sternos. Dotting the crowd are the ill in their
wheelchairs, some spiraled with MS, some
trailing intravenous lines, some with their eyes
wide and vacant. Black-habited nuns
patter across the fallen leaves like a flock of
penguins, praying or offering service to the sick.
And then there are the reporters, a breed apart with
squat vans and cameramen, their chic suits as
unlikely as blossoms against the frozen
November ground.
Where on earth is she supposed to start?
She begins shoving through the crush of bodies,
determined to get to the front door so that she can
see Mariah White. After five minutes of
tripping over sleeping bags and extension cords,
she finally quits. Somewhere around here there must be a
policeman; she saw the marked car at the edge
of the property. It would not be the first time she's had
her guardian-ad-litem status enforced by an
officer of the law, but crowd control has never before
been the reason.
Turning to a woman beside her, Kenzie laughs
breathlessly. "This is something, isn't it? You must
have been here a pretty long time to get such a
plum spot. Are you waiting for Faith?"
The woman's thin lips stretch back. "No
Eng-lish," she says. "Sprechen Sie
Deutsch?"
Great, Kenzie thinks, hundreds of people and
I pick the one who doesn't understand me. She
closes her eyes for a moment, remembering the
judge's schedule. The custody hearing will be in
five weeks. In that time, she has to interview
everyone who's had contact with Faith since
August and possibly earlier, she has to get
to the bottom of the grandmother's resurrection, and she
has to win Faith over and convince her that she is
an ally.
Basically, she needs a miracle.

As I am sticking Faith's shoes in the
closet, I realize someone is taking
photographs through the sidelight of the front
door. "Excuse me," I say,
yanking it open. "Do you mind?"
The man lifts his Leica and takes a
picture of me. "Thanks," he says, and
scurries away.
"God," I mutter to myself, standing in the open
doorway. My mother's car inches along the
driveway, finally parking halfway down when people
begin milling too close for her to continue
safely. She's gone home to pack a valise
and return, deciding to move in for a while. It's
easier than trying to shake off the reporters who
trail her on the short drive to her home. The
man with the Leica is right in her face, too, when
she leaves the car. Groupies chant Faith's
name. For some reason, today they are all much closer
to my house than they ought to be.
My mother stumbles up the porch steps with her
suitcase and turns around. "Go," she says,
waving her hands at the masses. "Shoo!" She
stalks past me, shuts and bolts the door.
"What is with these people? Haven't they got something
better to do?"
I peek out the sidelight. "How come they're
all the way up to the porch?"
"Accident in town. I passed it coming in. A
lumber truck jackknifed on the highway exit
ramp, so there's no policeman at the end of the
driveway."
"Great," I murmur. "I guess I ought
to be thankful they're not rushing the door."
My mother snorts. "It's early yet."
Prophetically, the doorbell rings. Standing
on the threshold, with more chutzpah than I've
imagined possible, is Petra Saganoff. She
has a cameraman behind her. Before I can shut the
door in her face, she manages to wedge a red
pump inside. "Mrs. White," she says, the
cameraman recording her words, "do you have any
response to your ex-husband's claims that Faith
is in danger living here with you?"
I think about Ian's idea to invite this bitch
into my home, about my own reluctant agreement,
and I almost choke. This is not the time to grant her
access--it must be on my terms, Joan's made
that clear. I turn to my mother, whom I can always
count on to put someone in their place, but she has
disappeared. "You're on private property."
"Mrs. White," Saganoff repeats, but before
she can finish, my mother returns, carrying the
antique Revolutionary War rifle that
hangs over the living-room fireplace.
"Mariah," she says, carelessly waving the
muzzle at Petra Saganoff, "who's here?"
I have the satisfaction of watching the cameraman
blanch and Saganoff step back. "Oh," my
mother says sourly. "It's her. What were you
telling Ms. Saganoff about private
property?"
I close the door and lock it again. "God,
Ma," I moan. "What on earth did you do that
for? She'll probably take her videotape
to the judge and tell him Faith's crazy mother
waved a gun in her face."
"Faith's crazy mother didn't do it, her
crazy grandmother did. And if she takes it to the
judge, I bet he'll ask why she's
violating a police-enforced restraining order."
She pats my shoulder. "I just wanted to give the
big-city girl a little scare."
I grimace. "It's a black-powder rifle
that hasn't worked in a couple hundred years."
"Yes, but she didn't know that."
The doorbell rings again. My mother looks at
me. "Don't answer it."
But whoever is there is insistent; the bell rings
over and over. "Mom!" Faith yells, running
into the foyer. "Someone's doing that thing to the
doorbell that you told me not to do--"
"Christ!" I tell my mother to call the
police station and demand an officer at the end of the
driveway. I tell Faith to play in her
room, where she cannot be seen. Then I throw open the
door with so much force it slams into the wall.
The woman is dressed in a conservative
suit and is carrying a pad and a microcassette
recorder. I have no idea what newspaper or
magazine she's from, but I've seen enough like her
to recognize the breed. "You people have absolutely
no respect. How would you like it if I showed up
at your house uninvited when you ... when you were in the
middle of taking a bath? Or celebrating your
child's birthday? Or-- God, why am I even
speaking to you?" I slam the door.
The bell rings again.
I count to ten. I take three deep breaths.
Then I open the door just a crack. "In
sixty seconds," I bluff, "a cop is
going to be here to haul you off to jail for
trespassing."
"I don't think so," she says
coolly, shifting her recorder and notepad so that
she can extend a hand. "I'm Kenzie van der
Hoven. The court-appointed guardian ad
litem."
I close my eyes, hoping that when I open
them this will not have happened, that Kenzie van der
Hoven will not still be standing just outside my front
door bristling with all the insults I've just
hurled at her. "I'd like to speak to you, Mrs.
White."
I smile weakly. "Why don't you call me
Mariah?" I suggest and, as graciously as I
can, let her into the house.

"Faith's in here," I say, directing the
guardian ad litem toward the living room, where
my daughter is watching TV, a reward for
having finished the math worksheets I made up for
her. My mother sits beside her on the couch, idly
smoothing Faith's hair. "Faith," I say
brightly, "this is Ms. van der Hoven. She's
going to spend some time with us." My mother's eyes
meet mine. "Ms. van der Hoven, this is my
mother, Millie Epstein."
"Nice to meet you. Please call me
Kenzie."
"And this," I add, "is Faith."
Kenzie van der Hoven rises leagues in
my estimation as she squats down beside Faith and
stares at the television. "I love Arthur.
D.w.'s my absolute favorite."
Faith cautiously edges her bandaged hands beneath
her thighs. "I like D.w., too."
"Did you ever see the one where she goes to the
beach?"
"Yeah," Faith says, suddenly animated.
"And she thinks there's a shark in the water!"
They both laugh, and then Kenzie stands again.
"It's nice to meet you, Faith. Maybe you and
I could talk a little bit later."
"Maybe," Faith says.
I lead Kenzie into the kitchen, where she
declines a cup of coffee. "Faith doesn't
usually watch TV. Two hours a day, that's
it. Disney Channel or PBS."
"Mariah, I want to make something perfectly
clear. I'm not the enemy. I'm just here to make
sure Faith winds up in the best possible
place."
"I know. And I'm not usually ... the
way I was when I opened the door. It's just that
there's supposed to be a policeman around to keep
everyone away, and--"
"You were being careful. I can certainly understand
that." She looks at me for a moment, holds up
her tape recorder. "Do you mind? I have
to write up a report, and it helps to replay
the conversations I have with people."
"Go right ahead." I slip into the seat across from
hers at the kitchen table.
"What do you think the judge should know?"
For a moment I'm silent, remembering years
ago when there was so much I had to say and no one
willing to hear me out. "Will he listen?"
Kenzie seems a little startled by this. "I'd like
to think so, Mariah. I've known Judge
Rothbottam for a while, and he's been very
fair."
I pick at a cuticle on my hand. "It's
just that I haven't been very lucky in the court
system before," I say carefully. "It's hard for
me to tell you this, because you're in the court system,
and it's probably going to sound like sour grapes.
But it feels the same: Colin's word against mine.
Colin's quick; he's better at thinking on his
feet. Seven years ago he managed to convince
everyone he knew what was best for me. Now he
says he knows what's best for Faith."
"But you think that you do?"
"No," I correct. "Faith does."
Kenzie makes a note on her pad. "So you
let Faith make her own decisions?"
Immediately I can tell that I've said the wrong
thing. "Well, no. She's seven. She's not
getting MandMore's for breakfast, no matter what
she says, and she can't wear a tutu to school when
it's snowing out. She isn't old enough to know everything,
but she's old enough to have a gut feeling." I look
down at my lap. "I'm worried that Colin is
so sure he knows Faith better than she knows
herself, he'll convince her he's right before anyone can
stop him."
"That's why I'm here," Kenzie says
crisply.
"Oh--I didn't mean to tell you how to do your
job ..."
"Relax, Mariah. Everything you say isn't
going to be used against you."
I lower my gaze and nod. But I don't quite
believe her either.
"What do you want to happen?"
After all these years, someone is finally asking.
And after all these years, the answer is still the
same. What I want is a second chance. But
this time, I want it with Faith.
Out of the blue comes the memory of something Rabbi
Weissman said the day I took Faith to see
him: You can be an agnostic Jew, a
nonpracticing Jew ... but you're still a Jew.
Just as you can be an unsure parent, a
self-absorbed parent ... but you are still a parent.
I stare at Kenzie van der Hoven. I could
make myself out to be the Mother of the Year. I could
tell her what I know she wants to hear. Or
I could tell her the truth.
"I tried to kill myself seven years ago, after
I found my husband in bed with another woman.
All I could think was that I wasn't a good enough
wife, I wasn't a beautiful enough woman, I
just ... wasn't. Colin had me committed
to Greenhaven by telling a judge it was the only
way to keep me from trying to kill myself again.
"But, see, he didn't know I was pregnant
when he had me sent away. He took away
four months of my life, and my home, and my
confidence, but I still had Faith." I take a
deep breath. "I'm not suicidal anymore.
I'm not Colin's wife. And I'm certainly not
the woman who was so under his spell that I let him
lock me up in an institution. What I am is
Faith's mother. It's what I've been for seven
years. But you can't be a mother, can you, if your child is
taken away?"
Kenzie has not written down a single word that
I've said, and I do not know if this is good or
bad. She closes her notebook, her face
revealing nothing. "Thank you, Mariah. I
wonder if now would be a good time to speak
to Faith."

As the guardian ad litem walks into the living
room, my mother comes to join me in the kitchen. I
try not to watch them through the doorway, even when
Kenzie sits down on the couch beside Faith and
says something that makes her laugh. "So?"
"S." I shrug. "What do I know?"
"Well, what you said to the woman, for
example. You must have formed some impression of what
she thinks of you."
I have, of course, but I am not going
to tell my mother. Even if I hadn't told the
guardian ad litem about Greenhaven, it would have
come out at the hearing. By then, though, maybe the
woman would have found something to admire about me,
something to balance the fact that I was sent to an
institution. The truth doesn't always set you
free; people prefer to believe prettier, neatly
wrapped lies. Kenzie van der Hoven might
feel pity for me, but that's not going to make her
let me keep Faith.
"I'm going to lose her, Ma," I say,
burying my face in my hands. I feel her touch
my back. And then I am in her arms, where I have
always fit, listening to that incredible heart of hers
beat beneath my cheek. Suddenly I can feel her
strength, as if resilience were something one can gift
to another. "Says who?" my mother murmurs, and
kisses the crown of my head.

Kenzie has only one firm rule as a
guardian ad litem: Do not expect anything.
That way, she cannot be disappointed. It is a rare
child who warms during the first meeting; she has had
numerous cases where days go by before her charge even
mutters hello. Until a child has seen and
poked at Kenzie's good intentions, he rarely
believes she is a friend.
Then again, a child who can believe God is paying
her a visit ought to be able to accept that Kenzie's
on the up-and-up.
Kenzie is practical enough to realize that chances
are rather slim Faith is the mystic others think she
is. Children Faith's age love dinosaurs and
whales because they're so big and powerful, when
seven-year-olds are not. Playing God has the
same psychological roots.
Faith sits beside her like a lamb that's been led
to the slaughter, her head bowed and her hands
carefully hidden in the shadow of her lap.
Clearly the child has been dragged out before to be
observed, questioned, or studied. "Faith, do you know
why I'm here?"
"Uh-huh. Don't you?"
Kenzie grins. "Actually, yes. Someone
explained it to me."
With resignation, Faith faces her. "I
guess you want to ask me some questions."
"You know ... I bet you've got some things
you'd rather ask me."
Faith's eyes widen. "For real?"
Kenzie nods. "Well, am I going to keep
living here?"
"Do you want to?"
"You said I could ask the questions."
"You're right, I'm sorry. I don't know the
answer, Faith. It's going to depend on a lot
of things, including what you want to happen."
"I don't want to hurt my mother," Faith
whispers, so softly that Kenzie has to lean
closer. "And I don't want to hurt my father."
She turns away. "I want ..."
Kenzie takes a deep breath, waiting. But
instead of speaking, Faith curls her hands
into fists and tucks them beneath her armpits. Kenzie
stares at her fine-boned wrists, wondering if the
girl's hands hurt, if she ought to call
Mariah, if she just ought to come back another time.
Kenzie knows nothing about stigmata--alleged
or real. But the one thing she understands inside out is
what it feels like to be a little girl who doesn't
fit in.
"You know," Kenzie says casually, "I
don't want to talk anymore."
Faith pops to her feet. "Does that mean I
can go?"
"I guess so. Unless you'd like to come
outside."
"Out ... side?" Faith's voice breaks with
delight.
"It's beautiful out. Just cold enough that your
throat tickles when you breathe in deep." She
cocks her head. "I'll tell your mom where
we're going. What do you say?"
Faith stares at Kenzie for several
seconds, evaluating whether this is a cruel
joke. Then she tears out of the room. "I gotta
get my sneakers. Wait for me!"
Grinning, Kenzie draws on her coat.
Faith's fear of hurting her parents could mean many
things, but Kenzie knows that at the very least it
suggests that the girl feels a heavy
responsibility--and why shouldn't she? Her
family has broken apart, her yard is beset with
people who think she's the Messiah. Being a child
advocate in this case means lightening the load,
allowing Faith the freedom to be a simple
seven-year-old.
As spontaneous hunches go, it isn't a
bad one. Kenzie will get the opportunity to see
Faith react to the press barrage that
is sure to follow them at a distance. She pokes
her head into the kitchen and tells Mariah her
intentions, then walks into the parlor before Mariah can
voice an objection. "You ready?" she asks as
Faith returns, then twists the lock and steps
onto the porch.
Faith hesitantly crosses the threshold.
With hands tucked into the pockets of her fleece
coat, she kicks tentatively at a pile of
leaves. Then she stretches out her arms and spins
in a circle, her face lifted to the sky.
It doesn't take long for the reporters
to creep to the edge of the stone wall, regulated
once again by the fortuitous arrival of the local
police. But even from a distance, long-range
lenses allow them to photograph Faith, and they
cup their hands around their mouths to call out to her.
Faith is halfway to the swing set beside the
farmhouse when she hears the first questions, lobbed like
softballs to smack her off guard: "Is the world
coming to an end?" "Does God want something from
us?" "How come God picked you?"
She stumbles over a woodchuck's hole, and
would have fallen if Kenzie weren't there to steady
her. Ducking her head, Faith murmurs, "Can
we go back in?"
"You don't have to answer them," Kenzie says
softly.
"But I still have to hear."
"Ignore them." She takes Faith's hand and
leads her to the swing set. "Play," Kenzie
urges. "I won't let them do anything to you."
The media begin to react en masse--
photographing and running video and shouting out
questions. "Close your eyes," Kenzie yells
over their voices. "Tip back your head."
To illustrate, Kenzie does it first on the
swing beside Faith's. She watches Faith watch
her, and finally sees the little girl tentatively
begin to move back and forth, a smile gracing her
face.
The press keeps yelling, and in the distance a
rich, vibrating alto begins to sing "Amazing
Grace," and still Faith swings. And then,
suddenly, her eyes are open as she goes back
and forth, back and forth. "Kenzie!" Faith
cries. "Watch what I can do!" In one
heart-stopping moment she lets go of the chain links
of the swing and jumps into the air.
Collectively, the questions stop. They
all hold their breath, including Kenzie. A
hundred cameras capture the girl with her arms
outstretched, her body an arrow, flying.
And then, in a thud and a giggle and a scrape of
knee, Faith falls, just like anyone else.

I watch them from the living room, peeking between the
horizontal slats of the blinds. I can feel it
growing inside me like a tumor, something I
haven't felt since I came home to find
someone else beside Colin, where I was supposed
to be.
I am so jealous of Kenzie van der Hoven
that I am having trouble breathing.
My mother comes up behind me. "Some people use a
duster to clean their blinds."
Immediately I fall back. "Do you see what
she's doing? Do you?"
"Yes, and it's driving you crazy." My mother
smiles. "You wish you were the one to think of it. So
why weren't you?"
She leaves before I can come up with an excuse.
Why haven't I taken Faith outside to play?
There's the obvious reason, of course--the glut
of reporters waiting like barracudas for the
smallest bit of bait--but then again, so what?
They have managed to televise stories about Faith
whether or not she appears to fuel the frenzy. They
broadcast when she was all the way in Kansas
City. How could footage of a little girl being,
well, a little girl be turned into something any more
insidious?
Minutes later, Faith is standing at the
sliding door. Her cheeks are pink with the cold,
her leggings are muddy at the knees. She
proudly shows me the new scrape on her elbow.
"I brought her back," Kenzie van der
Hoven says. "I've got to be going."
It takes all my strength to look her in the
eye. "Thank you. Faith needed this."
"No problem. The court--"
"You and I both know," I interrupt, "that what
you did today had nothing to do with a judge's order."
For a moment I see a light in Kenzie's
eyes, and I know that I have surprised her. Her
face softens. "You're welcome."
Faith tugs at my sweater. "Did you see
me? Did you see how high I went?"
"I did. I was impressed."
She turns to Kenzie. "Can't you
stay just a couple more minutes?"
"Ms. van der Hoven has other places she
needs to go." I tweak Faith's ponytail.
"On the other hand, I bet I could swing as high
as you did."
The look of surprise on Faith's face
is almost comical. "But--"
"Are you going to argue with me, or are you going
to accept the challenge?"
I barely have time to register the wide smile that
splits Kenzie van der Hoven's face before
I'm tugged across the yard, following in my
daughter's footsteps.

Ian stands outside his Winnebago, drawn
by the clamor that ensues when Faith comes out
to play. He watches her kick up her heels
on the swing set and stifles a grin--whoever this
woman is with her, she's doing Faith a good
turn.
"I'm surprised you're not at the front
line."
Ian turns at the sound of a voice. A
woman stands beside him. "And who might you be?" he
asks dryly.
"Lacey Rodriguez." She extends a
hand. "Just another worshipper from afar."
"You're with an outfit," Ian speculates.
"Which one?"
"What makes you think I'm with an outfit?"
"Call it a hunch, Miz--Rodriguez,
is it?--but most of the faithful fanatics, as you
pointed out, are too busy calling out hosannas
to be shooting the breeze back here. Now, don't
go telling me where you work ... it must be Hard
Copy. Or Hollywood Tonight!--they've
got some inspired underlings there."
"Why, Mr. Fletcher," Lacey drawls.
"You'll turn my head with all this flattery."
At that, Ian laughs. "I like you, Miz
Rodriguez. Definitely Hollywood
Tonight! You stick to your guns, and one day you'll
bump Saganoff off her throne."
"I'm not in the entertainment business," Lacey
says quietly. "I deal in information."
She watches his eyes narrow as he runs through
the options: FBI, CIA, Mafia. Then he
raises his brows. "Metz sent you. He should have
known I'm not inclined to share."
Lacey takes a step closer.
"I'm not asking you to be a bit player on some
TV newsmagazine. I'm talking about the
wheels of justice--"
"Thanks, Lois Lane. I'll pass.
If and when I feel like exposing Faith White
it'll happen on my own terms and my own
agenda."
"How much more credibility can your word carry than
when it's used in a court of law?"
"What you mean to say," Ian corrects,
"is that Metz can't dig up jackshit, and
wants my proof that she's a hoax."
"You have proof," Lacey breathes.
"Would I still be here if I didn't?"
After a long moment Ian reaches into his
pocket and extracts a card, then scrawls a
phone number on it. "Tell Metz that I just
might be willing to talk."

No sooner has Lacey Rodriguez left
than James Wilton approaches Ian.
"There's a reason we're not filming this," he
says slowly. "Right?"
His eyes, like everyone else's, are at the
front door, where Faith is standing with her mother and the
woman Ian doesn't recognize. Ian
feels himself begin to sweat. His producer, of
course, will expect him to continue his investigation of
Faith, no matter how he feels personally.
And, to be honest, he doesn't want
to sacrifice his show and his reputation. He turns
to James and smiles. "Of course there's a
reason. I'm waiting for ... this."
The strange woman gets into her car, and
Mariah and Faith start off down the porch steps.
"Tony! You ready yet?" Ian calls,
startling the cameraman, who he knows would never have the
nerve to mention to Ian that he hadn't been
summoned at all. Slinging the camera on his
shoulder, he follows Ian through the crowd, nodding
as Ian gives him directions for filming. Ian
checks back one more time, to make sure that
James is watching, and then to the audible
surprise of the crowd, hops the police
barricade and strides toward Mariah and Faith.
Behind him, he can sense the policeman on
guard pushing through the mass of bodies in an effort
to get to him. He hears other reporters
murmuring praise for his go-to-hell brand of
journalism, and some contemplating
following him. But what he keeps his eyes on
is Mariah, standing beside the swing set, watching him
approach.
Startled, her eyes dart from his face to the crowd
behind him. "What are you doing?"
Ian reaches out and grasps her arm. It will
look, he knows, as if he were trying to keep her
from running away. But right now, it only feels
wonderful to have her close enough to touch, close enough
to smell the soap on her skin. "They're all
watching," he says softly. "Act like you want
me to go away."
The policeman, a young boy really, comes to a
halt a few feet behind them. "Miz White,"
he pants, "you want I should arrest him for
trespassing?"
"No," she says, in a voice that wavers before
it gets stronger and carries. "I just asked Mr.
Fletcher to get off my property, since my
daughter and I do not wish to be disturbed."
The policeman grabs hold of Ian's other
arm. "You heard her."
Ian's eyes burn into hers. "This isn't
over," he says, words for the camera that speak
differently to Mariah. "Not by a long shot." His
thumb, hidden, strokes the soft underside of her
upper arm, leaving Mariah trembling with what will
later be described by reporters on numerous
broadcasts as righteous indignation.

The telephone wakes me up from a deep
sleep, and I breathe Ian's name.
"Well, of course it's me," he says,
irritated. "How many other men call you in the
middle of the night?"
I wrap my arms around myself. "Hundreds,"
I say, smiling. "Thousands."
"Really? I'll have to make you forget the
competition."
"What competition?" I whisper, and I am
only half joking. When Ian surrounds me I
do not think about anything else--not of the press just
outside the house, not of Colin and the custody
battle, not even of Faith. When I loved
Colin, it was because he anchored me. But Ian--
well, he does for me what Kenzie van der
Hoven did for Faith. He takes me away.
My blood begins to move more quickly, making me
restless. "I'm too old to be feeling like this."
"How do you feel?"
I close my eyes. "Like I'm going to jump
out of my skin."
For a moment all I can hear is his breathing on
the line. When he speaks, his voice is higher,
tense. "Mariah, about this afternoon."
"Yes. What was that?"
"My producer. He expects something to be
happening, some sense that I'm still with the story."
"Are you?" I ask, suddenly cold.
"I'm with you," Ian answers. "I also knew
that if I jumped the police line, I'd get
to touch you."
I turn onto my side, hoping to see the
lights on in the Winnebago, and then cry out
softly as I start to tumble off the edge of the bed and
drop the telephone. "Sorry," I explain a
moment later. "I lost you."
"Never," Ian says, and with all my defenses
down, I believe it.

TWELVE
I have long time holden my peace; I have been still,
and refrained myself: now will I cry like a
travailing woman;
I will destroy and devour at once.
--Isaiah 4214

November 8, 1999
Jessica White adjusts a pale-green
glass vase an inch to the right, making lavender
tulips sway. Beside her, Colin White
relaxes against throw pillows in increasing
degrees of purple. I have fallen into a
catalog, Kenzie thinks, and I can't get out.
"Ms. van der Hoven," Jessica says,
"can I get you more seltzer?"
"No, thanks. And it's Kenzie." She
smiles at the couple. "I hear that you're going
to have a baby." Is it her imagination, or does
Colin lean the slightest bit away from his wife?
Jessica's hand steals over her abdomen.
"In May."
"We're hoping his big sister is here for the
event," Colin adds.
She knows exactly what he's trying
to get across. "Yes. Well. Maybe you can
tell me, Mr. White, why you've suddenly
developed an interest in your daughter's
custody."
"I've always wanted custody of Faith," he
says quietly. "I was just trying to get myself
back on my feet first. I didn't think that
ripping Faith away from her home was smart, right
after the shake-up of the divorce."
"So you had her best interests in mind?"
Colin offers a remarkable smile, and thoughts
scatter through her head--this was a man who could sell
sand in the desert, who could charm the shoes off a
horse. "Exactly!" He leans forward,
relinquishing his wife's hand to clasp both of his
together. "Look. This is a messy situation, and
I'm not going to look like a saint. I didn't
expect Mariah to come home that day with Faith, and
I know that's not an excuse, but clearly you can
see it wasn't just some ... some passing fling. I
love Jessica; I married her. Whatever
problems I was having in my relationship with
Mariah, they had nothing to do with Faith. I'm her
father, I'll always be her father, and I want to give
her the kind of home she deserves."
Kenzie taps her pencil. "What's wrong
with the kind of home she's in now?"
He seems startled for a moment. "Well,
you've been there! Is it normal for a little girl
to have an entire press corps follow her when she
opens the door? Is it normal for her
to believe, for Christ's sake, that she's having
conversations with God?"
"It's my understanding that your ex-wife made an
attempt to remove Faith from media scrutiny."
"Is that what she told you?" Colin's jaw
sets. "She made an attempt to buck the
legal system. The day after I told her I was
going to sue for custody, she disappeared."
Kenzie sits up at this. "She knew she was
going to be subpoenaed?"
"I said, "You'll hear from my lawyer." And
--bam--she went into hiding."
Kenzie makes a note on her pad. As a
woman nearly weaned on the value of the law, the
very thought of stepping outside the system immediately
raises her suspicions. "Mariah did come
back, though," she says.
"Because her attorney put the fear of God
into her. Can't you see now why I want
Faith out of her reach? If things start to look
bad for Mariah during the hearing, she's going
to pack up and run away with Faith again. Mariah
doesn't stick around for a fight; it's not in her
nature. In fact, she's been in therapy for that
for years."
"Are you an advocate of psychotherapy?"
"Sure," he says. "When it's warranted."
"And yet your ex-wife says it wasn't an
option you considered after her suicide attempt."
Colin's mouth tightens. "Forgive me, Ms.
van der Hoven, but you don't seem very
objective."
Kenzie meets his gaze. "It's my job
to turn over stones."
Jessica interrupts by standing suddenly and
clearing her throat. "Wouldn't now be a lovely
time for cake?"
They both watch Jessica go into the kitchen.
As soon as she is out of earshot, Colin begins
to speak, clearly agitated. "Don't you think it
upset me to send Mariah to Greenhaven? God,
she was my wife. I loved her. But she was
... she was ... Well, almost overnight she
became someone I didn't recognize. I
didn't know how to talk to her or take care of
her. So I did what I thought I had to do,
to help her. And now it's like history's repeating
itself. My little girl isn't acting like my little
girl anymore. And I can't stand to see this
happening again."
Kenzie learned a long time ago that sometimes the
wisest course of action is to say nothing at
all. She sits back and waits for Colin
White to continue.
"Right after Faith was born, I used to walk
around the house at night with her when she fussed.
She was this tiny little thing, with all the right pieces,
and sometimes she'd just stop crying and look at me like
she already knew me." Colin looks down into his
lap. "I love her. Whatever happens, whatever
the court does, you can't take that away."
Kenzie has stopped taking notes. "Have you never
in your life made a mistake, Ms. van der
Hoven?" he asks softly.
She glances away and notices a large box
hidden behind the dining room table. From its label,
she sees it is a plastic easel. Clearly not
a toy for the baby on its way--and yet, clearly
new. Colin follows her gaze and
reddens. "I'm an optimistic man," he
says, and smiles shyly.
Kenzie realizes that--out of sympathy for
Mariah White--she has been expecting a
monster. But this man has his reasons for setting a
battle in motion. And they are not vengeful, or
vindictive--he's simply seen something that
scares him, and he wants to fix it.
Then again, Colin White may be a consummate
actor.

November 9, 1999
Father Rampini stands in a nicely appointed
office at the Diocesan Chancery with his hands
clasped behind his back, staring at a bookshelf and
idly wondering why His Excellency the Bishop
of Manchester would have sixteen copies of the
biography of Saint Theresa, the Little Flower.
As the door opens, he whirls around,
surreptitiously wiping the sweat from his palms
before nodding at Bishop Andrews. "Father," the
bishop grunts, settling down in a burgundy
leather wing chair.
"Your Excellency."
"Please." Andrews gestures, and Rampini
edges into a smaller chair and fixes his eyes on
the swaying chain of the pectoral cross tucked
into the bishop's pocket.
Rampini has examined alleged visions before
to make sure there was nothing in them contrary to faith.
In every case to date, even the promising ones,
he's recommended a wait-and-see policy.
He has been careful not to make a hasty
judgment, lest he come off looking foolish.
And that, in a nutshell, is why his hands keep
shaking. He's going out on a limb here. Because he
really believes that Faith White may just be
envisioning God.
Bishop Andrews takes off his glasses and
polishes them before slipping them back on. "According
to the rector at St. John's, you're the most
esteemed theologian in the Northeast."
"If you say so, Your Excellency."
"On behalf of the diocese, I'd like to thank
you for coming."
"Perfectly all right," Rampini says.
The bishop nods graciously. "I only have
a couple of questions, Father."
"With all due respect, Your Excellency,
I've already submitted my report."
"Yes, in fact ... two of them. The
original recommendation and--what did you call
it?--ah, the revised update. You know, I can't
quite figure out why a theologian--the most esteemed
theologian in the Northeast, that is--would file
two completely contradictory reports within a
few hours' time, regarding the substantive
miracles of Faith White." At Rampini's
affronted silence, Andrews gets impatient.
He reaches into his pocket and fingers his rosary
--it makes a handy set of worry beads.
"I'm certain a man of your credentials has
been called in for consultation on a wide number
of religious sightings."
"Often."
"Yet you've never before given your personal
endorsement."
Father Rampini tightens his mouth. "That's
true. And yes, the revised report indicates
that this time I am."
The bishop decides to play dumb. He
scratches his head. "I'm a little confused, Father.
Now, I don't presume to be half the
theologian you are, naturally, but it seems to me
that a Jewish child seeing a female God goes
against traditional Catholic dogma."
Father Rampini crosses his arms. "Are you
asking me to justify my findings?"
"No, no. But for my own ... edification ...
I'd love to know your thought process."
Rampini clears his throat. "There are a
variety of supporting criteria. The fact that
Faith White isn't Catholic is
unorthodox, Your Excellency, but not
inauthentic. One would be more leery of the elderly
ladies who pray for sixteen hours a day and then
confess Jesus appeared to them at the kitchen
table. Faith wasn't asking for this vision, but it
came. She's also very closemouthed about her
conversations with God, and she tries to hide
episodes of stigmata."
"Stigmata," the bishop says. "Did you
see them?"
"I did. I'm not personally familiar with
Holy Marks, of course, but the general consensus
of the medical community is that they aren't
self-inflicted."
"She could be a hysteric."
"Entirely possible," Rampini agrees.
"Except that in addition to the wounds,
there's proof apart from the person of the seer. In this
case, healing."
"You're the expert, of course, but I have
to admit--it would bother me a bit to know she's
running around saying God's a woman."
"Actually, she's not. The MotherGod
Society is spreading the propaganda. Faith
isn't saying much of anything at all. In addition
to the fact that--as I said in my second report
--she isn't seeing God as a woman. She's
seeing Our Lord Jesus Christ, in His
traditional form and clothing, yet interpreting Him
as a female figure."
Bishop Andrews raises a brow. "That's a
stretch, son."
"Surely you're not telling me, Your
Excellency, how to do my job." Father Rampini
speaks softly. "You meet her. And then come
talk to me."
They stare at each other silently. "You feel
this strongly," the bishop finally says.
"I do."
"You think I should take this to the U.s.
Bishops' Conference."
"I wouldn't presume to tell you what to do."
Bishop Andrews taps his forefingers together. "You
know, this isn't The X-Files, Father. No
matter what the public wants, some fantastic
display isn't the way to get the flock back to the
Church. Even if I were to go along with your
recommendation, I'd be wary of the haste with which you
made it. The last thing I want is to be
exposed as some loony on a supernatural
scavenger hunt--can you imagine what that would do to the
diocese? To Catholicism in general? There's
a reason these evaluations take years, Father.
It's so that in the event Faith White is a
charlatan, you and I will be dead and buried and
blissfully unaware of the backlash." Bishop
Andrews tilts his head. "Has this child ever even
been in a Catholic church?"
"Not that I know of, Excellency."
"Has she been raised according to the Jewish
faith?"
"No. Since her mother isn't a practicing
Jew, she felt taking the child to temple would be
hypocritical. I confirmed with a rabbi, however,
that if the mother is Jewish, so is the child.
Regardless."
"And that," the bishop says, "is the
stumbling block. We have no jurisdiction over
a child who isn't Catholic."
A muscle tics in Rampini's jaw. "Then
why did you ask me to come?"
He watches the bishop walk to his desk, and
suddenly realizes that Andrews is going to hedge his
bets. He won't use Rampini's endorsement
of Faith White--unless the tide turns and he
needs it. He'll keep both contradictory
reports, so that he's ready for either contingency; and
Father Rampini won't be able to say a thing about it
without making himself look indecisive. Heat
floods the priest's face, moving up from his
white collar. "You will disregard the first report,"
Rampini orders. "I'm officially submitting
the second one, and only the second one, for your
consideration."
Without taking his eyes off the younger man's
face, Bishop Andrews slides the paper he's
holding into a desk drawer. "Which one was that?" he
says.

November 10, 1999
When Ian enters Malcolm Metz's
office, the attorney doesn't get up from his
seat. "Well," he says instead, leaning back
in his chair. "This certainly is a pleasure.
I'm a big fan."
Ian stares at him squarely. "My fee's
ninety thousand. It's what advertisers pay for a
commercial during my shows. I'm envisioning your
trial in much the same way--an interruption
bracketing the things I'm planning to say
anyway."
To his credit, Metz doesn't even blink.
"I don't foresee that being a problem," he
says. In truth, he has no idea whether or
not his client can come up with the money, but he's not about
to squash negotiations before they even really begin.
"As long as you remember that this isn't a
television show. A little girl's life is at
stake."
"Save your bullshit for the court," Ian
says. "I know what you want."
"Which is?"
"Proof that Faith White is a charlatan.
And hints that her mother is the puppeteer."
Metz smiles. "And you, of course,
have all this information."
"Would you have asked for me if I didn't?"
Metz considers this for a moment. "I don't
know. Just on your Q-rating alone, you could
probably convince a judge that the sun isn't
going to rise tomorrow."
At that, Ian laughs. "Maybe you are a
fan after all."
"Why don't you tell me what you've got?"
"Some decent hidden-camera footage of
Mariah White coaching the kid before she bows and
scrapes for the crowd. A testimonial from a
woman who went on national TV saying that her
baby had been cured of AIDS by Faith,
admitting that Mariah White paid her three thousand
dollars to make up the story. Couple of
experts who've signed off on a written
scientific explanation for Millie Epstein's
corpse coming back to life--has to do with
electrical currents and bodily tissue, or
some such like that."
"What about the hands?"
"The alleged stigmata? It's an optical
illusion."
"An optical illusion?"
"Come on now, certainly you've seen
fire-eaters at the circus, or magicians
passing objects through their fists."
"How could they fool a bunch of doctors?"
"Well, I'm still working on that. My theory is
that they didn't. That when it came to medical
personnel taking a look-see, Faith truly
poked herself with something or other."
Metz looks skeptical. "Why? What's
the point?"
Ian leans back in the chair. "I'm
surprised you'd even have to ask, Mr. Metz.
For the attention, of course."
Metz narrows his eyes. "If you don't mind
my asking, how come none of this has made it to your
show as of late?"
"Because there's something even bigger I'll be using
to blow this case open, and before you even ask, it's not
negotiable." Ian steeples his fingers. "Way
I see it, your courtroom can do just as good a job
as any of my teaser broadcasts, leading up to the
grand finale. For the fee I mentioned, you are
welcome to the information and signed testimonies I
just described, as well as my considerable
reputation in the field and my stage
presence. But that's all you're damn well
gonna get."
Slowly, Metz nods. "I see."
"The other thing you have to understand is that I'm a
busy man. I'll be happy to go over
testimony regarding any of that information I just
gave you ... but we're gonna do it here, and
we're gonna do it now."
"Absolutely not. I'm not ready. I have
to--"
"You have to do half as much as you would with any other
witness. I already know how to act. All you've
gotta do is set down the facts you want in the
order you want them."
For a moment there is silence, two men who are
larger than life considerably cramped in such
close quarters. "Another rehearsal the day before
your testimony," Metz bargains.
Ian grins. "Sir," he says, "you have yourself
a deal."

Mariah opens the door a crack to find
Kenzie van der Hoven on the threshold. "Can
Faith come out and play?"
Against her better judgment, Mariah laughs.
"It's a little cold out. Maybe you two could stay
in." This prearranged visit with the GAL comes as
a relief. Mariah has been snapping at
Faith all day for getting underfoot, something
completely understandable while they are cooped up in
the house.
Faith races into the room on rollerblades.
Mariah watches the wheels leave black
tracks on the tile and bites her tongue
to keep from yelling at her daughter for the twentieth
time that day, especially in front of the guardian
ad litem. Catching Faith's eye instead,
Mariah raises a brow and then glances down at
the skates, clearly annoyed.
"Oops," Faith says, plopping onto her
bottom and ripping open the Velcro fastenings of the
skates. "Kenzie, did you come to see me?"
"Yup. Is that okay?"
"It's awesome."
Mariah smiles. "I'll be making dinner if
you need me."
Kenzie watches her walk into the kitchen, and
then feels five tiny fingers reach around her hand.
"Come see my room," Faith says. "It's
really cool."
"Oh?" Kenzie allows herself to be led
upstairs. "What color is it?"
"Yellow." Faith pushes open a door
to reveal sunny walls and a white canopy bed.
She leaps onto it and starts jumping, her hair
flying in an arc behind her. Then she bounces onto
her bottom and off the bed, playing hostess.
"These are my Legos. And my art set that
Santa brought last year, and this picture was
taken of me when I was only two hours old."
Kenzie dutifully peers at a photo of a
tiny, tomato-faced infant. "Do you spend a
lot of time in your room?"
"It depends. Mom won't let me have a
TV up here, so I can't watch videos or
anything. Sometimes I feel like drawing at the
kitchen table, so I take my art set down there.
And sometimes I just color on the floor." She
raises her arms over her head. "I used
to take ballet."
Kenzie watches her twirl in a slow
circle, her arms lifted in a pirouette. "Not
anymore? How come?"
"Things happened." Faith picks at a loop
of the throw rug and shrugs. "Mom got sick."
"And then what?"
"Then God came."
Kenzie feels herself freeze. "I see. Was
that a good thing?"
Faith flops backward and stretches out her
arms, curling the edges of the rug around her.
"Look, I'm a cocoon."
"Tell me about God," Kenzie prompts.
Faith rolls toward her. Wrapped in the
blanket like the chrysalis she's mentioned, her
face is the only visible part of her body.
"She makes me feel good, all warm, like when
I get to sit in the pile of clothes that just came
out of the dryer. But I don't like it when she hurts
me."
Kenzie leans forward. "She hurts you?"
"She says she has to, and I know she
doesn't want to, because she tells me after that
she's sorry."
Kenzie stares at the little girl, at her hands
with their definitive marks. As a guardian ad
litem she has seen many things, most of them not very
pleasant. "Does God come to talk to you when
it's dark in your room?" she asks, and Faith
nods. "Can you touch her? Or see her
face?"
"Sometimes. And sometimes I just know it's her."
"Because she's hurting you?"
"No ... because she smells like oranges."
At that, Kenzie gives a startled laugh.
"Really?"
"Uh-huh." Faith picks up a figurine
in her dollhouse. "Want to play?"
Kenzie looks at the replica of the
farmhouse. "This is beautiful," she says,
running her forefinger over the delicate curve of the
oak banister. "Did Santa bring this, too?"
"No, my mom made it. It's what she
does for work."
Kenzie knows from years of experience that the most
likely explanation for Faith's wounds is either
self-infliction or infliction by someone close
to her. Someone who's convinced her that she's making
Faith suffer out of love for her. Kenzie stares
at the dollhouse, precise and perfect, thinking
hard. Even after all the times she's seen it
happen, is it difficult to believe that parents
who seem otherwise normal might be monstrous
to a child. "Honey," Kenzie says, "is your
mommy doing this to you?"
"Doing what?"
Kenzie sighs. It is almost always impossible
to get an abused child to admit who's abusing her.
In the first place, she lives with the fear of
retribution promised for breaking her silence. In
the second place, there's a twisted
gratification system in place--the child finds, on
some sad level, that the episodes are measures
of attention.
Then again, sometimes kids don't point a finger
because there's nothing to point to. A select few
really do walk into doors and get black eyes,
or tumble off a table and get concussions ... or
maybe even spontaneously bleed. Mariah
certainly doesn't harm her daughter in full
view; Faith doesn't exhibit aversive
behavior around her mother. Maybe press
exposure isn't the best thing in the world for a little
girl, maybe Faith could stand to socialize more--
but these things alone do not constitute abuse.
The door opens suddenly. Mariah stands there
holding a pile of sheets, surprised to see
Faith and Kenzie. "I'm sorry," she says
awkwardly. "I thought you were in the playroom."
"No problem. I was just admiring your
dollhouse. I've never seen anything like it."
Mariah nods, blushes. Setting the sheets
on the dresser, she heads for the door. "I'll
give you two some privacy."
"Really, it's fine if--"
"No," Mariah interrupts. "It's all
right." And she leaves, trailing the faint scent of
citrus perfume.

Kenzie's last case involved a
nine-year-old girl who lived with her grandparents
because her mother had abandoned her. They were a couple that
went to church every Sunday and made sure she had
nice clothes for school and a hot breakfast each
morning. And roughly once a week the little girl
would wake up in the middle of the night to find her
grandfather raping her. He told her if she said a
word to anyone, she'd be out on the street.
This is running through her mind as she pulls
onto the highway, heading away from the Whites'
house. Although there is no proof that this new case
of hers is anything like the last one, there are
resonances that Kenzie cannot put from her mind.
There is something being hidden here. It's written
all over Mariah White; it's why she makes
it a point not to be in the same room as Kenzie
for longer than five minutes. Sighing, Kenzie
pulls down the visor to block the sinking sun.
Maybe it's embarrassment over the
institutionalization. Maybe it's only what
Colin White told her--that Mariah intentionally
went into hiding to avoid prosecution. But then, why
would she have come back? And could there be more to it than
that?
In her two sessions with Faith, Kenzie has
the sense that the child would prefer to stay with her mother. But
she doesn't know if that's because she dislikes
Jessica White or because Mariah has
blackmailed her into staying.
On the other hand, maybe Mariah White
left New Canaan ignorant of Colin's
plans to change custody. Maybe she was fleeing
in the best interests of her child. There has been no
hint from any medical personnel she's
interviewed that Mariah White is a possible
catalyst for any of Faith's physical or
psychological problems. Maybe Faith is just
a little girl with a particularly overactive
imagination.
A car cuts Kenzie off, sending her
swerving into the breakdown lane. Pumping her
brakes, she rolls to a stop, and passes her
hand over her eyes. Focus, focus. So many
close calls.
She gently eases back into traffic,
wondering if the worst thing Mariah's done is
to simply, blindly, believe that her daughter is
telling the truth.

November 14, 1999
It was James's idea, initially, to run a
Sunday-morning show--just on the principle that
airing an atheist's views on the most common day
of Christian worship was sure to create
controversy. And although Ian has at least seven
scripts ready to go, none seem appropriate
anymore. He's talking impromptu, off the
cuff. There is only so much he can say before it will
be used against Faith, and Mariah. And then again,
there is only so much he can say that is neutral,
before raising the suspicions of his executive
producer.
The lights are hot on his face now, and the
wide mouth of camera one pivots in front of
him as he tosses--deliberately--a Bible
onto the grass behind him. Unlike most of his
studio tapings, this one--on location--has an
audience. It's a small one, since the lion's
share of the people congregated around Mariah's home are
zealous believers, rather than atheists. But that's
exactly why he's chosen a biblical text as
the subject of his diatribe.
""Take now thy son, thine only son
Isaac, whom thou lovest, and ... offer him there
for a burnt offering."" Ian glances around at those
listening. "Yeah, you heard it right. Abraham is
supposed to kill his child, just to prove that when God
says "Jump!" he asks "How high?"'
And what happens? Abraham does it. He
puts a knife to Isaac's throat, and at the
last minute God shows up and basically says
he was just foolin'." Ian snorts. "This is the
sort of God you worship? A Supreme Being
who looks at his subjects like pawns? You ask
any of those fine men of the cloth just over yonder and
they're gonna tell you this here is a story about
faith, about putting yourself in the hands of the Lord and
letting him make it work out for the best. But this
isn't a story about faith. This isn't even a
story about Abraham. This here's a
story about Isaac.
"What I want to know, what the Bible
doesn't bother to tell me, is what Isaac
thought when his father set him down on that altar in the
middle of nowhere. What he felt when his father
touched a blade to his neck. Whether he cried,
whether he wet his pants. The person who got
lost in this story is a child. Now, as a good
Christian, you're supposed to respect
Abraham for doing what he was told. But I'll
tell you something. As a human being, I do not
respect that man at all. I have contempt for a
God that uses a child in such a manner. And I'd
be a far piece more likely to pledge myself to a
parent who stands between a despot--even an
allegedly heavenly one--to keep him from reaching a
child." He raises his brow as the camera moves in
for his close-up. "I only hope that Miz
White--mother of Faith--pays heed to this."
Someone calls out "Cut!" and Ian turns
away, grabbing a towel from an assistant and
wiping the makeup and sweat from his face. He
collects his notes from another assistant and
stalks back toward the Winnebago, oblivious
to the murmuring of the crowd that was listening.
Either they got it or they didn't.
There are two ways to read his broadcast, and
Ian damn well knows it. Either people will believe that
his final line was meant to accuse Mariah of being like
Abraham, prostituting her child just because God and the
media want it that way. Or else people will hear
Ian praising Mariah for not being like Abraham,
for taking her daughter away, even fleetingly, from
these same greedy powers.
He doesn't much care how his fans perceive it,
actually. The only reactions he cares about are
Mariah's and James's. He wants Mariah
to have heard it one way, and James to have heard it the
other.
The door opens and closes behind his executive
producer. James sits down at the table and
props up his feet. "Nice broadcast," he
says easily. "But I thought you might talk more
about the kid."
"Isaac?"
"Faith White." James shrugs. "Just on
account of us being here for a few weeks now. I think
viewers are expecting more."
"More what?"
"More ... I don't know. More heart.
More guts. More proof than theatrics."
Ian feels a muscle tic in his jaw. "Just
say what you mean to say, James."
The producer holds his hands up. "Jesus
H. Christ, don't jump down my throat
here."
"You know that rumor about me being a temperamental
asshole? I'd like to cash in on it right now."
"All I'm telling you, Ian, is that you
called me from the road and intimated that you were onto
something regarding the White case. And then you come
home and do two live shows and barely mention it.
Faith White is the cash cow here, Ian. The
mother lode. Isaac and Abraham? Yeah,
they're nice, but you can save them for when you've
got a contract renewed with a network." He
peers into Ian's face. "There better be something
going on. Something that's going to go up like a bottle
rocket, with you holding right onto its tail."
When Ian remains impassive, James
scowls. "You hear me?"
Ian's head swivels slowly, his eyes
connecting with James's. "Boom," he says.

"That's Betelgeuse," Faith says,
pointing. "The red one that's part of Orion." From
her position on the ratty football blanket,
Kenzie blinks at the night sky. She wraps
her winter coat more tightly around her. "That's
Taurus," Faith adds. "The reason it's so
close is because Orion is trying to shoot it."
"You know a lot about stars."
"We studied them in school before I stopped
going. And my dad used to show me constellations
sometimes, too."
It is the first time Faith has ever brought up
Colin without being prompted. "Did you like looking
at stars with your father?"
"Yes," Faith murmurs.
Kenzie draws up her knees and tries a
different tack. "My father used to play hockey
with me. Ice hockey, actually."
Faith laughs, surprised. "You played
ice hockey?"
"Yeah, I know. I pretty much sucked at
it. But I had five older brothers, and I
don't think my father ever actually noticed that I
was a girl." At Faith's giggle, she's
glad she's said it, but that doesn't keep
Kenzie from recalling the sting of feeling
unwanted by her family.
"Were you the goalie?"
Kenzie smiles. "Most of the time I was the
puck."
Faith rolls to her side, propping up on
an elbow. "Does your dad still live around here?"
"He lives in Boston. I don't see him
very often." She hesitates only a moment before
adding, "I miss him."
"I miss my dad, too." The words are as
quiet as the night, absorbed into the sway of the
trees around them. "I don't want to, but that
doesn't keep it from going away."
"Why don't you want to?"
"Because he did something awful," she says, low.
"Something that made my mom cry."
"And what was that?"
Faith doesn't speak. After a moment
Kenzie realizes that she is weeping silently.
"Faith?"
The girl turns away, burying her face in
her own shoulder. "I don't know!" she sobs.
"I was talking to him, and then there was this other lady
in the bathroom, and he left. He left, and I
think it was because I said something wrong."
"You said nothing wrong, honey. It was a problem
between your mom and your dad."
"No, he just doesn't want to live with me."
"Your father does want to live with you," Kenzie
explains. "And so does your mother. They both
love you very much. That's why a judge and I have
to help decide which house you should go to."
Involuntarily, she recalls the
Sunday-school legend of King Solomon. When
two women claimed they were both the mother of one
baby, he suggested cutting the infant in half
with a sword, to discover which parent would relinquish her
claim on the child rather than see it hurt.
Textbook wisdom: problem solved, and no
drop of blood shed. But that was just a story. In the
real world, often both parents were completely
worthy, or completely unworthy. In the real
world, there were mitigating circumstances. In the real
world, children were often the ones who swept up the
messes their parents had left behind.

November 15, 1999
Malcolm Metz comes into the conference room where
Lacey Rodriguez has been told to wait and
props a hip against the edge of the table.
"You bring me any?" he asks.
She pauses, her turkey and coleslaw on
rye hovering before her mouth. "Nope. As it is,
you're funding this one."
Malcolm grunts. "What's black and tan
and looks good on a lawyer?"
"I don't know. What?"
"A doberman." He grins, takes the
sandwich from her hand, and stuffs one end into his mouth.
"Very nice. I never would have thought of the
coleslaw." He wipes his lips with her napkin
and hands back the sandwich. "So what have you got?"
She taps a sheaf of papers. "What do you know
about Kansas City?"
"Everything's up to date there. Hell, I
don't know. Isn't that why I'm paying you?"
Lacey grins. "Not nearly enough,
Malcolm. My contact at the airlines came
through. Guess where Mariah White went into hiding
last week?"
Metz takes the list she offers, scans the
list of names. "Big deal," he says. "The
whole world knows she was gone with the girl."
Lacey stands up and flips to the first page of the
list, to the first-class passengers. "Does the
whole world know that Ian Fletcher was on the same
plane?"
"Fletcher?" Metz considers his earlier
meeting with the man, the teleatheist's assertion that
something big, something Metz was not privy to, would
be used to expose Faith as a sham. They'd gone
over testimony, and Fletcher had never mentioned this
little morsel. Clearly, this trip has something to do
with his grand plan.
Metz smiles, silently filing this trump
card in his mind. Fletcher might think his secret
is safe, but he isn't thinking along the lines
of the law. Once Fletcher's on the witness stand,
Metz can ask him anything at all. Once
Fletcher's under oath, he has no choice but
to tell the truth.

Mariah has made a dedicated attempt
to stay out of Kenzie's way when she's visiting
Faith. If Kenzie is in the kitchen, Mariah
finds something to do in the living room. If they head
upstairs, Mariah goes to the basement. She is
too nervous around the guardian ad litem, too
certain she will say something she will later regret.
Today Kenzie has promised
to French-braid Faith's hair. "We're
playing beauty parlor today," she tells
Mariah. "You're welcome to join us."
"Oh, that's all right."
"No--really. I'd like you to. Part of my
evaluation involves watching you interact with
Faith."
Mariah ducks her head. It will only be for a
little while. And surely it will look worse if
she refuses. "Okay," she says, and then she
grins. "As long as you don't give me a
perm."
Kenzie follows her up the staircase
to Faith's room. As soon as she knocks, the
door swings open. "I'm ready!" Faith
shouts. "I washed my hair and conditioned it and
everything." Kenzie sits on the bed and begins
to stroke Faith's hair. It slides through her
hands like silver. "You want an outside braid
or an inside braid?"
Faith glances at her mother, and they both shrug.
"We're about at the ponytail stage," Mariah
confesses. "Anything would be a treat."
Kenzie separates the hair at Faith's
crown into three segments. "When I was Faith's
age, my hair was about an eighth of an inch long
all the way around my head."
"Her father wanted her to be a boy," Faith
whispers to Mariah.
Kenzie nods. "It's true. Of course, the
first thing I did when I got old enough was grow my
hair down past my butt."
Faith giggles. "Ma," she says in a
stage whisper. "Kenzie said butt."
"Oops." She braids sections of hair,
feeding in a strand from the side of Faith's head.
Mariah watches intently, as if she will be
called upon to recite the procedure from memory.
"I grew up in Boston," Kenzie says
breezily. "You ever been to Boston, Faith?"
"No." Faith squirms on her heels.
"But I went to Kansas City."
Kansas City. The words strike her like a
blow, so much so that Mariah finds herself short of
breath. Mariah hasn't been dishonest with
Kenzie, but she hasn't volunteered information about
her attempt to take Faith away either. She is
certain that the things she does not want to tell
Kenzie are written all over her face--her
involvement with Ian, Ian's brother,
Faith's effect on Michael. "You went
to Boston when you were little, sweetie," she says,
desperate to change the subject. "You just don't
remember."
"I remember Kansas City," Faith
says.
"Honey ... we don't need to bore Kenzie
with that."
"Oh, I'm just braiding. Go right ahead. When
did you go to Kansas City?"
"Last week," Faith says.
Kenzie lifts her head. "I took her
away from here. From this," Mariah adds softly.
"What made you decide to leave then, rather than
earlier?" Kenzie asks.
Mariah turns away. "It had been going on
too long. It was time."
"It would have nothing to do with the fact that your
ex-husband said he'd be filing for a change of
custody?"
Mariah scrambles to think of what she can tell
the guardian ad litem without making herself look as
if she had been dodging the law. Which, of course,
would be the truth. She glances at Faith, intent
to steer off the topic before her daughter blurts out
that they stayed with Ian. "It wasn't intentional,"
Mariah answers. "I just wanted to make things
easier."
"Why Kansas City?"
"It was the first plane that left the airport."
Faith bounces on the bed. "Yeah, and guess
who was in first class--"
"Faith." The word, sharply spoken, brings the
little girl up short. Mariah tightens her mouth,
fully aware of Kenzie's stare set square on
her, of Faith's confusion. "We came back;
that's what matters. When I heard about papers
being served, we came back."
Kenzie does not blink. Mariah feels
sweat bead under the collar of her shirt; she reads
the GAL'S eyes as clearly as if her
impression were written across them: This woman
is lying. But to tell Kenzie more is to admit
to running from Colin's threat of a lawsuit.
To make public her relationship with Ian.
To violate his privacy. She stares at
Kenzie, unwilling to back down this time.
To her surprise, Kenzie does. She
doesn't whip out a notepad or ask more questions
or rebuke Mariah at all, but instead
shifts the slightest bit away from Mariah on
top of Faith's bed. Then she bends back
toward her task, humming softly, winding
Faith's beautiful hair through her fingers like yarn
through a loom. And all Mariah can do is watch as
Kenzie wraps together all the loose ends.

"Ian, oh, God. I'm so glad you
called."
He curls his hand around the receiver, smiling.
"That's one hell of a reception, sugar."
"I think she knows. The guardian ad litem.
She was asking questions today and Faith blurted out
something about Kansas City and--"
"Mariah, calm down. Take a deep
breath. ... There you go. Now, what happened?"
He listens, frowning as she recounts the conversation
with Kenzie van der Hoven. "Well, I
don't think that's anything conclusive. All she
knows is that someone who struck Faith's fancy was
on the plane. That could mean one of the Backstreet
Boys, or Prince William."
"But she knows what day we left, and when
Colin filed the papers."
Ian gentles his voice. "She was gonna
find that out anyway. The best defense you have is that
you came back with Faith." He hesitates,
thinking of his meeting with Metz. "I told you not
to worry, Mariah. I told you that I'd
figure this out. Don't you trust me?"
For one horrible moment, she does not answer.
And then Ian can feel it, a rush of warmth that
reaches through the phone connection before her voice
does. "I do, Ian."
He tries to respond, and finds that there are
no words.
"I'm sorry that I brought you into this," Mariah
adds.
Ian closes his eyes. "Sugar," he
says, "there's nowhere else I'd rather be."

November 16, 1999
On the day that Kenzie meets with Millie
Epstein, the blue-plate special at the
caf`e in the center of New Canaan is fish and
chips. "Very bad," Millie says, clucking
over the menu. "You don't even know if it's done
in canola, or what."
It seems like the perfect introduction, so
Kenzie leans forward, elbows on the
scarred table of the booth. "I guess you're
pretty careful about what you eat these days."
Millie glances up. "Why should I be? If
I croak again, I'll just call for Faith instead
of a paramedic." Watching the younger woman's jaw
drop, Millie smiles. "I'm kidding. Of
course I'm careful. But I was careful before the
heart attack, too. I ate well, took my
medicine like clockwork. Let me ask you something:
Did you see my hospital records?"
"I did."
"Do you believe I was resurrected?"
Kenzie flushes. "I don't know if
"resurrected" was the term for it, exactly--"
"Then what is the term for it? A miracle?"
"I was thinking more along the lines of an
extremely irregular nervous-system
response."
"Aha," Millie murmurs. "Do you
believe in God, Ms. van der Hoven?"
"That's not the issue here. And I think I'm the
one who's supposed to be asking the questions, Mrs.
Epstein."
The older woman continues blithely. "It
makes me a little antsy, too. I'm not a
praise-be-to-Jesus type--probably
wouldn't be even if I was a Christian."
"The issue in this custody hearing is where the
best home is for Faith, ma'am. With all due
respect, that doesn't leave a lot of room for
God."
"See, I don't agree with you." Millie
picks at her teeth with her thumbnail and shakes
her head. "A more religious woman would say that
there's always room for God, but that's neither here nor
there. To me, you can't do your job without asking yourself
whether or not you believe. Because if you don't, then
Faith must be lying--and that's going to affect your
decision about where she belongs."
"Mrs. Epstein, you aren't a guardian ad
litem."
Millie looks at Kenzie squarely.
"No. But you're not her grandma."
Before Kenzie can respond, the waitress
arrives. "How you doing, Millie?" she says,
with the familiarity of a town where one can walk down the
street and actually recognize people.
"Irene, do they do up the fish and chips in
canola oil?"
The waitress laughs. "You think this
is The Four Seasons? Far as I know, it comes
out of a Mrs. Paul's freezer box."
Millie reaches across the table and pats
Kenzie's hand. "Go with the soup. It won't make
you sick later."
But Kenzie orders only a Coke. "What
we need here is a deli," Millie muses.
"You have any idea how long it's been since I
had good pastrami?"
Kenzie's lips twitch. "A lifetime?"
Millie laughs. "Touch`e," she says, then
runs her forefinger along the edge of a packet of
Equal. "I used to have tea parties with Faith
when she was about three. She'd come over my house,
and we'd take out all my grandmother's linens, and
we'd dress up in old bathrobes I had from the
forties--the ones with those pink feathers on the cuffs
and collar, what is that called?"
"Marabou."
"That's right. Marabou. Isn't that some kind of
reindeer?"
"That's caribou." Kenzie smiles. "Mrs.
Epstein, I appreciate your concern for your
granddaughter. You can rest assured that I'm only
trying to make a decision in her best interests."
"Well, if you think Faith's lying, then it
must be pathological and contagious. Because her mother
believes her, and so do about five hundred people
camped outside, not to mention a host of doctors
who saw my heart stop beating."
Kenzie is silent for a moment. "Remember the
broadcast of War of the Worlds?"
"Of course. My husband and I were just as scared
as anyone."
"That's all I'm saying, Mrs. Epstein.
People hear what they want to hear. They believe
what they want to believe."
Millie slowly sets down her glass of
water and unconsciously rubs her hand over her
heart. "What do you want to believe, Ms. van
der Hoven?"
Kenzie does not hesitate. "That whatever I
recommend will be right for Faith. And you, Mrs.
Epstein? What do you want to believe?"
That time can be turned back. That nightmares
stop. That Colin never entered my daughter's
life. "I want to believe there's a God,"
Millie says clearly. "Because I sure as
hell know there's a devil."

"Hunstead," Metz calls from his throne at the
end of the conference table, "you and Lee get
confirmation. I want a copy of the ticket that
got her to Kansas City--"
"Sir?" an associate asks. "Are we
talking about Kansas City, Missouri, or
Kansas City, Kansas?"
"Where the fuck have you been for the past hour,
Lee?" Metz asks. "Hunstead, fill in your
anamnesis-challenged colleague as to what
we've been discussing while he's been dreaming of
Baywatch."
"How about rental-car agencies?" Hunstead
suggests. "If Fletcher was the one who provided
the transportation, it should be in his name, or his
production company's. Otherwise Mariah
White would have just used a credit card."
"Very nice," Metz says. "Go with it. I
also want copies of local hotel registers."
Two associates sitting to Metz's right at
the chrome-and-glass conference table scrawl the
directive onto their pads. "Lee, I want
to know all the cases in the past ten years where
custody's been overturned and given to the father. And
I want to know why. Elkland, start scouring our
list of experts for psychiatrists. We need one
who's willing to say that once someone's a
nutcase, they're always a nutcase." He
glances up, palming an apple that's been sitting
in front of him. "What do you call a lawyer
encased in concrete at the bottom of the ocean?"
The young lawyers glance at each other. Finally
Lee raises his hand. "A good start?"
"Excellent! You win the deposition this afternoon,
with the court psychiatrist who's evaluated Colin
White."
"What are you going to do?"
Metz laughs. "I'm going to fucking get
down on my knees and pray to fucking Allah."
He jots several notes while the younger lawyers
scatter to do his bidding, then pushes the intercom
button. "Janie, I don't want to be
bothered."
It used to be a joke between them; he used
to say, "I don't want to be bothered unless
God calls." What made it funny, of
course, was that most people in the firm didn't discount
that as an impossibility. But since taking on the
White case, Metz has stopped using that tag
line.
He does not like Colin White, but then again he
does not particularly like any of the clients he
defends. He admires White, though, for the
challenge the man presents. Metz has a
golden opportunity here to show law at its best
--something that has little to do with justice, and more to do with
seduction.
In a couple of weeks he will walk into a
courtroom, take the life of a fuck-up like
Colin White, and totally turn it around. He will
do such a good job of re-creating his client that a
judge and the press and maybe even the
prosecutor will believe what he says.
Metz laughs to himself. And they say surgeons
have a God complex.
He is not a religious man. In fact, the
last brush with organized worship he can recall
was at his own bar mitzvah. Metz remembers the
red dress his mother wore, the boxy suit that hung
on his frame, the surprising sound of his voice as
it sang out the words of the Torah. He'd been so
scared he nearly pissed his pants, and then later
at the reception, when his aunts leaned over him in
clouds of perfume to offer kisses and receive
nachas, he'd come close to passing out. But it
had been worth it when his father had come with him to the
bathroom, stood beside him at the urinal, and said
without meeting his eye, "Now you're a man."
It was the first time Metz had used his words
to remake a person. In that case, himself.
He shrugs his attention back to the file before
him. Colin White, Mariah White, Faith
White. Those are the names on the legal
documents; "God" comes up nowhere. And according
to Malcolm Metz's interpretation of the law,
that's as it should be.

November 18, 1999
In her entire lifetime, Kenzie has never
been inside a temple. She knows that she is
gawking at the richly decorated Ark, at the
unfamiliar Hebrew prayer books, at the
bema. "It looks just like a church," she says,
and then covers her mouth in embarrassment.
Rabbi Weissman grins. "We gave up
dancing naked around a fire about a year ago."
"I'm sorry." Kenzie meets his eye.
"I don't have much familiarity with Judaism."
"Apparently you can still be an expert." He
gestures toward a pew. "So you want
to know if Faith White's really having conversations
with God. Ms. van der Hoven, I have
conversations with God. But you don't see
Hollywood Tonight! outside my office."
"So you're saying--"
"I'm saying that God, in His infinite
wisdom, hasn't shown up in drag to play
checkers with me." He takes off his glasses and
polishes them on his shirt. "Wouldn't you be a
bit suspicious if a little girl with
absolutely no legal training suddenly
announced she could and would sit as a judge?"
"Is that the same thing?"
"You tell me. So she's talking to God. So
what. I don't see God telling her that the
Israelites are going to cream the PLO. I
don't see God telling her to keep kosher. I
don't see God even inspiring her to come
to Friday-night services. And I have a very hard
time believing that if God did choose to manifest
Himself in human form to a Jew, He would choose
one who hadn't followed a code of Jewish
living."
"As I understand it, religious apparitions
don't appear only to the pious."
"Ah, you've been talking to priests! Look
at the Bible. The people who've been lucky enough
to speak to God are either extremely religious
or positioned to do the most good for the religion.
Take an example: Moses wasn't raised
Jewish, but he embraced his religion after
speaking with God. I don't see that happening
here." He grins. "As comforting as it is for us
to nurse the fantasy that God might buddy up
to the average Joe who doesn't go to church or
temple and prays only to secure Super Bowl
bets, it's not realistic. God's forgiving, but
He's also got a long memory, and there's a
reason Jews have been following a pattern of
life for five thousand years."
Kenzie looks up from her notebook. "But
I've met with Faith, and I don't think she's
intentionally trying to take people for a ride."
"Neither do I. Don't look so surprised.
I've met with her, too, you know; she's a
sweet kid. Which leads me to believe someone's
putting her up to this."
Kenzie thinks back to the moment in Faith's
bedroom, when Mariah silenced her daughter with a
single glance. "Her mother."
"That was my conclusion, yes." He settles
back against the pew. "I know Mrs. White
isn't much of a practicing Jew, but some things
stay with you. If repressed childhood traumas
can come back to haunt you, why not religious
practice? Maybe it was ingrained at an early
age in Mrs. White--preverbally, even--and
she's somehow communicated this to her daughter."
Kenzie scratches her chin with the top of her
pencil. "Why?"
Rabbi Weissman shrugs. "Ask that fellow
Ian Fletcher. God can be a very lucrative
silent partner. The question isn't why, Ms. van
der Hoven. It's why not?"

November 19, 1999
"You certainly raise a good point," Father
MacReady says. He walks beside Kenzie on
the grounds of the church, setting up small
tornadoes of leaves with the toe of his cowboy
boot. "But I can raise a good one, too. Why
would a child--or her mother, as you suggest--choose to be
a stigmatic?"
"Attention?"
"Well, there is that. But seeing God isn't
nearly as big a draw as, say, seeing
Elvis. And if you want to stick
to Catholicism, I'd have to say that visions of
Mary have always attracted a bigger, more emotional
crowd than sightings of Jesus." He turns
to Kenzie, the wind ruffling his hair.
"Stigmatics are subject to intense scrutiny
by the Catholic Church. Far as I know, if you
commune with Elvis, you only have to answer to someone
like Petra Saganoff."
"It doesn't seem odd to you that a little
Jewish girl is having a vision of Jesus?"
"Religion's not a competition, Ms. van
der Hoven." He looks at Kenzie
carefully. "What's really upsetting you about this
case?"
Kenzie crosses her arms, suddenly cold.
"I'm convinced Faith isn't lying. Which means that
I can't help but believe that maybe someone else
is putting her up to this ..."
"Mariah."
"Yes," Kenzie sighs. "Or else ...
she's really seeing God."
"And you have a problem with that."
She nods. "I'm a cynic."
"So am I," Father MacReady says. "Every
now and then, even up here, we get a crying
statue or a blind man who can suddenly see, but
these things don't usually happen unless you're
David Copperfield. I'm the first person
who'll tell you that devout faith can change a
person. But work miracles? No way. Heal?
Uh-uh. And the truth is, the only piety
Faith's got going for her is in her name. She
didn't grow up believing in God. She
doesn't care even now, really, who God is.
Except for the fact that God is a friend."
Father MacReady stares toward the edge of the
church's property. The sun has broken through the
clouds, reflecting in blue and gold rays like a
stock photo on religious paraphernalia.
He can remember his mother pulling the car over to sigh
at the beauty of a moment like this. "Look at that,
Joseph," she'd say. "It's a Jesus
sky."
"Ms. van der Hoven," he muses, still staring
off into the distance, "have you ever seen the sun set in
Nepal?"
Kenzie follows his gaze to the dazzling
palette of the sky. "No, I haven't."
"Neither have I," Father MacReady admits.
"But that doesn't mean it doesn't happen."

Vatican City, Rome
The forerunner of the Office of the Sacred
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith was
instituted in 1231 by Pope Gregory IX,
and occasionally carried out its mission by stretching
suspects on the rack, searing them with live
coals, flogging, and burning them at the stake. It
has been a long, long time since the
Inquisition, and the office is now devoted
to furthering correct Catholic doctrine rather than
censuring heresy. Yet Cardinal Sciorro
sometimes walks through the halls and smells ashes;
sometimes he wakes in the night because he's heard people
scream.
The cardinal prefect likes to think of himself as
a simple man, a holy man--but a fair
man. Since the Sacred Congregation for the
Doctrine of the Faith acts like a court of
appeal, he knows he is well suited to his
position. He wears responsibility as
surely as he wears his mozzetta, and it weighs
just as heavily on his shoulders.
He is in his office, sipping his morning
chocolate and reading over paperwork that's been
piling up, when he first comes across it. "The
MotherGod Society," he says slowly, testing
the words on his tongue; they leave a bitter
aftertaste. He skims the brief: A group of
Catholic women of significant numbers wish
to appeal the censure of His Excellency the
Bishop of Manchester, claiming that the words of one
Faith White, who is not Catholic, are not
heretical.
The cardinal prefect calls to his
secretary, an attentive monsignor named
Reggie with the look of a beagle about him. "Your
Eminence?"
"What do you know about this MotherGod Society?"
"Well," Reggie says, "they were
demonstrating in St. Mark's Square
yesterday."
These militant Catholic women are becoming
more and more of a force. For a moment, the cardinal feels
a pang of nostalgia, for the way the world was before
Vatican II. "What did Bishop Andrews
consider heresy."
"From what I've gathered, the Jewish visionary
says God is female."
"I see." The cardinal prefect exhales
slowly, thinking of Galileo, Joan of Arc, of
other victims of alleged heresy. He wonders
what good it will do if, after this appeal, the MotherGod
Society remains censured. He can stop these
women from putting heresy into print, from spreading
false dogma, because they're followers of
Catholicism.
But Faith White--she'll still be out there, saying
whatever she wants.

Lacey Rodriguez kicks off her shoes and
slips the tape into the VCR. Not for the first time
since she's been an investigator, she mulls
over how thoughtless employers can be. A few more
perks, a better benefits package--hell,
maybe even a personal greeting every now and then
... any of these things might have gone a long way
to keep Ian Fletcher's cameraman from selling
out a videotaped copy of Millie Epstein's
stress test for a measly ten thousand dollars.
She pushes the fast-forward button on the
remote control, not having the slightest interest in
the old woman's cardiac rhythms or
huffing and puffing on the treadmill. Then she sits
forward, transfixed, her fingertips covering her
slowly spreading smile.

THIRTEEN

Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary,
the devil, as a roaring lion,
walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.
--1 Peter 58

November 23, 1999
"The man," Joan announces, slinging her
briefcase onto our kitchen table, "is an
asshole."
Neither my mother nor I blink an eye.
We've heard Joan rant this way about
Malcolm Metz before. I sit down across from her
as she shuffles through papers. "The good news," I
say, full of false cheer, "is that in a few
weeks you'll never have to see Metz again."
Joan looks up, surprised. "Who's
talking about Metz?" She leans back in her
chair, massaging her temples. "No, today I
had the singular pleasure of deposing Ian
Fletcher. The guy's twenty minutes late and
wouldn't answer to anything beyond his name and address.
Back in third grade he must have learned to say
"I take the fifth," and he's been waiting
for a chance to use it ever since." Shaking her head,
she hands Mariah a list. "All I got out of
him is that he's going to be a pain in the ass on
cross."
Mariah takes the paper, trying to get her
head around Joan's comment. Ian, a witness for
Malcolm Metz? For Colin?
"Besides Fletcher, is there anyone else on the
witness list you can give me some information about?"
I try to answer, but my mouth is too dry
to manage more than a puff of surprise. I am
dimly aware of my mother, her eyes narrowed on
my face; of the sea of letters that form and dissolve
into names: Colin, Dr. Orlitz, Dr.
DeSantis. "Mariah," Joan calls, her
voice a long way away, "are you all right?"
He has said, all along, that he will help
me. He has said that he'll do whatever is in his
power to make sure I keep Faith. And yet
here he is, in league with Malcolm Metz,
lying to me.
What else has he lied about?
With a great surge of adrenaline I stand, pushing
my chair back from the table. Joan and my mother
watch me walk out of the kitchen, follow me to the
parlor. When it becomes clear to them what I
mean to do, Joan rushes to intervene. "Mariah,"
she cautions, "don't fly off the handle here."
But I'm not thinking clearly; I don't want
to think clearly. I don't care who sees me
running across the yard with a speed born of hurt and
fury. I barely even pay attention to the charge
that electrifies the media as I close in on the
Winnebago with single-minded purpose.
I don't even bother to knock. Chest heaving,
I stand in the doorway and stare at Ian and three
of his employees, gathered around a tiny table with
papers strewn all over. For a beat, Ian's
eyes speak to me: surprise, pleasure,
confusion, and wariness registering one after the other.
"Miz White," he drawls. "What a very
pleasant surprise." He turns to the other
three people and asks for a moment alone; they file from
the Winnebago casting curious looks my way.
As soon as the door closes behind them, Ian
comes around the table and grasps my shoulders.
"What's the matter? Did something happen
to Faith?"
"Not yet," I bite out.
He steps back, distanced by my anger.
"Well, it's got to be something. You can't
imagine the kind of stories brewing in the heads of
all the reporters who watched you walk on in here
just now." Then his face changes, slipping
easily into a boyish smile. "Or maybe you just
couldn't live another moment without seeing me in
person."
I swallow hard. "Why didn't you tell me
you're testifying for Metz?"
I can't help it, the way my voice breaks
in the middle. I have the satisfaction of watching
Ian start, and then, to my surprise, he begins
to laugh. "Joan told you." I nod. "She
let on how uncooperative I happened to be?"
Then Ian reaches for me. "Mariah, I'm
testifying for you."
I sniff into his shirt. Even now, when I
should hate him, I notice the scent of his skin.
Steeling myself, I draw away. "Well, you
may not have noticed, but Malcolm Metz is not
my lawyer."
"That's right. I went to him, made him think
I'd give him examples to kingdom come about you
being an unfit parent. When it's my turn
to testify in court, though, he'll be in for a
surprise, since my speech will be dramatically
different."
"But Joan--"
"I didn't have a choice, Mariah. I can go
over my testimony with Metz to his face and then
get up on the stand and start speaking Swahili
without it being a big deal. After all, I'm his
witness, and it just means I'm not behaving
properly. But if I lie to Joan Standish in a
deposition and then get up in a court of law and
say something entirely different, I'll be
committing perjury. I had to plead the fifth today--
repeatedly--because it keeps her from getting in
trouble, and me from getting in trouble, and Metz from
getting suspicious of me."
I want to believe him; God, I do. "You
would do this for me?"
Ian inclines his head. "I would do anything for
you."
This time when he takes me into his arms, I
don't resist. "Why didn't you tell me you were
doing this?"
His hand strokes my back, gentling. "The
less you know, the better. That way if it all
blows up in my face, you won't be caught in the
explosion." He kisses the corner of my mouth,
my cheek, my forehead. "You can't tell Joan
yet. If she finds out before the trial, she could
get into a hell of a lot of trouble."
In answer, I go up on my toes and kiss
him. Shyly, at first; then I open my mouth on
his, identifying coffee and something sweeter, like
candy. Surely if Ian was lying to me, it would be
evident. Surely if he was lying, I would have the
good sense to see through him.
Like I did before? Closing my eyes, I
firmly push away the thought of Colin and his
indiscretions. I feel Ian's heat rising between
us, his hips pushing against mine.
With a gasp, he breaks away from me.
"Sugar, there's a whole crowd of people out there
waiting to see whether you're gonna make it out of
this trailer alive. And if we keep this up, I
can't make any promises." He chastely
kisses my brow and takes a deliberate step
away, a grin tugging at the corner of his
mouth.
"What?"
"You don't look like you've been fighting with
me, exactly." Flushing, I smooth my hands
over my hair and touch my fingertips to my lips.
Ian laughs. "Just look angry, and get back
to the house fast. They'll think you're still nursing a
powerful mad."
He cups my cheek in his hand, and I turn
my lips into his palm. "Ian ... thanks."
"Miz White," he murmurs, "it's my
pleasure."

Joan and my mother hover at the door and immediately
surround me as I walk inside, making me think
of circus performers who wait at the high rope
ladder to make sure their companion on the
trapeze returns to safety. "Good God,
Mariah," Joan scolds. "What were you
thinking?"
My mother doesn't say a word. She stares at
my mouth, red and kissed, and raises a brow.
"I wasn't thinking," I confess, and at least
this much is true.
"What did you say to him?"
"To be polite to my attorney in the
future," I lie, staring Joan right in the eye,
"or else he'll have to answer to me."

A few minutes before Petra Saganoff and
her film crew are due to arrive, I pull
Faith aside into an alcove by the bathroom.
"You remember what we talked about?"
Faith nods solemnly. "No talk about
God. At all. And there's going to be a big
camera," Faith adds. "Like the ones outside."
"That's right."
"And I can't call Petra Saganoff the
B word."
"Faith!"
"Well, you called her that."
"I was wrong." I sigh, thinking that if I
survive this day, I will never complain again in my
life. Through Joan, I've arranged to have
Petra Saganoff in to film what she calls
"B-roll"--background footage of Faith
playing and of us just being us in our house, that she'll
then go off and record over with her own narrative,
before airing the segment on Hollywood Tonight!
Joan made sure that Saganoff
signed a release about what she is allowed
to film and what she isn't, but I worry about her
visit all the same. Although I think Faith will
be able to act normally for a half hour, this could
backfire ... something Joan has pointed out
to me ever since I suggested this exclusive. Our
lives haven't exactly been predictable
lately. What if Faith starts bleeding again?
What if she forgets, and starts talking to God?
What if Petra Saganoff makes us all
look like fools?
"Mommy," Faith says, touching my arm.
"It'll be okay. God's taking care of it."
"Excellent," I murmur. "We'll make
sure to give her a good seat."
The doorbell rings. I pass my mother on the
way to answer it.
"I still don't like this. Not a bit."
"Neither do I," I say, scowling at her.
"But if I don't say something, people are going
to assume the worst." I pull open the door and
fix a smile on my face. "Ms.
Saganoff, thank you so much for coming."
Petra Saganoff, primed and in person, is
even more attractive than she is on
television. "Thanks for the invitation," she says.
With her are three men, whom she introduces as a
cameraman, a sound man, and a producer. She
does not make eye contact with me; instead her
gaze darts around the hall, looking for Faith.
"She's just inside," I say dryly. "Why
don't you follow me?"
We have agreed to allow her access to Faith's
playroom. What better way, I figure,
to show that a child is just a child, than to watch her with her
dolls and puzzles and books? But by the time the
cameraman and the producer have decided where to set the
camera and arranged the lighting for the shot, nearly
thirty minutes have passed. Faith's getting
fidgety; the cameraman even gives her a
"gel"--a colored piece of plastic that he's
affixed to the lights with clothespins. She takes it
and peers through it, screening her world yellow, but I
can tell that she's reached the end of her patience.
At this rate, Faith will be ready to leave her
toys and go somewhere else by the time Petra's just
getting started.
I am thinking of the time Ian filmed Faith at
my mother's stress test, of how even with limits in
place, there is still so much that can go wrong
--when suddenly a fuse blows. "Ah, damn
it," the cameraman says. "Circuits are
overloaded."
Another ten minutes until we fix the
fuse. By now Faith is whining.
The cameraman turns to the producer. "You
want continuous time code or time of day?" Then the
sound man holds up a white card in front of
Faith's face. "Give me some tone," the
cameraman says, and a few moments later,
"Speed." The producer looks at Petra
Saganoff. "Whenever you're ready."
When filming begins, I'm on the floor
helping Faith play with a felt board. As per
Joan's instructions, I don't talk
to Petra or the camera; I do only what I
would normally be doing with Faith. I try to keep
Faith's attention from the little red light on top
of the camera, a place she seems to want to fix
her gaze. Petra watches from the corner.
"I'm hungry," Faith says, and I
realize it's already lunchtime.
"Come on. We'll go into the kitchen."
Well, that creates a quandary. Technically
we haven't filmed for thirty minutes, but the
crew is off limits to the rest of the house. I
suggest that the crew take a break and continue
filming after Faith eats. Graciously, I
invite Petra into the kitchen.
"You have a nice place here, Mrs. White,"
she says, the first words she's really addressed
to me since her arrival.
"Thank you." I reach into the refrigerator and
pull out the peanut butter and jelly, set it on
the table--Faith likes to spread her own
sandwiches.
"I imagine this has been hard for you,"
Petra says, and then smiles at the expression
on my face. "Want to frisk me? See if
I'm wearing a mike?"
"No, of course not." Joan's ultimate
command: Keep your cool. I choose my words
carefully, sure that the voice-over narrative
Saganoff does will somehow come back to whatever
conversation we are about to have. "It has been
difficult," I admit. "As you've probably
noticed, regardless of what the people outside think,
Faith's just a little girl. That's all she wants
to be."
Behind Petra's back, I see
Faith holding up her palm. She's spread
jelly all around the Band-Aid, so that it looks
as if she's oozing blood, and she's waving her
hand in the air and silently pretending to moan.
My mother, catching my look, rushes over
to Faith and wipes the jelly off her hand with a
paper towel, firmly waggling a finger in her
face in warning. I focus my attention on
Petra again and smile brightly. "What was I
saying?"
"That your daughter's just like any other little girl.
But, Mrs. White, there are a lot of people who'd
disagree with you."
I shrug. "I can't tell them what to think.
But I don't have to believe what they believe
either. First and foremost, Faith is my daughter.
Plain and simple, and whatever else is going on
really has nothing to do with us." Proud of myself, I
stop while I'm ahead. Even Joan couldn't
find fault with that last statement; I almost wish the
camera had been rolling.
I take a head of lettuce out of the
refrigerator. "Would you like some lunch, Ms.
Saganoff?"
"If it's not too much trouble."
For years afterward, I will never be able to figure out
what made me say what I say next. It
bursts out of me like a belch, and leaves me just as
embarrassed. "No trouble at all," I joke.
"We're just having loaves and fishes."
For a single, horrifying moment, Petra
Saganoff stares at me as if I've grown
another head. Then she breaks into laughter, steps
up to the counter, and offers to help.

November 24, 1999
On Wednesday, Hollywood Tonight! runs
teasers, promising an inside look at the
White household: "Home with an Angel."
To my surprise, I begin to get nervous about the
broadcast. I do not know, after all, what
Saganoff is going to say about us. And millions
of people are going to hear it, no matter what.
At six o'clock, we eat dinner. At
six-thirty, I make a bowl of microwave
popcorn. By twenty to seven, my mother, Faith,
and I are sitting on the couch, waiting for Peter
Jennings to stop talking so that Hollywood
Tonight! will come on. "Oh, shoot," my mother
says, patting her chest. "I left my
glasses at home."
"What glasses?"
"My glasses. You know, the ones I need
to see."
I raise a brow. "You were wearing them this afternoon.
They're probably in the kitchen."
"I wasn't wearing them; you're mistaken. I
clearly remember leaving them on the kitchen counter
in my house." She turns to me. "Mariah, you
know how I hate driving in the dark. You have to get
them for me."
"Now?" I ask, incredulous. "I can't
leave when this show's about to go on."
"Oh, please. My house is five minutes
away, even less. You'll be back before the news
is over. And if you aren't, you can always turn on
my TV and watch, too."
"Why can't you just pull a chair up close to the
television set?"
"Because she'll hurt her eyes," Faith
pipes in. "That's what you always tell me."
Frustrated, I press my lips together. "I
cannot believe you're making me do this."
"If you hadn't complained to begin with, you'd be
back by now."
I throw up my hands and grab my purse,
speeding out of the driveway so quickly that the
reporters don't have time to jump in their cars and
follow me. I rip through the streets of New
Canaan until I reach my mother's house.
Not only has she forgotten her glasses,
she's left the light on in the kitchen, as well.
I unlock the door and step inside and see
Ian.
"What ... what are you doing here?"
He smiles, reaches for my hands. "A little
birdie gave me the key."
I shake my head. "A little birdie about yea
high, fifty-something, with a blond bob? I can't
believe it."
Ian slides his arms around my waist. "She
wanted to play fairy godmother, Mariah.
Don't ruin it for her."
I move around, shutting curtains, locking the
door, checking to make sure that no telltale
car lights are hovering outside waiting for me.
Ian's car is nowhere to be seen. "But I have
to get back home ... the show ..."
"It's on in the other room. Your mama came
to the trailer yesterday and asked me if
I would mind coming down here, watching it with you. I
guess she figured you might want some moral
support."
"She could have given me moral support,"
I say.
Ian looks affronted. "But it wouldn't have
been nearly as much fun."
That brings me up short. "Are you telling me
that my mother ... that she wants us ..."
He touches my hair. "She's heard you
talking to me at night, on the phone. And she said
that you deserve a little bit of happiness about now."
He grins at me. "She also told me to tell
you that she'll put Faith to bed, which sounds like she's
certainly giving us her blessing, in addition to her
house." Twining his fingers with mine, he leads me
into the living room, where the anchors of
Hollywood Tonight! have just appeared on screen.
I am barely aware of Ian settling beside me
on the couch as the television fills with pictures
of my home, my daughter. Petra
Saganoff's rich voice seems oddly out of
place, superimposed on the scene of Faith
arranging figures on her felt board. "For
weeks now we've heard of the miracles brought
to pass by this little girl, Faith White." The
scenes cut away to pictures of the hospital,
where Petra mentions my mother's resurrection, and
to a close-up of the infant with AIDS who had
played in our yard. Then Faith is on the
floor of the playroom again, but this time I'm with
her.
"Don't you look fine on the small
screen," Ian whispers.
"Sssh."
Petra continues. "Perhaps the greatest
miracle, however, is the way Faith's mother,
Mariah White, is struggling to keep a level
head and a loving home for her daughter in spite
of the maelstrom just outside their doors."
"Oh," I gasp, a smile breaking over my
face even as tears come to my eyes. "Oh,
Ian, did you hear?"
He opens his arms, and I launch into them,
laughing and crying and so very, very relieved. I am not
listening to Hollywood Tonight! anymore; it
fades in the wake of Ian's hands on my
shoulders and back, pulling me even closer.
Cradling his face between my palms, I kiss him
deeply, until I am lying flush
against him on the couch and breathing just as hard as he
is.
He unbuttons my shirt and presses his
lips to the skin revealed at my throat. "I like
the effect this show has on you."
He is teasing, but I have moved past that point.
I want to feel him, take him, celebrate
him. I am shaking as I lock my hands behind his
neck.
Sensing the change in me, Ian draws back
enough to look into my eyes. "I have missed you so,"
he whispers, and he kisses me. With his hands he
builds a fire in me. This is love, I
think. A place where people who have been alone may
lock together like hawks and spin in the air, dizzy
with surprise at the connection. A place you go
willingly, and with wonder.
Then my hands are freeing him and as Ian
moves inside me, our fingers lace together, so that
we hinge on each other. Mine, mine, mine.
His hair falls over my eyes, and when I
turn my face against my own shoulder, I
realize that I smell of him, as if he has
already taken root under my skin.

The television hums, a kaleidoscopic
test pattern splashed over the screen. I touch
my hand to the base of Ian's neck, to the small
knot of collarbone beneath his shirt, all places
that I am beginning to know by heart. "Ian ... do you
ever think about going to hell?"
He pulls back and smiles quizzically.
"What brought this on?"
"Do you?"
Running a hand through his hair, he leans against the
headboard. "Believing in hell means believing in
some religious construction, so I'd have to say
no."
"You'd have to say no," I agree slowly, "but
that doesn't tell me what you think."
He covers me with his body and breathes against my
neck. "What made you think of hell? Was it
this?" He scrapes his teeth over my shoulder.
"Or this?"
No, I want to tell him. This is heaven.
This must be heaven because never in my life have I
imagined that someone like you would want to be with me,
here, doing this. And on the heels of this thought comes
another: that such pleasure, surely, comes with a
price.
Then Ian tips his forehead to mine and closes
his eyes. "Yes," he whispers. "I think about
going to hell."

Metz scowls at the television set and
turns it off in the middle of the videotape. "This
is crap," he announces to an empty room.
"Crap!"
Mariah White one-upped him by giving
Hollywood Tonight! a backstage pass to her
home, and frankly, from what Colin White has
told him about the woman, it's surprised him.
Traditionally, she's rolled over and played dead
at the first sign of confrontation. This media
courting, after weeks of hiding away, is clearly
a positioning strategy--one that Metz
unfortunately admits is paying off. With the
trial a week away, a press corps that's in
love with Faith White, and a very anxious client
in the wings, he has his work cut out for him.
There is a knock on the door. "Yeah?"
Elkland, one of his young female associates,
sticks her head in. "Mr. Metz? Have you got
a minute?"
Hell, he's got a minute. He's got a
whole evening full of them, since he doesn't
seem to be using them to any advantage stacking the
odds in his favor in the White case. "Sure."
He gestures to a chair and wearily rubs his
hands over his face. "What's on your mind?"
"Well, I was watching that show Nova on
PBS last night."
"Congratulations. You want to be an
attorney or a Nielsen family?"
"It's just that it was about this disease. It's called
Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy. Basically,
if you've got it, you make someone else look
physically or mentally ill."
Metz sits up, intrigued. "Tell me those
papers in your hand are some preliminary research,"
he murmurs.
She nods. "It's a clinical disorder.
Usually, it's a mother doing it to her kid, in
secret. And the reason is to get positive
attention--to look, ironically, like a good mother because
she's dragging the child into the ER or to a
psychiatrist. Of course, since the mom made
her sick in the first place, that's a crock."
Metz frowns. "How do you make someone else
have a hallucination?"
"I don't know," admits Elkland. "But I
found someone who does. I took the liberty of
interviewing an expert on Munchausen
Syndrome by Proxy over the phone. He
wants to talk to you about the case."
Metz taps his fingers on his desk. The chances
of Mariah White's having this Munchausen
disorder are probably rather slim, but that's neither here
nor there. His strongest cases usually have nothing
to do with the truth, but simply with being able to blow
smoke the right way. The best strategy for Colin
White will be to make the judge find fault in
Faith's mother, so that he has no choice but
to award custody to the father. Metz could hint that
Mariah has leprosy, schizophrenia, or this
Munchausen by Proxy--anything, just so long as it
makes Rothbottam sit back and reconsider.
In a way, he's only fighting fairly,
using the same tactic Mariah White did when
she invited Hollywood Tonight! to her home.
The fact of the matter is, in this case, perception
is everything. Judges don't traditionally give
custody to fathers, unless the mother is proven to be a
heroin addict or a whore. Or, perhaps, crazy
as a loon.
"I like this," he says guardedly.
Elkland grins. "I haven't told you the best
part. These mothers? The ones who really have
Munchausen by Proxy? They're pathological
liars--it's part and parcel of having the
syndrome. If you ask them to their faces whether
they've hurt their children, they'll deny it, they'll
act outraged, they'll get very hostile."
Metz smiles slowly. "Just like Mrs.
White is bound to do when we cross her."
"Just like," Elkland says.

November 25, 1999
My mother decides that it's time for her to move
back home. Whether it is the approaching trial
that fuels this decision, or the fact that she's
sick of sleeping in our guest room, I don't
know. I help her pack up her things in the little
suitcase that she has had since I was a young
girl.
On the bed I fold her nightgown into thirds,
and thirds again. She is in the bathroom, gathering
together the creams and pastes and powders that make up
a smell I will always associate with her. It
reminds me of the night Ian and I
spent at her house. I would have thought that this scent,
so familiar from childhood, would make me rear
away from the thought of making love with Ian in my
mother's house, but I was wrong. It was the smell of
security, of comfort, oddly seductive to both
Ian and myself.
"I haven't thanked you," I say, as my mother
comes out of the bathroom carrying a toiletry kit.
"For what?" She waves a hand at me. "This
was nothing."
"I didn't mean you staying here. I meant
... well, for making me go."
My mother's head comes up. "Ah. I was
wondering when we were going to get around to that."
I can feel my cheeks going red. After all
these years, I still cannot speak of boys to my mother
without feeling as if I'm eleven again. "It was a
nice gesture," I say diplomatically.
"Good lord, Mariah, call a spade a
spade, will you? It was a rendezvous. An
assignation. A trysting spot. A love--"
"Let's just leave it at that, okay?" I
grin. "You are my mother."
She cups my cheek. It tingles, as if she
were holding my childhood right there in her palm.
"But somewhere along the way, I also became your
friend."
It is a silly thing, to put it in such terms,
but it is true. The women in my life, my two
best friends, are my mother and my daughter. A few
weeks ago, I almost lost one. A few days from
now, I might lose the other.
"You need me, no question about that. But you needed
him, too. And I figured I was the best one
to make that happen."
My mother methodically matches shoes and lays
them into her suitcase. She is beautiful,
softened at the edges and tempered with a spine of
steel. I want to grow old and be like her. "The
best one," I say softly. "You are."

December 2, 1999
Joan has dinner with us the night before the hearing.
Afterward, while my mother and Faith are clearing the
table, we go down to my workshop for privacy. We
rehearse my testimony once again, until
Joan is sure that I am not going to falter on
the stand. Then she hooks her heels over the rung
of a stool and stares at me. "You know, this isn't
going to be a picnic for you."
I laugh. "Well, I figured as much. I
can think of a thousand other places I'd rather be."
"I don't mean that, Mariah. I mean what
people are going to say. Colin will be downright nasty.
And Metz has a parade of other witnesses
he's coached to say things that make you look like a
sorry excuse for a parent."
Not Ian, I think, and I wonder if I
am convincing myself.
"That's not even counting what he's going to do to you
on the stand. He's going to try to trip you up and
get you confused, so that you look like the basket
case he's been setting you up as in his direct
examinations of witnesses." She leans forward.
"Don't let him get to you. When you go home at
the end of each day during this trial, know that
Malcolm Metz doesn't really know you from
Adam. You're not a person to him; you're a
means to an end."
I look up at Joan and try to spread a
smile across my face. "Don't you worry about
me. I've grown thicker skin lately." But
all the same, I'm hugging myself as if I'm
suddenly chilled; as if I'm suddenly wary of
falling apart.
The doorbell rings at ten-thirty. When I
open it, braced for the quick flash of cameras, I
find Colin standing there looking just as shocked to see
me as I am to see him.
"Can we talk?" he asks after a moment.
For all that I want to turn him away, or
tell him to contact my lawyer, I nod. We have
a history between us, and in some ways I think that is
thicker than anger, thicker than blood. "All
right. But Faith's asleep. Be quiet."
As he follows me through the hallway, I
wonder what he is thinking: What did she do
with that photograph of the Andes? Has the tile
always been this dark? What is it like to come back
to your own house and not quite recognize it?
He pulls out a kitchen chair and straddles
it. I imagine Joan, shouting at the top of her
lungs that I shouldn't be here without an attorney
present. But I smile halfheartedly and duck
my head. "So talk."
The air leaves Colin in a great whoosh, like a
hurricane. "This is killing me."
What? The chair? The fact that he's back in
our house? Jessica? Me?
"Do you know why I fell in love with you,
Rye?"
The countertop is just behind me. I work very hard
at digging my fingernails into it. "Did your
attorney tell you to come here?"
The shock on Colin's face is genuine.
"God, no. Is that what you think?"
I stare at him. "I don't really know what
to think anymore, Colin."
He stands and walks toward the spice rack,
running his finger over each bottle. Anise,
basil, coriander. Celery salt, crushed red
pepper, and dill. "You were sitting on the steps
of the library at school," he says. "And I
came up with a bunch of the guys from the team.
Gorgeous spring day, but you were studying. You were
always studying. I said we were going to get subs, and
did you want to come?" He looks down at the
floor and shakes his head. "And you did. You just
left your books sitting there in this pile like you
didn't give a shit who took them or whatever,
and you followed me."
I smile. I never did get that economics
text back, but I got Colin, and at the time
I believed it was more than a fair trade. I
take the small vial of bay leaves Colin's
set on the counter and put it back in its place.
"I should have kept on studying."
Colin touches my arm. "Do you really believe
that?"
I am afraid to look at him. I stare down
at his hand until he removes it. "You didn't
want someone who'd follow you, Colin. You
wanted someone you had to chase."
"I loved you," he says fiercely.
I do not blink. "For how long?"
He takes a step away. "You're
different," he accuses. "You're not like you used
to be."
"You mean I'm not huddled in the corner, crying
into a dish towel. Sorry to disappoint."
At that, I know I've pushed too far. "How
long this time, Rye?" Colin presses. "How
long until you start looking in the medicine
cabinet for escape routes? Or stare at a
razor blade for the six hours that Faith's in
school? How long until you check out on her?"
"And you didn't?"
"I won't," Colin says. "Not now.
Look, I made a mistake, Rye.
But that was between you and me. I've never been less
than one hundred percent there for Faith. So what
if you pat Faith's head every morning now, if you
tell her how much you love her? Up until that
minute in August, you weren't the sure thing--
I was. Do you think she's forgotten how it was
when she was little, how her mom spent afternoons lying
down with a headache, or sleeping off Haldol,
or talking to a fucking shrink instead of taking her
to preschool?" He points a shaking finger. "You
are not any better than me."
"The difference between us is that I never said I
was."
Colin looks at me so angrily that I
wonder if I am in danger. "You won't take
her away from me."
I hope he cannot tell how hard I am
shaking. "You won't take her away from me."
We have worked ourselves into such a fury that neither one
of us notices Faith standing nearby until she
draws a shaky breath.
"Honey. We woke you up?"
"Sweetheart." Colin's face dissolves
into a smile. "Hi."
Something in her eyes stops me just seconds before
I touch her shoulder. Faith is stiff, her
eyes wide with fear, her hands fisted at her
sides, and her face drained of color.
"Mommy?" she says, her lower lip trembling.
"Daddy?"
But before either of us can explain ourselves or our
behavior, we see the blood that wells between the
seams of her fingers.

Within seconds Faith is writhing on the
floor and crying out words I do not understand. "Eli!
Eli!" she calls out, and although I have no idea
who this is, I tell her he is coming. I try not
to notice that this time she is bleeding from her side,
too. I hold her shoulders down so that she will not
hurt herself, and all the while her palms leave
smears of blood on the tile.
I hear Colin's voice, high and panicked,
speaking into the portable phone. "Eighty-six
Westvale Hill, first driveway on the
left." Once he hangs up, he gets to the
floor beside me. "The ambulance is on its
way." He presses his cheek against Faith's,
which actually calms her for a moment. "Daddy's
here. Daddy's going to take care of you."
Faith shudders, then twists in pain. Her
voice sounds like a river, syllables and grunts
that escalate into sobs.
Colin's mouth drops open. Then he
mobilizes to action, taking off his jacket and
wrapping it around Faith, swaddling her in his arms
the way he used to when she was a baby. He sings
a lullaby I have not heard in years, and to my
surprise Faith goes limp and docile.
The paramedics burst into the house. Colin
steps back and lets them work on Faith. I
watch these people lay hands on my daughter and say
what I already suspect: that her blood
pressure is fine, that the pupils are
responsive, that the bleeding will not stop. After
all, I have played out this scene once before. I
feel Colin's hand slip over mine like a
glove. "We can ride in the ambulance," he
says.
"Colin--"
"Look," he announces in a tone that
brooks no argument, "I don't care what the
hell is going on in court. We're both her
parents. We're both going."
I want to talk to Dr. Blumberg alone,
yet I want Colin to hear him say the things he
has already said to me. I want to yank my hand out
of Colin's and stand completely on my own. I
want, badly, to speak to Ian. But Colin has
always had a pull on me, like the moon with the tide,
and I find my feet following him out of habit,
into the belly of the ambulance, where I sit with
Colin's shoulder bumping mine and my eyes
adjusting to darkness, watching the shifting snakes of
IV'S that feed into my child.

Colin and I sit side by side on the ugly
tubular couches that make up the waiting room of the
ER. By now Faith's bleeding has been
stabilized, and she's been carted off to X ray.
The emergency physician, referring to her chart,
has summoned Dr. Blumberg.
Colin has been busy for the past half hour.
He answered the questions of the paramedics and the
doctors, he paced incessantly, he smoked
three cigarettes just outside the glass doors
of the ER, his profile gilded with moonlight.
Finally he comes back inside and crouches down
beside my seat, where I am resting my head in my
hands. "Do you think," he whispers, as
if giving voice to the thought will make it take wing,
"that she's doing it for attention?"
"Doing what?"
"Hurting herself."
At that, I raise my eyes. "You'd
believe that of Faith?"
"I don't know, Mariah. I don't know
what to believe."
We are saved from an argument by the arrival of
Dr. Blumberg. "Mrs. White. What
happened?"
Colin extends his hand. "I'm Colin
White. Faith's father."
"Hello."
"I understand this isn't the first time you've examined
Faith," Colin says. "I'd appreciate
being brought up to date on her history."
Dr. Blumberg slants a glance at me.
"I'm sure that Mrs. White--"
"Mrs. White and I are estranged," Colin
says bluntly. "I'd like to hear it from you."
"Okay." He sits across from us and settles
his hands on his knees. "I've already done a
variety of tests on Faith, but have found no
medical explanation why she spontaneously
bleeds."
"It's definitely blood?"
"Oh, yes. It's been laboratory
tested."
"Is it self-inflicted?"
"Not that I can see," Dr. Blumberg says.
"Then it might be someone else?" Colin
asks.
"Pardon me."
"Did someone hurt Faith?"
Blumberg shakes his head. "I don't
believe so, Mr. White. Not the way you mean."
"How do you know?" Colin shouts. There are
tears in his eyes. "How the hell could you know?
Look--I watched her fall into some fit and start
bleeding for no reason. I have insurance. Don't
you tell me you've got no medical explanation
for this. Order a frigging CT scan or do
bloodwork or something. You're a doctor. You're
supposed to figure it out, and I want my
daughter here until you do. Because if you release
her again and she has another episode, I'm going
to sue you for malpractice."
I think of a piece of research Dr.
Blumberg told me about--of doctors
at the turn of the century who hospitalized a
stigmatic and welded an iron boot over his
bleeding foot to make sure that the man was not
producing the wound himself. I wonder how Colin can
accuse me of ruining Faith's life.
Dr. Blumberg hesitates. "I can't run
tests without her mother's consent."
"You have her father's," Colin says coldly.
"I'll admit her," the doctor concedes.
"But I don't expect to find anything new."
Satisfied, Colin stands. "Can we see her
now?"
"Faith will be up on the pedi ward in a few
minutes. She'll be groggy; I gave her a
sedative." He looks from me to Colin.
"I'll check on her again in the morning.
Hospital policy says that one of you can remain
overnight in her room." With a nod, he walks
off.
I straighten my shoulders, gearing for a fight,
but to my surprise Colin announces that he'll
leave. "Faith will expect you. You stay."
We walk in silence to the elevator and take
it to the pediatric floor. The desk nurse
tells us which room is Faith's, although she
hasn't yet returned from radiology. Colin
and I enter the room, where he takes the only
chair and I stand by the window with a view of the
hospital's helicopter landing pad.
After a few minutes a nurse wheels Faith
inside and helps her stumble into the bed. Her hands
are wound in white bandages. "Mommy?"
"I'm here." I sit on the edge of the bed and
touch Faith's cheek. "How are you feeling?"
She turns away. "I want to go home."
I brush her bangs back from her face. "The
doctor wants you to sleep here overnight."
Colin leans down on the other side of the bed.
"Hi, cookie."
"Daddy."
He gently takes her bandaged hand and strokes
the skin above the gauze. "How did this happen,
honey?" he asks. "You can tell me, and I
won't get mad. Did you hurt yourself? Did
someone else hurt you? Grandma, maybe? Or that
priest who visits?"
"Oh, for God's sake--" I interject.
Colin narrows his eyes. "You're not there every
minute. You never know, Mariah."
"Next you're going to be saying that
I did it to her," I spit out.
Colin simply raises his brows.

After Faith falls asleep, Colin gets
to his feet. "Look, I'm sorry. It's just
eating me up inside to see her like this and not know how
to fix it."
"You know, apologies don't count when you
qualify them."
Colin looks at me for a long moment. "Do
we have to do it like this?"
"No," I whisper. "We don't."
And then I am in Colin's arms, my face
pressed against his neck. He touches his forehead
to my brow in a gesture that brings a stream of
memories. This man I was supposed to spend my
life with, I will instead be meeting in a courtroom
tomorrow. "I'll be back in the morning. I'm sure
the judge can give us a continuance."
"I'm sure," I repeat against his chest.
"For what it's worth," he says, so
quietly that I may be dreaming it, "I know it's
not you."
With that assurance, Colin leaves me once
again.
Kenzie microwaves a box of Pizza
Bites and pours a big glass of red wine before
she sits down to finish writing her recommendation
to Judge Rothbottam. She imagines eating the
entire box of hors d'oeuvres and maybe
another and then methodically working her way through the
refrigerator and freezer, stuffing herself until
she cannot move. Cannot lift a finger. Cannot write
this report of a guardian ad litem.
Judge Rothbottam is expecting this
report on his desk tomorrow morning, before the custody
hearing is in session. Kenzie--the objective
observer, the eye in the storm--is supposed
to lay a foundation upon which he can balance the arguments
of the plaintiff and the defendant.
Kenzie takes a long, slow sip of wine.
The White case is so filled with shades of
gray that sometimes Kenzie doubts her ability
to see clearly.
On the one hand, she has Colin and Jessica
White, a new family anchored by a father who
clearly loves Faith. But Kenzie can barely
stomach giving custody to a man who was so
grievously unfaithful. On the other
hand, there's Mariah White, carting her emotional
baggage from the past and even now--Kenzie's sure
of it!--lying, either to herself, or to Faith, or
to Kenzie herself. If she leaves Faith in her
mother's custody, she does so without knowing the whole
story. Yet she cannot help but notice that
Mariah White, self-professed poster child for
insecurity, has truly begun to turn her life
around. It's clear, too, that Faith feels very
attached to her mother. But is it a healthy connection,
or does Faith simply feel the need to take
care of a mother who isn't strong enough to take care of
her?
Kenzie sets down her wine and waits for the
cursor on the computer screen to focus at the
top of the document. Then she turns it off, wishing
for a miracle.

A pair of grieving relatives stand around the
bed of Mamie Richardson, age eighty-two.
After last week's stroke, she's been comatose.
The doctors have explained the extent of the
massive brain damage. The family has come
together to pull the plug.
Mamie's daughter sits on one side of the
bed in the ICU; Mamie's husband of sixty
years sits on the other. He strokes her
leopard-spotted hand as if it were a good-luck
charm, oblivious to the tears that have made a small
wet spot in the waffle-weave blanket that
covers Mamie's thin legs.
The daughter looks to the resident beside the
heart-lung machine, then at her father. "All
right, Daddy?" The elderly man just bows his head.
She nods to the doctor and is suddenly stopped
by the strident sound of her mother's voice.
"Isabelle Louise!" Mamie shouts, sitting
up in bed. "What in the name of the good Lord do you
think you're doing?"
"Mother?" the woman breathes.
"Mamie!" her husband yells. "Oh,
God. God! Mamie!"
The old woman yanks the breathing tube out of
her nose. "What kind of contraption have you got
me hooked up to, Albert?"
"Lie down, Mother. You had a stroke." The
daughter looks at the doctor, who first steps
away in shock and then falls to checking Mamie.
"Get a nurse," the doctor orders
Albert. But it takes a moment, because
Albert cannot tear his eyes away from the woman who
has defined him for half a century, the woman
whose passing would have made a major part of him
die, too. Then he rushes into the corridor with the
energy of a man half his age, waving his arms and
shouting for medical personnel to come quickly,
to converge on the ICU room that happens to be one
floor directly above that of Faith White's.

In the middle of the night Faith's arm shifts
and strikes me across the face. The pediatric
ICU offers a cot for the parent who's sleeping
in, but I preferred to crawl into the narrow bed with
Faith. This way, I could protect her, be there
if she was in pain.
Faith tosses and turns, and I press my
lips to her forehead. Immediately, I draw back--
she is burning up, hotter than I can ever
remember her being. I lunge toward the headboard
and push the call button.
"Yes?"
"My daughter's got a fever."
"We'll be right in."
When the nurses come, poking and prodding with
thermometers and sponges of alcohol, Faith
doesn't even stir. There is a strange
soundtrack accompanying their movements; it takes
me a moment to recognize it as a rhythmic,
tiny moan coming from deep inside Faith.
"Can't you page Dr. Blumberg?"
"Mrs. White," says one nurse, "just let
us do our job, all right?"
But I am her mother, I want to say. Won't
you let me do mine?
"She's a hundred and five point five,"
I hear one nurse murmur.
A hundred and five? I start thinking of
infections of the blood, spinal meningitis,
spreading cancers. If it was serious, wouldn't the
tests this evening have picked it up--a high
white-blood-cell count? But if it wasn't
serious, why would she have such a high fever?
I do not want to leave her, but I know I have
an obligation. Stepping into the hallway, I ask
to borrow the phone at the nurses' station. There are
too many people crowded into Faith's room to let me
use the one beside the bed. I rummage in my
purse and unfold a small green sheet of
paper with a phone number on it. "Jessica, this
is Mariah White," I manage
to say. "Can you tell Colin that Faith's taken
a turn for the worse?"

When Malcolm Metz gets to the ofice,
called by an extremely apologetic Elkland
--who was pulling an all-nighter when Colin
White stormed into the lobby like an unconfined
tiger--his head is still wet from his shower and his
eyes are bloodshot. It pisses him off,
particularly because he likes to look his best on
days he litigates, yet he's due in court
in less than five hours, and he's going to look
as if he's been out carousing the whole night before.
He draws up short at the sight of his client
--hair standing in tufts around his head, jacket
looking slept in ... and is that blood on the
sleeve?
"Christ," Metz says. "You look worse
than I do."
"Okay," Colin begins, not even bothering
to look at his attorney. "This is the thing.
She's in pain. She's in the goddamned
hospital. And I don't care what you say, people
listen to TV, and it's going to sway what the
judge thinks. Look at that nanny trial in
Boston! I'm paying you a shitload of money
to get a winning verdict. And I'm telling you,
it's happening to her in the house, Malcolm. I
saw it with my own eyes. Someone or something in there
is making her sick."
"Hang on," Metz says. "Who's sick?
Who's in the hospital?"
Colin looks at him as if he is crazy.
"Faith."
Metz's eyes widen. "Faith's in the
hospital?"
"She started bleeding last night. It happened
right in front of me. She was just standing there and all
of a sudden ..." He shakes his head. "Christ,
I've got to believe they can do more than give her
drugs to take the edge off. I mean ... something
has to happen to make you bleed."
Metz holds up a hand. "Your daughter is
in the hospital," he clarifies.
"Yeah."
"She's under observation."
"That's right."
A smile breaks across Metz's face.
"Oh, God, how perfect." At Colin's
glare he hastens to explain himself.
"We've been working up an angle for your case,
Colin, and strangely enough, this corroborates
it." As Elkland outlines Munchausen
Syndrome by Proxy for Colin, Metz thinks
back to his original ex parte motion, lobbed at
the judge for the hell of it, but clearly now an
unconscious stroke of genius. "Picture this:
We walk into chambers this morning and file an
emergency motion, begging Rothbottam to separate
Faith from her mother because her life is in serious
jeopardy. The first time we did it, he thought we
were bluffing, and he let her stay with her mother. But
thanks to his faulty judgment, the kid's now in
the hospital. I explain Munchausen's and
tell him that our expert will prove why we need this
emergency provision. Then I ask for a court
order keeping Mariah away from Faith. The
judge will feel so guilty about throwing out the first
motion that this time he'll jump right through my hoop."
Colin stares at him, scowling. "I've never
heard of this Munchausen thing."
Metz grins. "Me neither. But by the time the
hearing's over, we'll be pros."
He shakes his head. "I don't know,
Malcolm. Mariah ... well, she may be a
little preoccupied with herself sometimes, but she'd never
intentionally hurt Faith."
Elkland bites her lip. "Mr. White, from
what I've read, that's part of the psychological
disorder--looking like the ideal, concerned parent while
you lie about what you've done."
"I stood two feet away from Faith last
night and watched her just start to bleed," Colin
says slowly. "She didn't prick herself on
anything; she didn't touch anything at all, in
fact ... and Mariah was even farther away than
I was. But you're saying that you think ... you
think--"
Metz shakes his head. "The question isn't what
I think, or what you think, Colin," he
says, "but rather, what do you want the judge
to think?"

Kenzie is asleep beside her laptop when the
phone rings. "Ms. van der Hoven," says a
silky voice when she lifts the receiver.
It would be impossible, even in her state of
muzzy confusion, to not recognize Malcolm
Metz. "You're up early."
"Five A.m. is the best part of the
day."
"I wouldn't know."
Metz chuckles. "I guess you've already
sent in your report."
With a sinking sensation, Kenzie looks at the
computer screen, blank as a wall.
"I assume you faxed it to His Honor last
night so the judge could read it before today's trial.
But I felt honor-bound to let you know something before
court began."
"Which is what, Mr. Metz?"
"Faith White was hospitalized last
night."
At that, Kenzie snaps upright. "She
what?"
"As I understand from my client, she started
bleeding from her hands again, and that escalated into a more
serious condition."
"Oh, my God. Who's with her now?"
"Her mother, I assume." There is a
hesitation on the line. "But I wanted you to know that
I plan to amend that. I'm asking the judge for a
restraining order to keep Mariah away from the child.
I have reason to believe that Mariah's the one
who's harming Faith."
"You have evidence?" she asks.
"I've come to the conclusion that Mrs. White
suffers from a certain psychological disorder. I
have an expert who's reviewed the case, and who
agrees with me."
"I see."
"Well, you will anyway. I just thought you might
like to know in advance," Metz says, and then he
hangs up.
Kenzie turns on her computer and waits for the
screen to spring to life. It makes her wince--
too much energy all at once. She begins
to type furiously, hoping that she will have a chance
to visit Faith before court is in session, hoping
that if there is indeed a heavenly being watching over
Faith, it can follow her into an ambulance, a
hospital, a new and safer home.
"I recommend that custody of Faith
White," she types, "be awarded to her
father."

KEEPING FAITH

FOURTEEN

He saved others; himself he cannot save.
--Matthew 2742

December 3, 1999--Morning
There had been times, when Faith was an infant
and Mariah was still slightly amazed to find a baby
sleeping beside her or nursing at her own breast, that
she'd be overwhelmed with terror. Years stretched
out in front of her like red roads on a map,
filled with hazards and errors. Faith's life,
at that point, was unmarked and unscarred. It was up
to Mariah to keep it that way.
It became clear to her quickly that this was a job
she could never adequately fill, not without feeling
deficient. How could she even be considered
remotely qualified to be a mother, knowing that she was
every bit as fallible as this baby was perfect? In the
stitch of a moment, anything could go wrong--an
earthquake, a viral flu, a pacifier
dropped into the gutter. She would look into her
daughter's face and see accidents waiting
to happen. And then her vision would clear and she would
see only love, a well so deep that you could
try and try and never know its bottom, but only
suck in your breath at its frightening depth.
Faith stirs in her sleep, and immediately
Mariah turns. Of its own volition, Faith's
bandaged hand twitches across the covers of the
hospital bed and burrows beneath Mariah's. At
the contact, Faith stops moving and relaxes again.
Suddenly Mariah wonders if moments like this
are what qualify you as a good parent: realizing that
no matter how you try, you will not be able to protect
a child from the tragedies or the missteps or the
nightmares. Maybe the job of a mother is not
to shelter but to bear witness as a child hits full
force ... and then to cushion the fall when it's
over.

Mariah's hands are pressed tight against her
mouth. She has to keep them that way, because if she
doesn't she will surely break into loud, hoarse
sobs or shout at one of the well-meaning nurses
to get away from her daughter.
"I don't understand," Millie says
quietly, standing with Mariah a few feet from
Faith's bed. "She's never been sick
like this before. Maybe it's a bug, something she
caught on top of the bleeding."
"It's not a bug," Mariah whispers.
"She's dying."
Millie looks up, startled. "What on
earth makes you say that?"
"Look at her."
Faith is pale against the hospital sheets.
Her hands, still oozing blood, are matted with
bandages that have not yet been changed. Her fever
has fluctuated from 104 to 106 degrees, no
matter how many tepid baths and alcohol washes
and grams of Tylenol and Advil she's been
given intravenously. Watching her makes
Mariah nervous. She finds herself staring at the
slight flare of Faith's nostrils, counting the
subtle rhythms of her chest.
Millie purses her mouth and walks from
Faith's room to the comparative quiet of the
front desk. "Has Colin White called?"
she asks, knowing that the phones in Faith's room
have been diverted to allow her to sleep.
"No, Mrs. Epstein," the nurse says.
"I'll come in the minute he does."
Instead of returning to Faith, Millie
moves down the corridor. There, she leans against
the wall and covers her face with her hands.
"Mrs. Epstein?"
She quickly wipes away tears to find Dr.
Blumberg standing before her. "Don't mind me,"
she sniffs.
They fall into step, slowing as they approach the
door to Faith's room. "Has there been any
change since last night?"
"Not that I can tell," Millie says,
pausing at the threshold. "I'm worried about
Mariah. Maybe you could say something."
Dr. Blumberg nods and enters the room.
Mariah lifts her eyes just enough to see the nurses
scatter. The physician pulls up a chair.
"How are you doing?"
"I'd rather talk about Faith," Mariah
answers.
"Well, I'm not sure what to do for her just
yet. You, though ... you want something to help you
sleep?"
"I want Faith to wake up and come home with
me," she says firmly, staring at the shell of
Faith's ear. There were times when Faith was a
baby that Mariah would watch the blood
coursing through the thin membrane of skin, thinking that
surely she could see the platelets and the cells,
the energy going to this tiny body.
Dr. Blumberg clasps his hands between his
knees. "I don't know what's the matter with
her, Mariah. I'll run more lab tests this
morning. And I'll do whatever I can to keep her
comfortable; you have my word on that."
Mariah stares at the doctor. "You want
to know what's the matter with her? She's dying. How
come I can see that, even without a medical
degree?"
"She's not dying. If that were the case, I'd
tell you."
Mariah focuses on Faith's face with a
passion, gazing at the blue smudges beneath her
eyes, the tiny slope of her nose. She leans
close, so close that only Faith will be able
to hear her words. "Don't you give up on me,"
she whispers. "Don't you dare. You didn't for
years and years. Don't you do it now."
"Mariah, honey, we've got to go to court."
Millie taps her wristwatch. "Ten o'clock."
"I'm not going."
"You don't have a choice."
Mariah turns so quickly her mother takes a
step back. "I'm not going. I'm not leaving
her." She touches Faith's cheek. "I do have a
choice."

The only concession that Joan Standish has
made to the fact that she'll be facing the infamous
Malcolm Metz in a courtroom is the addition
of fifteen minutes of butt exercises to her
daily routine. They come in between brushing her teeth
and drinking coffee, a brutal procession of
squats and lunges and lifts that leave her
clenched and sweating. She likes to picture
Metz while she does them, imagines him gaping
at her fanny after she wins the case and sashays
away down the hall of the superior court.
So on the morning of the custody hearing, she
does her exercises, showers, and then pulls a
red wool suit from her closet. It's
conservative, but it's bright, and she's willing
to use any trick she can to draw attention away
from Malcolm Metz.
Sometime during her bowl of Frosted
Mini-Wheats she remembers that she needs gas in
her car. Joan gives herself a mental
pat on the back for attention to detail; maybe
even at this very moment Metz is running ten
minutes late because he forgot to fill up. She
washes her hands carefully so as not to splatter her
suit and gathers up the briefcase she's packed
the night before.
She leaves twenty minutes ahead of
schedule, thinking it's good to be a little early, never
knowing that the phone in her house rings just moments after
she is gone.

Joan can feel the perfect cone of calm
she's erected around her professional self
crack the moment Millie Epstein comes running
toward her, clearly agitated. "Tell me
Mariah's in the bathroom," Joan says
warily.
"The hospital. I tried to call you."
"What?"
"It's not what you think," she explains.
"It's Faith. She's incredibly sick, and
Mariah refuses to leave her."
"Goddamn it," Joan mutters as
Malcolm Metz and Colin and a young female
associate approach the plaintiff's table of the
courtroom.
"Joan," Metz says pleasantly,
"I've got one for you: What's the difference between
a lawyer and a catfish?"
"Not now." Joan is vaguely aware that the
gallery of the court, usually deserted for custody
hearings, is now packed to the point of discomfort with
media representatives.
"One's a scum-sucking bottom feeder,"
Metz says, laughing, "and the other one's a fish.
Get it?"
"Speak for yourself, Malcolm," Joan says,
extracting files.
"All rise for the Honorable Judge A.
Warren Rothbottam!"
Joan stands, lifting her gaze at the last
possible moment. Judge Rothbottam flips
briefly through the file in front of him, then
glances from the plaintiff to the defendant. "Ms.
Standish. Are you missing something?"
"My client, Your Honor. May I
approach?"
Rothbottam sighs. "I just knew this one
couldn't go easy. Come on up."
Metz falls into place beside Joan,
looking like the cat that has swallowed the canary.
"Your Honor," Joan says, "there's been a
terrible emergency. My client's daughter was
hospitalized last night, and she won't leave
her bedside in order to be present in court. I
request a continuance until the girl is released
from the hospital."
"Hospitalized?" Rothbottam looks for
confirmation to Metz, who shrugs. "Is she
dying?"
"I don't believe so," Joan answers.
"It's my understanding that Faith is suffering from
medically inexplicable bleeding."
"So-called stigmata," Metz interjects.
"The doctors have not come to that conclusion yet,"
Joan snaps.
"Oh, that's right. It could be something worse."
Rothbottam scowls at him. "If I feel
that I need an interpreter, Mr. Metz, you'll
be the first one I call." Turning to Joan, he
says, "I assume the girl is in critical
condition?"
"I ... I think so, Your Honor."
"I see. However, the child's father managed
to make it to the courtroom; I expect the mother to do
the same. And don't think I can't see through some
"angel of mercy" device. My docket is
a nightmare until Christmas. I'm denying the
request for a continuance. You've got twenty
minutes to figure out how to get your client to come
to court, or I'm sending a sheriff out there to bring
her in locked up. We'll resume at
ten-thirty."
"Before she goes to find the defendant, Your
Honor," Metz interjects, "I need a
court order."
"Do you," the judge says dryly.
"Your Honor, time is of the essence here, and I
need a ruling this morning on an issue that might
make the difference between life and death for the girl."
"What the hell is this?" Joan says. "An
emergency hearing? Now?"
Metz bares his teeth at her. "That's why they
call it an emergency, Joan."
"That's it," Rothbottam announces. "I
want you two in chambers. Now."
Joan walks to the defense table to collect
her notepad. Seeing the judge leave, she
runs down the aisle to the door and beckons
Millie. As a sequestered witness,
she's not in the courtroom--but isn't allowed
to stray too far. "Do whatever it takes to get
her here," Joan hisses. "She'd better be in
court by the time I get out of chambers, or she'll
be dragged in by the police."
When Joan enters the judge's chambers,
Metz has already taken the comfortable chair.
Rothbottam waits for Joan to sit, too.
"Malcolm, what are you doing? This isn't
Manchester. This isn't New York City. This
isn't the three-ring circus you like to run your
dog-and-pony show in. This is New Canaan,
boy. Grandstanding isn't going to get you
jackshit."
"Your Honor, this isn't just a ploy for
positioning. I need a restraining order against
Mariah White, preventing her from visiting her
daughter."
Joan laughs. "Get over yourself,
Malcolm."
"Your Honor, I won't dignify that
outburst. I was concerned enough when the physical
damage to the child just involved Faith's hands, but the
situation's gotten worse--the child is in
critical condition at Connecticut Valley
Medical Center. We've taken the liberty of
contacting an expert, who's on his way here from the
West Coast as we speak, and who will explain why
Mariah White exhibits the classic
characteristics of a person suffering from Munchausen
Syndrome by Proxy--a mental illness that would
cause her to harm her own daughter."
Joan narrows her eyes, smelling a rat.
She's savvy enough to know that Metz wouldn't pull this
strategy out of a hat overnight. It's something
he's had lined up for a while, certainly long enough
for her to depose his expert. This surprise
witness is no surprise at all--at least not
to Metz.
But he is the picture of innocence and righteous
fervor. "It's a complicated disorder. The mother
actually makes a child physically or
psychologically ill to attract attention to herself.
If the child is left in the mother's care, well,
God only knows what might eventually happen.
Paralysis, coma, even death. Clearly, this
issue will weigh upon who gets custody of the child in
the long run, but for now, Your Honor, I beg
you to protect Faith by issuing a restraining order
against Mrs. White for the length of the
trial."
Joan waits for him to stop speaking, and then
bursts out laughing. "Are you going to let him get
away with this, Your Honor?"
Metz doesn't even spare her a glance.
"Just listen to the evidence, Your Honor.
Isolating the child from the mother is the way Munchausen
by Proxy is usually detected by mental-health
professionals. If the mother can't get to the child, the
child suddenly isn't sick all the time." He
leans forward. "What have you got to lose,
Judge? This is a win-win situation. If
Mariah White isn't suffering from Munchausen
by Proxy ... well, Faith's in the hospital
anyway, and in good hands. If Mrs. White
is suffering from it, then you've saved the kid's
life. How can it possibly hurt to have a
temporary order enforced until you've listened to the
testimony of my expert and drawn a conclusion of
your own?"
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."
"More-Us-Not--" 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 nailed to the
cross. 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 sighs. 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 na@ive 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 wanted 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?"
"Not since years ago, when she'd just been
released from Greenhaven. She was pretty
fragile back then, and taking care of herself was
hard enough, not to mention a newborn. But then things
got better, much better--or so I believed,"
Colin says.
"Do you feel you can provide a safer home for
Faith?"
"God, yes. We live in a wonderful
neighborhood, with a terrific backyard for her
to play in--and I wouldn't let the reporters
get to her. I'd nip the whole issue in the
bud, just so that she could have her childhood back."
"As a father, how do you feel about Faith's
situation?"
Colin's eyes meet Mariah's. His are
wide and honest and bright. "I'm worried about
her," he says. "I think her life is in
danger. And I think her mother is to blame."

Mariah tugs on Joan's sleeve before she
stands to do the cross-examination. "They think I
hurt Faith," she whispers, stunned. "They
think I'm doing this to her?"
Joan squeezes her client's hand. She's
coached Mariah to expect the worst, but
--like Mariah--she figured that would mean some
calculated barbs about her hospitalization, not
posing her as an abusive parent. Mariah's
late arrival at court prevented Joan from
warning her about Metz's strategy, and she is not
about to break the news to her client now, in the
middle of testimony, that the judge has
instructed Mariah to have no contact with Faith for the
duration of the trial. "Relax. Just let me do
my job." Joan stands, staring at Colin long and
hard, so that he knows just how reprehensible she
truly thinks he is. "Mr. White," she
says coolly, "you say your marriage was in
trouble."
"Yes."
"Yet you didn't talk about this with your wife,
because she was emotionally fragile."
"That's correct."
"Can you define "emotionally fragile" for
me?"
"Objection," Metz says. "My client
isn't a professional in the field of
psychology."
"Then he shouldn't have used the term in the first
place," Joan counters.
"I'll allow the question," the judge says.
Colin shifts in his chair, uncomfortable.
"She was in a mental institution seven years
ago, because she had suicidal tendencies."
"Ah, that's right. You said she tried to kill
herself."
Colin glances at Mariah. "Yes."
"She just tried to kill herself out of the blue?"
"No, she was very depressed at the time."
"I see. Was there any reason that she was
depressed?"
Colin nods shortly.
"I'm sorry, Mr. White. You're going
to have to speak up for the court stenographer."
"Yes."
Joan moves beside Mariah, so that the judge's
eye--not to mention the voracious gaze of the press
in the gallery--must fall on her as well.
"Maybe you could help us out by telling us the reason
she was depressed." Seeing the mutinous set of
Colin's jaw, she crosses her arms. "I can
ask you, Mr. White, or you can tell me."
"I was having an affair, and she found out."
"You were having an affair seven years ago, and
it made your wife depressed. And four
months ago, when you were having yet another
affair, you were worried that the discovery might make
her depressed again?"
"Correct."
"Was the only mistake you made in your
marriage these liaisons with other women?"
"I think so."
"Would it be correct to say that these two
incidents--four months ago and seven years ago
--were the only times in your marriage that you--how
did you put it?--that you felt a need to seek
solace."
"Yes."
"I guess, then, that the names Cynthia
Snow-Harding and Helen Xavier don't ring a
bell."
As Colin turns white as his shirt, Mariah
digs her nails into her thighs. Joan had warned
her this was coming, and yet she still feels like running out
of the room, or maybe up to the witness stand
to scratch his eyes out. How could Joan have so
quickly discovered something Mariah had not known for
years?
Because, Mariah thinks, she wanted to know. I
didn't.
"Isn't it true, Mr. White, that
Cynthia Snow-Harding and Helen Xavier are
two additional women with whom you had affairs?"
Colin glances toward Metz, fuming behind the
plaintiff's table. "I wouldn't say they were
affairs," he quickly responds. "They were very
brief ... connections."
Joan snorts. "Why don't we move
along?" she suggests. "When your wife,
Mariah, became severely depressed seven
years ago after finding out that you were having an affair
with another woman, you say she was
institutionalized."
"Yes. At the Greenhaven Institute."
"Did the people from Greenhaven just show up at your
door to get her?"
"No," Colin says. "I arranged to have her
sent there."
"Really?" Joan feigns shock. "Did you
try psychiatric counseling for Mariah first?"
"Well, briefly. It didn't seem to be
working."
"Did you ask the psychiatrist to have Mariah
put on medication?"
"I was more worried about what she--"
"Just answer the question, Mr. White," Joan
interrupts.
"No, I did not ask the psychiatrist that."
"Did you try to support her through this
crisis?"
"I did support her through it," Colin says
tightly. "I know it's easy to make me look
like the bad guy, the one who locked up his wife so
he could conveniently keep having an affair. But
I did what I felt was best for Mariah. I
loved my wife, but she was ... like a different
person, and I couldn't make the old Mariah come
back. You don't know until you've lived with
someone who's suicidal--how you keep obsessing
over the fact that you didn't see this coming, how you
blame yourself for the really bad days, how you panic
about keeping them safe. I could barely forgive
myself every time I looked at her, because--somehow--
I'd turned her into that. I wouldn't have been able
to handle it if she'd tried to kill herself again."
He looks into his lap. "It was already my
fault. I only wanted to do something right for a
change."
Mariah feels something turn over in her chest.
It is the first time she's truly considered that being
sent to Greenhaven might have hurt Colin as
well as herself.
"Did you take time off work to be home with
Mariah, so that you could keep watch over her for
safety's sake?" Joan asks.
"Briefly--but it scared the hell out of me.
I was afraid that if I turned my back for a
second, I'd lose her."
"Did you ask her mother, living in Arizona at
the time, to come stay with Mariah?"
"No," Colin admits. "I knew
Millie would think the worst. I didn't want
her to believe that Mariah wasn't improving."
"So instead you got a court order, and you had
Mariah institutionalized against her will?"
"She didn't know what she wanted at the time.
She couldn't drag herself out of bed to go to the
bathroom, much less tell me how to help her.
I did what I did for her own safety. I
listened to the doctors when they said that
round-the-clock supervision was best." His troubled
gaze meets Mariah's. "I am guilty of
many things, including stupidity and na@ivet`e. But
not of malicious behavior." He shakes his
head. "I just didn't know what else
to do."
"Hmm," Joan says. "Let's come back
to the present now. Seven years have passed, and your
wife catches you in the act again."
"Objection!"
"Sustained."
"After Mariah discovered you were having another
affair," Joan says smoothly, "you were
worried that she might become depressed again. So
rather than taking the time to talk it over, you just ran
off?"
"It wasn't like that. I'm not proud of what I
did, but I really needed to get myself together before I
took on anyone else's responsibilties."
"You weren't worried that Mariah might be a
little upset finding you in bed with another woman, just
like seven years ago?"
"Of course I was."
"Did you make an effort to get Mariah
psychiatric help?"
"No."
"Even though the last time this happened, she
became severely depressed?"
"I told you, I just wasn't thinking past myself
at that point."
"Yet you left your daughter with her," Joan
says.
"I honestly didn't think Mariah was going
to hurt her. I mean, for God's sake--she's
her mother. I assumed she'd be okay."
"You assumed Mariah would be emotionally stable in
spite of your behavior."
"Yes."
"And you assumed Faith would be fine in your
wife's custody."
"Yes."
"You asked no one to come to the house
to double-check; you called no doctor, no
social services, not even a neighbor."
"No. It was a mistake that I deeply
regret, and I'm ready to atone for my wrongs."
Joan briskly moves past the witness stand.
"We're all glad, I'm sure, that you're
ready. Now, let me see if I get this
straight. By your own admission, you assumed
incorrectly that Faith would be better off with your
ex-wife. Just like you assumed incorrectly that you
needed to get yourself settled before you could even think
about your daughter's welfare. Just like you assumed
incorrectly that your wife would be better
off in a mental institution than with a different form
of treatment for depression. Just like you assume
incorrectly today that you're the better parent here."
Before Colin can answer, Joan turns her
back on him. "Nothing further," she says.

Dr. Newton Orlitz loves the feel of a
witness stand. Something about the smooth wood beneath his
hands and the smell of furniture polish that always
lingers in a courtroom makes him blissfully
happy with his longtime job as a forensic
psychiatrist. He knows that most of the time his
opinion as a doctor appointed by the court is
repudiated by a private psychiatrist being paid
a hell of a lot of money to say something
contradictory, but it doesn't take away from his
pleasure. He not only believes in the justice
system, he is humbled to know he has a place
in it.
He likes to play games with himself on the stand,
too. Sometimes he watches the attorneys and
diagnoses them in his mind. As he sees
Malcolm Metz approach him for his
testimony, he thinks: megalomania,
clearly. Maybe even a God complex. He
imagines Metz dressed in a white robe,
sporting a long, ethereal beard, and he chuckles
to himself.
"Glad you're happy to be here, Dr.
Orlitz," Metz says. "Did you interview
Colin White?"
"Yes," Orlitz says, consulting his small
salt-and-pepper notebook, in which he's
recorded his observations for this particular case.
"I found him emotionally stable and perfectly
capable of providing a good, solid home for a young
child."
Metz smiles broadly, as well he should.
Orlitz knows not all attorneys get to hear
what they want when the court psychiatrist gives
his evaluation. "Did you also have the opportunity
to interview Mariah White?"
"I did."
"Could you tell us a little bit about her
psychiatric history?"
Orlitz thumbs through his notes. "She was
institutionalized at Greenhaven for four months,
for suicidal depression. While there, she received
psychotherapy and antidepressant medication. As
I'm sure you know, though, Mr.
Metz," he says, smiling blandly, "her
behaviors were a response to an extremely
stressful situation. This is how her mind happened
to cope with it. She thought she'd lost her husband,
and her marriage."
"In your expert opinion, Doctor, do you
think Mariah White might go through that sort of
psychological crisis again?"
Orlitz shrugs. "It's possible. She's
vulnerable to that type of reaction."
"I see. Is Mariah taking medication now,
Doctor?"
Orlitz runs his finger down the side of a
page. "Yes," he says, when he finds the
notation. "She's been taking twenty
milligrams of Prozac daily, for the past four
months."
Metz raises his brows. "When was this
prescribed?"
"August eleventh, initially. By a Dr.
Johansen."
"August eleventh. Do you happen to know what
day Colin White left?"
"I understand that it was August tenth."
"In your opinion, Dr. Orlitz, did
Mariah White obtain this medication because she could not
handle the stress of the current situation without it?"
"Most likely, but you should ask her private
psychiatrist."
Metz gives him a dirty look.
"Doctor, did you have an opportunity
to interview Faith?"
"I did."
"Did she appear to be a normal little
girl?"
"Normal," the doctor says, laughing, "is
a very relative term. Especially when you're
defining a child who's suffered through a traumatic
divorce."
"Does Faith seem to seek the approval of
her mother?"
"Yes, but that's a very common response after a
divorce. A child is so afraid the remaining
parent might leave, too, that she will do anything
necessary to keep her interest."
"Perhaps even imitate behavior?"
"Absolutely," Orlitz says. "A
parent might be consciously or unconsciously
enforcing the behavior, playing the child off the other
parent by pushing her to act a certain way
--so that the child, in effect, becomes a pawn. Some
experts refer to this post-divorce pattern as
"parental alienation syndrome.""
"Enforcing the child's behavior," Metz repeats.
"Interesting. I have nothing further."

Joan stands and buttons the front of her
suit jacket. She knows Metz well enough
to realize that he's laid the foundation for a future
witness. "Why don't we start with this issue of
enforced behavior?" she says. "Did Faith's
interview suggest to you that her, shall we say, more
extraordinary behavior of late was directly
motivated by her mother?"
"No."
"Thank you. Now, Doctor, you had a chance
to interview both of Faith's parents. And you said
that you found Colin White to be emotionally stable and
capable of providing a good home for a child. Did you
find Mariah White to be emotionally stable?"
"Yes, she's functioning well right now."
"Did you find her to currently be a good
parent?"
"Yes. Faith is very attached to her."
"Let's shift gears again, Doctor. How
many people in America, would you say, are on
prescription antidepressant medication?"
"I believe," Dr. Orlitz says,
"close to seventeen million."
"In what percentage of the cases do the drugs
work?"
"Well, if the patients stay on them for a
certain period of time and are in therapy, they're
effective in approximately eighty percent
of the cases."
"Does Prozac affect normal day-to-day
functioning?"
"No."
"Would it interfere with parenting capabilities?"
"No."
"Dr. Orlitz, did you speak to Faith about
the afternoon her father left?"
"Yes, I did."
"Did it affect her in any way?"
"She didn't understand the dynamics of the adult
relationships--which is a blessing, actually--but because of
that, she felt her father's subsequent absence
might have been her fault. She's going to need
therapy regarding that issue."
"How unfortunate," Joan says.
"So even though, in your opinion, Colin White
is a capable parent now, he did do something
once that hurt Faith."
"Yes."
"Did you find proof of anything Mariah has
ever done that in some way has hurt Faith?"
"No. She's been a stable, continuous thread for
Faith to cling to during a crisis."
"Thank you," Joan says, and turns to sit
down beside her client.

Judge Rothbottam announces there will be a
short break, and the reporters run out of the
courtroom to call their affiliates with updates.
Metz shepherds Colin out, and they disappear in a
crush of bodies. Mariah does not move from her
seat, but instead rests her head in her hands.
Joan touches her on the shoulder. "The reason
we're called the defense," she says, "is because
we fight when they're finished. It doesn't
matter what they say, Mariah, truly.
We're going to give it back in spades."
"I know," Mariah says, rubbing her
temples. "How long do we have?"
Joan smiles gently. "About long enough for a
bathroom break."
Mariah is out of her chair in a heartbeat;
anything to get away. She walks out of the
courtroom and sees a sea of faces. Her
gaze slides to Ian, who sits in the lobby
awaiting his turn as a witness, pretending he
does not know her.
It has to be like this; they have discussed it. But right
now, with her mother at Faith's bedside, Mariah
could have used a strong and solid ally.
She forces her eyes to move past Ian. It
takes all her self-control to walk past him
without glancing back, just to see if he's watching
her go.

Dr. DeSantis is a small, compact
woman with a cloud of black hair that bounces when
she speaks. She recites her impressive
background to the court, and then smiles at
Malcolm Metz. "Dr. DeSantis," he
says, "did you have a chance to interview Colin
White?"
"I certainly did. Mr. White is a
wonderful, caring, perfectly stable man who very much
wants his daughter to be in his life."
"Did you interview Mariah White?"
"No," the psychiatrist says. "She
declined the opportunity."
"I see. Did you have a chance to review Dr.
Johansen's findings on Mariah White?"
"Yes."
"What can you tell us about her psychological
health?"
"This woman has a history of severe
depression. Such a history places her at
high risk for future major episodes of
instability, and nobody can predict what will
trigger another one."
"Thank you, Doctor." Metz nods at
Joan. "Your witness."
Joan stands up, but doesn't bother to move
forward. "Dr. DeSantis, are you Colin
White's therapist?"
Beneath the cloud of hair, the psychiatrist
pinkens with indignation. "I was called in to consult
on his case."
"Isn't it true, Dr. DeSantis, that the
first and last time you met with Colin White was
October twenty-ninth, just two days after the
initial hearing on his motion to change custody?"
"I suppose so."
"Ah. Doctor, how many trials have you
testified in?"
"Over fifty," the psychiatrist says
proudly.
"How many of those fifty trials has
attorney Metz asked you to testify in?"
"Twenty-seven."
Joan nods thoughtfully. "In any of those
twenty-seven trials, Doctor, have you ever found
his client to be mentally deficient?"
"No," Dr. DeSantis says.
"So, just to recap, then: Mr. Metz has
hired you yet again, and--correct me if I'm
wrong, Dr. DeSantis--in your expert
opinion, you found his client to be perfectly
stable, and my client to be an emotional basket
case."
"I wouldn't use those terms--"
"Yes or no, Doctor?"
"I found Mr. Metz's client to be more stable
than yours, yes."
"Well," Joan says dryly. "What a
surprise."

The hospital chapel is a sad little room that
used to be a broom closet. There are six
pews, three on each side of a small podium
with a cross hanging overhead. The chapel is
nondenominational, but somehow this symbol of
Christian culture escaped notice. Father
MacReady is on his knees, his lips moving
silently in a paternoster while his heart sinks
lower and lower in his chest.
He tries to ignore the sound of the door
opening, but the creaking is phenomenally loud, and as a
man of the cloth, he feels duty-bound to offer
support to a grieving soul, if need be. He
gets to his feet, wipes off the knees of his
jeans, and turns around.
To his surprise, Rabbi Solomon is
staring at the cross as if it were a rattlesnake
poised to strike. "Interfaith, my foot."
"Rabbi," Father MacReady says.
They size each other up, never having met but
aware through the grapevine that they are both here in
support of Faith White.
Rabbi Solomon nods.
"Have you heard anything?"
"I went up to Pediatrics. They wouldn't
let me into the room. Something's going on."
"Something good?"
The rabbi shakes his head. "I don't think
so."
The two men stand in silence. "Don't Jews
need a minimum number of people to pray?"
MacReady asks after a moment.
Solomon grins. "It's not a minimum,
really. It's a minyan, ten men. It's the
smallest group you can have if you want to say some
particular prayers."
"Strength in numbers, eh?"
"Exactly," the rabbi says. And without saying
another word, the rabbi and priest sit down side
by side in the pew, and silently begin to pray
together.

"This is the situation," a smooth-faced young
doctor says to Millie. "Her renal
system's gone into failure. If we don't
put her on dialysis, she's likely
to poison her whole bloodstream."
Millie stares at this man for a moment,
uncomprehending. How can this boy, younger than
Mariah even, be telling her what they have
to do? For the past half hour Faith's room has
been buzzing with nurses and doctors and aides
ferrying in equipment that gleams bright and
unfamiliar, setting hooks and tubes and masks
on her granddaughter until she resembles nothing
more than an astronaut preparing to journey to an
unknown world.
Not for the first time, Millie wishes that it were her
mind, and not her heart, that had been cleared and
resurrected. She stares at Faith, willing
her to open her eyes, to smile, to tell them it
wasn't as serious as they all thought. Where, she
wonders, is your God now?
Just an hour ago, Mariah had called from the
courthouse, and Millie had been able to say that
everything was just the way it had been when she left.
How could so much have gone wrong so quickly? "I'm not
the one you should be asking," Millie hedges. "Her
mother ..."
"Is not here. If you don't sign the consent
form, this little girl will die."
Millie swipes her hand over her eyes, then
picks up the pen that he extends like a peace
pipe, and gives her permission.

Ian steps into the witness box, and there is a
moment of levity when the clerk of the court
approaches with the customary Bible. He laughs,
then good-naturedly looks up at the ceiling.
"Okay, y'all. Get ready for lightning
to strike."
Metz swaggers toward his witness. "Please
state your name and address for the record."
"Ian Fletcher, Brentwood,
California."
"What do you do for a living, Mr. Fletcher?"
"As I do sincerely hope everyone knows,
I'm a professional atheist. I currently
coproduce and star in a television show that
features my views. In addition, I'm the
author of three New York Times
nonfiction bestsellers. Come to think of it, I
had a cameo in a film once, too."
"Can you explain to the court what your television
show is like, for those who may not be familiar with it?"
"Well, my show's been described as the
anti-Billy Graham. I have a TV
pulpit, but I use it to prove God doesn't
exist, through theory and scientific inquiry."
"Do you believe in God, Mr.
Fletcher?"
"Kind of hard to when you're an atheist." There
are snickers from the gallery.
"For the past two months, what alleged
religious miracles have you been examining?"
Ian crosses one leg over the other. "A
bleeding statue over in Massachusetts, a
tree in Maine--and most lately, Faith
White."
"Why were you following that particular case?"
Ian shrugs. "She supposedly was seeing
God and performing miracles and exhibiting
stigmata. I intended to prove she was a hoax."
Metz moves in for his kill. "Mr.
Fletcher, can you tell us what you found?"
For a moment Ian looks at the attorney,
replaying in his mind the testimony he'd
practiced with Metz as recently as yesterday.
A long, slow smile transforms his face.
"To tell you the truth, Mr. Metz," he
says, "not a hell of a lot."
Metz, ready to throw his next question like a dart,
falters in his steps. "Pardon me?"
Ian leans closer to the microphone. "I
said, "not a hell of a lot."" He nods at
the stenographer. "Is that about right?"
The gallery begins buzzing and humming, picking
up on the disconnection between the plaintiff's
attorney and the famous witness.
"What you're saying," Metz paraphrases,
"is that you haven't seen a lot of these so-called
miracles."
"Objection," Joan calls out. "Leading."
"Sustained."
"Actually, Mr. Metz," Ian answers,
"what I'm saying is that I've found nothing
to support the theory that Faith White is a
charlatan."
Metz starts shaking; he wonders if it is
visible to the judge or to Joan Standish. He
remembers his first meeting with Fletcher, when
Fletcher had expressly said there was something big
about Faith White that he was keeping under wraps.
He recalls Fletcher's deposition--how the
man had pleaded the Fifth for every question. At the time
Metz had found it amusing, for all it rattled
Joan Standish. But now he sees that Ian
pleaded the Fifth because he knew, all along, that
he wasn't willing to perjure himself by refusing
to give testimony sworn in a
deposition. Whatever he promised Metz he'd
say in the confines of the law office was a lie--and
there is nothing at all Metz can do about it.
Fletcher could get up here and sing "The
Star-Spangled Banner" if he wanted, and as
long as his deposition couldn't be called into question, it
would not reflect badly on himself, but only on
Metz, who had underestimated his own witness.
Although it made him uneasy, Metz had been
willing to let Fletcher keep his big revelation
about Faith White to himself, just so long as he was
planning to offer up a few lesser ones for the
court. But this flat refusal to cooperate--it just
doesn't make any sense. "Surely you've
dug up something."
"Counselor, you wouldn't be asking me to lie,
now would you?"
Metz feels the vein in his temple throb.
He tries some different questions, questions they've
rehearsed, to see if Fletcher will fall back
into line. "Did you ever see Faith White perform
a miracle?"
Ian hesitates for a fraction of a second.
"Not precisely," he says.
"Where were you on the evening of October
thirteenth?"
"Parked on the White property."
"What happened that night, at about ten
P.m.?"
"I ran into Faith. Literally. She was in the
woods, after dark."
"Did her mother know she was outside?"
"No," Ian admits.
"What happened?"
"She was bleeding. She ... passed out, and I
carried her to the house. To her mother."
"Let me get this straight. The child was running
around in the dark, bleeding and nearly unconscious,
and her mother was unaware?"
Ian frowns. "Once I brought Faith
to Mrs. White, she was extremely
responsive. She took Faith to the hospital
for immediate medical attention."
"Is it possible that Faith White was running
away because her own mother had hurt her?"
"Objection!"
"Overruled," Judge Rothbottam says.
Ian shrugs. "I didn't see her mother do
that."
"But it is possible?"
"I didn't see you hurt Faith that night
either, Mr. Metz, but I guess it's possible
that you did."
Metz hesitates. He cannot figure out
Fletcher's game. They are on the same side
--both of them needing to show that the child is a fake--
even if they desire that proof for very different
reasons. "Can you give us other examples of
Mrs. White being an unfit parent?"
Ian furrows his brow, as if in deep
concentration. Then his expression clears, and he
smiles at Metz. "Nope. Matter of
fact, I've only seen evidence to the contrary.
In all the time I've been trying to discredit
Faith, Miz White has looked like she's doing
a pretty good job."
Ian's gaze floats over the gallery, coming
to rest on Mariah. You see? Then Ian
turns his attention back to Metz, to the
calculating gleam in the attorney's eyes.
"You say you spent two months investigating
Faith, and her mother?"
"That's about right."
"Can you tell us about some of these investigations?"
Ian steeples his hands together. "At the moment,
nothing specific comes to mind."
"How interesting," Metz says, "since you were
both on the passenger list of a plane en route
to Kansas City about a month ago." He enters
into evidence a piece of paper, an airline's
logo emblazoned on top.
Ian tries not to let his body betray him;
there has always been the very real possibility of
Metz's private investigators turning up a
paper trail. However, knowing the fact that a trip
is taken was a far cry from knowing why. The real question
here is how much Metz has uncovered.
"Maybe you can tell us what you learned on that
trip about Faith and Mariah White?"
Metz stares at Ian, willing him to tip his
hand, to admit that he'd tracked them to Kansas
City for investigation--and then to admit what he
found out.
"Huh," Ian says, feigning surprise.
"I didn't know they were on the flight. I was in
first class ... never even went into the back of the
plane." He grins at Metz ingenuously.
"Talk about coincidence."
"If you weren't on that flight specifically
to investigate Faith White, yet you
were, by your own admission, in the middle of an
ongoing investigation of her miraculous claims,
then what were you doing on that plane, Mr.
Fletcher?"
Ian's face is schooled into a blank
mask. "Visiting friends."
Metz is so close now that his words rain against
Ian. "What friends?"
"Objection, Your Honor," Joan says.
"I have no idea why, but Mr. Metz is
badgering his own witness."
"Yes, Mr. Metz," the judge agrees.
"Mr. Fletcher's answered your question."
Metz cannot glance at Fletcher again; he's not
sure he can trust himself to keep from strangling the
son of a bitch. "Nothing further," he grinds
out, sitting down beside Colin White.
"What the fuck was that?" Colin whispers.
Metz watches Joan whisper furiously
to her client. "That," he says, "was a sting."
"What the fuck was that?" Joan whispers.
Mariah says nothing, just pleats and unpleats
the fabric of her skirt. For a moment, when Ian
walked up to the witness stand, she could not breathe; she
wondered if, in spite of what Ian had said
to her these past few weeks, he'd been lying, if
he were going to play her for a fool.
"You knew," the attorney breathes. "Jesus
Christ."
"He wants to help me," Mariah says
quietly. "He didn't think you should know
beforehand."
Joan stares at her for a beat. "Then tell
me now: How far is he willing to go?"

When Ian looks at Joan, a current
passes between them, a bond forged of common
purpose. "You say you spent some time
investigating Mariah?" she asks.
"Yes."
"You've seen Mariah being a good mother."
"Yes."
"Can you tell me about that?"
Ian leans forward in the witness stand. "I have
never seen a woman so protective of a child,
ma'am. Miz White has done her best
to shelter Faith from the media, from the religious
zealots on the property, and even from me. As
Mr. Metz just pointed out, she
attempted to take her daughter away from the whole
affair by apparently running off to Kansas
City. When I accompanied her to the hospital
with her daughter, the time Faith's hands started
bleeding, she didn't leave that girl's side for a
moment. I have to confess that when I came to New
Canaan I was expecting to see some kind of
harridan--a woman who was trying to get attention
by setting her own kid up as some kind of
religious miracle worker. But the facts just
didn't add up. Miz White's a good
woman, a good mother."
"Objection!" Metz shouts.
"Grounds?" the judge asks.
"Well ... he's my witness!"
"Overruled." Rothbottam nods at Ian.
"Please continue, Mr. Fletcher."
"I was just going to add that when I was growing up in
Georgia, I was told never to come between a mama
bear and her cub, because the mama would tear through
anything--including you--to get to her baby.
Course, even back then I didn't listen
to what I was supposed to believe. Sure enough,
when I was about eight years old I got 'tween
a mama bear and her little one, and spent three
hours in a tree until she lost interest in
punishing me. But I've never forgotten the look
in that animal's eyes--there was just something in them that
made me realize I was a fool to cross her.
And thirty years later, I've seen the same
kind of conviction written all over the face of
Mariah White."
Joan tries not to smile. First and foremost,
Ian Fletcher is an actor. He knows how
to sell a line. "Thank you, Mr. Fletcher."
Then she grins. "And thank you, Mr. Metz.
Nothing further."

At one thirty-five, Faith opens her
eyes for the first time in twelve hours. The
nurse's back is to her, so it takes a moment
for the monitors to make her realize the girl is
conscious. "Don't fight it, honey," she
says, as Faith begins gulping for air. "You've
got a tube down your throat." She pages
Dr. Blumberg and the pediatric surgeon on
call. "Just breathe," she instructs.
But Faith continues to round her mouth and flatten
it, in what looks like a gasp for breath, but what
is actually the word "Mom."

"Mr. Metz," the judge continues. "Your
next witness?"
Metz lifts his head. "Your Honor, may
I approach?" Joan walks beside him, gearing
up for the fight she knows is about to happen--the
battle over the expert Metz mentioned that
morning. "I need to call a witness who isn't
on the list."
"I've already stated my objection to this witness,
Your Honor," Joan says immediately. "I had
no knowledge of this alleged expert of Mr. Metz's,
and I need time to research this ridiculous
psychological syndrome he's found buried in
the Encyclopaedia Britannica."
"I'm not talking about the Munchausen expert,"
Metz answers impatiently. "This is someone
else. And as a matter of fact, he's not
sequestered. He happens to be in the
courtroom."
Joan's mouth drops open. "Why did you
even bother giving me a witness list?"
"Look, Ian Fletcher was an
unexpectedly hostile witness, and I didn't
cover what I was supposed to during his
testimony."
The judge turns to Joan. "How do you feel
about this?"
"No way, Your Honor."
Metz smiles at her, silently mouthing,
"Appeal issue."
Joan sets her jaw and shrugs. "Fine,
then. Go ahead."
Metz walks away, satisfied. This next
witness will paint Fletcher as a liar--putting
into question his entire testimony and his inexplicable
championing of Mariah. At the very least, after this,
Metz will have negated whatever unexpected
damage Fletcher's done to his case.
"The plaintiff would like to call Allen
McManus to the stand."
There is a flurry of confusion in the gallery as
the reporters shift to let one of their own move from
his seat to the witness stand. McManus
hesitantly walks toward the clerk of the court,
clearly surprised, as he lets himself be led through
the swearing-in.
Metz silently blesses Lacey
Rodriguez for once again turning up more information
than he'd expected to use--information that
most people weren't even aware existed, such as
long-distance service provider's logs of incoming
and outgoing phone calls at office buildings.
"Could you state your name and address for the
record?"
"Allen McManus," the witness says.
"Two-four-seven-eight Massachusetts
Avenue, Boston."
"Where do you work, Mr. McManus?"
"I'm an obituary editor for the Globe."
Metz clasps his hands behind his back. "How
did you first hear about Faith White?"
"I, uh, was assigned to cover a
psychiatric symposium in Boston. And a
lady psychiatrist was talking about one of her
cases, a little girl who was talking to God. At
that time, though, I didn't know the little girl was
Faith White."
"How did you find out?"
"I was at the office, and I got this fax about
a dead woman who'd come back to life after her
granddaughter had worked a miracle. Turns out it
happened in the same town where this lady
psychiatrist practices. And then the phone
rings, and it's this anonymous call telling me
to think about who would benefit by having the kid be
considered some kind of healer."
"What did you do after that call?"
McManus lifts his chin. "I've tucked a
lot of years of investigative reporting under my
belt, so I figured I'd dig into it. I did
a little research on the kid's mother." He smiles
widely. "I was the one who broke the story that
Mariah White was institutionalized for four
months."
"Was it unusual for you to receive that anonymous
phone call?"
Allen tugs at the collar of his shirt.
"Well, working obits, I don't get Deep
Throat calls very often. At the Globe we have
Caller ID, so I copied it down, just in
case I needed to get back in touch."
"What was the number, Mr. McManus?"
"I can't reveal a source, sir."
The judge frowns, as the press corps in the
gallery murmur their respect. "You can and you will,
Mr. McManus, or I'll hold you in
contempt of court."
Allen is quiet for a moment, considering his
options. Then he digs into his pocket
for a small notebook and flips through several
pages. "Three-one-zero, two-eight-eight,
three-three-six-six."
"Did you ever have it traced?"
"Yes."
Malcolm Metz walks in front of the
defendant's bench and turns toward Mariah.
"Mr. McManus, whose number was it?"
The judge clears his throat, a warning, but there
is no need. By now McManus is staring at one
man, his eyes narrowed as he remembers a past
indignity. "It's a personal cell phone,"
he says. "Registered to Ian Fletcher."

The minute Allen McManus takes the stand,
Ian feels himself rooted to his seat, unable
to move and equally sure that staying is the worst
possible thing he can do. How could he have
underestimated Metz? Now Ian sits two rows
behind Mariah, watching her shoulders stiffen as she
discovers that Ian was responsible for the slanderous
story published about her. I should have told
her, he thinks. If I had told her, she
would have forgiven me.
He wishes she would turn to him. He wishes
he could see her face.
Just moments ago, when he was excused from the
witness stand, he walked past her and winked. Her
entire face was glowing, as luminous as the moon.
Now it is pale, her eyes standing out like
bruises, deliberately fixed away from him.
He finds himself staring at Mariah the way one
cannot help but watch a building collapse or a
fire burn out, committed to the tragedy. He
does not blink when she covers her face with her
hands, when the cries come.

Joan spends thirty seconds trying
to console her client, something that has never been her
forte. Then she stands, vibrating with anger. If this
were a jury trial, it would be totally different.
She could do her cross of McManus and somehow
plant doubt that Ian was holding his phone at the
time the call was placed. It could have been an
intern, it could have been stolen--who the hell knows
what the possibilities are? A judge, though,
will have already weighed the possibility of whether or not
Ian Fletcher was actually using his own phone
to call Allen McManus. And--like everyone
else--will have concluded that Ian is
guilty of several counts of betrayal.
"You work at the Globe?" she barks out.
"Yes."
"How long have you worked there?"
"Six years."
"What's your training?"
"I went to the Columbia School of
Journalism and worked at The Miami
Herald as a stringer before coming to the Globe."
"Who assigned you to this particular case?"
"The special-events editor, Uwe
Terenbaum. He sometimes asks me to cover
symposiums and conferences if obits aren't too
busy."
Joan moves back and forth in front of him,
like the shuttle of a loom. McManus's eyes
follow her, dizzy. She does not know what she
can get out of this worm, but she has a hunch that his
ego is an Achilles' heel. And the stupider
she makes him look, the better. "Do you think
you're a good reporter, Mr. McManus?"
For a moment, Allen preens. "I like to think
so."
"Do you have a good reputation among your
colleagues?"
"Sure."
"Were you assigned to this case because you're one
of the Globe's best reporters?"
"Probably," he says, seemingly growing
taller in the chair.
"You must have felt pretty good when you traced that
number back to Ian Fletcher."
"Well, yeah," Allen admits. "I mean,
he's certainly a household name."
Joan drums her fingertips on the railing of the
stand. "Did you talk to Mr. Fletcher after you
found out that it was his number?"
"I tried, but--"
"Yes or no?"
"No," he says.
"You simply took his tip and ran with it."
"Yes."
"You went to Greenhaven?"
"Yeah," Allen says.
"Where you were able to get Mariah White's
file?"
"No. I got a doctor to confirm that she had
been in the hospital."
"I see. Was he Mariah's doctor?"
"Well, no--"
"Did he treat Mariah at all when she was
at Greenhaven?"
"No."
"Did he know particulars about her case?"
"He knew the essentials."
"That wasn't my question, Mr. McManus."
Joan's brows draw together. "Did you find out
during your thorough investigations that Mariah was
placed in Greenhaven involuntarily by her
husband?"
"Um, no ..."
"Did you find out that she was not given the
opportunity to pursue other treatment
alternatives for depression before being
institutionalized?"
"No."
"Did you find out that because her husband was running
around screwing other women, Mariah White had
what's colloquially called a nervous
breakdown?"
"No," the reporter murmurs.
"Did you find out that that was the reason she was
suicidal?" Joan regards McManus
steadily. "You didn't find out the basic
facts, Mr. McManus. You didn't find out
anything at all. So what makes you think you're
such a great investigative reporter?"
"Objection!"
"Withdrawn," Joan says, but by then she does
not care.

When it becomes clear that Mariah cannot stop
crying, the judge suggests an hourlong recess.
Before the press has even managed to get out of their
seats, Joan whisks Mariah out of the courtroom
and down the hall that leads to the bathroom. Once
they are inside, Joan holds the door shut so
that no one will intrude. "Mariah, Fletcher's
testimony wasn't that damaging. Not even the
newspaper article. Really. By the time we get
onto the stand, no one's going to remember." When
Mariah does not answer, Joan suddenly
understands. "It's not what he said," she murmurs.
"It's that he said it at all. That's how you knew
he was going to cross Metz on the stand. Jesus,
you're in love with him."
"It's not as simple as that--"
"It hardly ever is!"
Mariah waves her away. "Right now, I just
think I need to be by myself."
The attorney eyes her carefully. "I
don't know if that's such a good idea."
"Afraid I might have a razor blade up
my sleeve?" Mariah says bitterly. "Is
the testimony of the morning getting to you?"
"I didn't mean that. I--"
"It's all right, Joan. Please."
The attorney nods and exits the bathroom.
Mariah stands in front of the sinks and gazes into the
mirror. Her eyes are puffy and red; her nose
is running. Beside her, in the reflection of the towel
dispenser, is a distorted view of this mirror, so
that her ravaged face is repeated over and over.
She should have known better. Maybe what Metz
has been suggesting is the truth: that once you have
experienced pain, it knows your address. It comes
to prey upon you in the middle of the night, sneaking up
when you least expect it and leveling you before you have a
chance to fight.
Ian must have laughed at her, at finding such an
easy target. How could she have believed that his
interest in her was anything more than a ploy to get
closer to Faith?
Those remarkable nights with him, those words that had
cast a spell and turned her into someone she has
always wanted to be--to Ian, they were just words, just
nights. All in the line of duty.
With tremendous resolve she forces herself
to look in the mirror again. She will get a grip
on herself and she will march back into that courtroom.
She will say everything that she and Joan rehearsed.
She simply must keep custody of her daughter.
She doesn't have anything else.
When she exits the bathroom, she is
expecting a crowd of reporters and
photographers, waiting to glimpse some sign of
her distress in an area of the courthouse where their
cameras are sanctioned. But the only person standing
there is Ian.
"Mariah," he begins, coming toward her.
She pushes past him. The contact of her
shoulder with his upper arm almost brings her to tears
again.
"I didn't know back then. I didn't know
what you were like."
Mariah stops, turns, and fixes her gaze
on his face. "That makes two of us," she
says.

Joan is about to enter the courtroom
again when she feels a hand grab her shoulder and
draw her to the side. "Don't say anything,"
Ian warns when she immediately opens her mouth.
"Ah, if it isn't James Bond. If
you'd told me you were going to play double agent, we
might have been able to avoid this McManus
crap."
"My apologies."
Joan crosses her arms. "I'm not the one
who's crying her heart out."
"I tried to make her understand that the Globe
story came before we ... well, before. She
won't listen to me."
"Can't say I blame her." She glances
toward the courtroom, beginning to fill. "Look,
I'll talk to Mariah later. I can't help you
right now--"
"Actually," Ian interrupts, "you can."

Joan and Metz approach the bench. "Your
Honor," he says, "I've gone through all my
witnesses except for the psychiatrist I mentioned
at this morning's emergency hearing."
"Judge," Joan adds, "as I mentioned
earlier today, I don't know Munchausen
Syndrome from tennis elbow. I need time
to prepare a rebuttal to Mr. Metz's
ridiculous theory about my client. Moreover,
this is the second witness Mr. Metz has
pulled out of a hat; Allen McManus's name,
astoundingly, didn't manage to make it to the
witness list either." She glances at the other
attorney. "If Mr. Metz wants to put his
psychiatrist on the stand, I want to recall
Ian Fletcher."
"No way. The whole point of putting Allen
McManus on was to illustrate how Ian
Fletcher was lying during my direct, Your
Honor. Having him questioned by the defense again is
only going to be confusing," Metz says.
"I think I'll be able to keep it straight in
my head," the judge says dryly. He
addresses the gallery. "Mr. Fletcher, would you
mind taking the stand again?"
Ian climbs onto the witness stand in silence.
Joan watches him carefully, hoping this is going
to work the way Ian thinks it is. She is not doing
it, really, to further the case. She is doing it as
a gift for her client. And as Ian pointed out
correctly, since Mariah has not
yet testified, getting her back together again is
clearly in the best interests of the case.
Joan walks toward Mariah and squeezes
her arm. "Sit up and listen," she whispers, then
approaches the witness stand. "Mr. Fletcher,
when did you call Mr. McManus?"
"In early October."
"Why did you call him?" Her questions are
clipped, tight. To observers, she appears
angry with Ian ... and rightfully so.
"I wanted to disprove Faith White's
claims. It would have meant a huge ratings coup
for my show. I didn't know Faith, or her mother,
from Adam." He spreads his hands. "I've
given anonymous tips before. It looks better
when other people create the rift at first, and I step
in to peel back the layers and expose the fraud.
McManus seemed to be a halfway decent
reporter, and I thought he might be able to help."
"It sounds very underhanded."
"It's part of being a journalist," Ian
says, "and my job involves that from time to time.
On occasion I get anonymous tips; on
occasion I hand them out. Reporters often do this for
each other." He glances at McManus.
"Sometimes we even serve as those sources that other
journalists refuse to reveal. I meant no
harm to Miz White, because I wasn't thinking of
her then. I was only thinking of exposing her
daughter, no matter what it took."
"What's different now?" Joan asks.
"Now I know her," Ian says softly.
Joan glances from her client to Ian, holding
her breath. "Nothing further."
Metz is already on his feet to redirect.
"You couldn't find anything? Not one measly bit of
dirt on Faith White?"
"I postponed my digging," Ian answers, his
eyes steely.
"Are you implying that Faith White's visions
are real?"
He thinks carefully about his answer. "I'm
implying that Faith White is one extraordinary
little girl, and that I don't think she's
deliberately lying."
"But, Mr. Fletcher, you've said repeatedly
that you're an atheist. Does this mean you now
believe in God?"
Ian freezes. He realizes what Metz
has done to him: He cannot get
into Mariah's good graces again unless he ruins
himself completely. If he admits that Faith is
a miracle worker, the attorney will press for
proof, and Ian doesn't care to divulge
information about the private joy of his twin brother's
few lucid moments. He glances at Mariah,
who is staring at him, waiting for his answer.
I'm sorry, he thinks.
"Mr. Fletcher? Do you believe in God?"
Ian raises his brows and adopts the charming
mask of his television persona. "The jury's still
out on that one," he says, playing into the hands of his
audience, watching their grinning faces, instead of the
one that matters most.

Joan asks for a short recess. Mariah is
remarkably controlled, if incredibly quiet,
and for some reason this scares Joan even more than an
out-and-out tantrum. "I can try for a continuance. I
can tell the judge you're sick."
"I only want an hour. I have to see
Faith," she explains. "It's been all day."
Until that moment, Joan has forgotten the
restraining order signed that morning. In the confusion
of the testimonies, she still hasn't had a chance
to tell Mariah about it. "You can't."
"But if you ask the judge ..."
"You can't go now, and you can't go later. Judge
Rothbottam signed a restraining order to keep
you away from Faith for the duration of the trial."
It starts like a slow-motion avalanche, the
gradual disintegration of Mariah's calm.
"Why?"
"If she gets better when you're kept
away, Metz will use it as evidence."
"Because I'm not there? Because I left when she
needed me the most?"
"No, Mariah. He's got an expert
testifying, who'll say that when you were separated
by force, you weren't able to make Faith
hallucinate or bleed."
She covers her mouth with her hand and turns
away. "What do they think of me?"
Joan frowns, not liking the direction of her
own thoughts. Mariah had kept silent about Ian
Fletcher's testimony for Metz; what else
might she be hiding? "They think," she says, "that
eventually you'll kill her."

FIFTEEN

Children are the anchors that hold a mother to life.
--Sophocles,
Phaedra

It takes several long seconds before
Joan's words sink in. "Are you kidding?" I
finally manage. It is laughable, really,
except that the whole thing makes me want to cry.
"They think I'm going to kill my own daughter?"
"Malcolm Metz is painting you as an
emotionally unstable woman in a crisis.
Supposedly he's got some expert who's going
to testify about other mothers who have done the same thing.
There's a name for it--Munchausen Syndrome
by Proxy."
A crisis. How much, after all, am I
supposed to bear? My daughter is
hospitalized. The man I've fallen in love
with has been lying to me. The man I used to love
thinks I'm capable of killing our child.
"It's not true," I say firmly. "Can't
you make them see that?"
"I'm gonna try. But Metz is allowed
to say anything he wants to. If it strikes his
fancy, he can build a case around the idea that
you're programming Faith's behavior with
voodoo dolls. Whether or not it's the truth
doesn't matter. The important thing is that we
can get up when he's done and make the judge
realize what a load of bullshit he's been
handed." She sighs. "Look. You've got a
weak spot. You were in a mental hospital. If
I were in Metz's position, I'd probably be
running with that particular play, too."
"Joan," I say shakily, "I've got
to be able to see my daughter."
The pity in her eyes almost sends me over the
edge.
"I'll call the hospital for you and find out
how she's doing."
I know she is trying to give me hope, but it
slips through my grasp like sand.
"We're going to get Faith back home with
you."
For her sake, I nod and manage a smile.
But I do not say what I truly think: that a
custody battle means nothing at all if the child
is dead.

When Joan walks back into the courtroom,
she feels as if she's just finished climbing Mount
Washington. There's nothing like reducing your client
to emotional Jell-O before you need her to be
coherent on the stand. She glares at Metz with
all the horrible thoughts that are on her mind,
praying for a brief moment of psychic connection.
He's leaning over the gallery railing, speaking
to a smaller, slighter, carbon copy of himself who
could only be another underling from his office.
He turns as the judge enters and summons
counsel to the bench. "Well, Mr. Metz, as
I recall, we agreed to rendezvous about now.
I assume that you're ready to put on your expert
witness?"
Before he can answer, Joan interrupts.
"Excuse me, Your Honor, but I have to raise
an objection once again. My client was just told
that she can't see her daughter for the duration of the
trial, and, frankly, she's a basket case.
It's three o'clock in the afternoon, and since I don't
have the same army of human resources available
to me that Mr. Metz does at his big-city
firm, I still have not had a chance to research
Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy. I don't
know this expert, I don't know his credentials, and
I certainly don't know about this esoteric
disorder. Out of fairness, if you're going to allow
Mr. Metz to put on his witness, I feel that
I ought to have at least the weekend to prepare my
cross."
Metz nods. "I agree. In fact, I
recommend that we break for the day, if it pleases
Your Honor, so that Ms. Standish has the rest
of the afternoon to begin her research."
"You do?" Joan says, surprised.
Judge Rothbottam frowns. "Hang on a
second. You were too fired up this morning for an
about-face. What's the problem, Mr. Metz?"
"My witness has apparently tried several
times to interview Faith White today, which of course
would be germane to his testimony, but she is too
incapacitated to speak to him." He smiles,
conciliatory, at Joan. "It turns out that
I'm going to need a little more time, too."
"Too damn bad," the judge says. "You
jumped in the water, you're going to swim. As you
pointed out, it's three. I have supreme faith that
you'll be able to keep your expert on the stand for an
hour reciting credentials. We'll
get through whatever you can, and pick up on Monday.
Your doctor will have a chance to talk to the girl this
weekend." He turns to Joan. "And by then, I
assume, you'll have a cross-examination
prepared."
"Yes, Your Honor."
"Marvelous." He looks at Metz.
"Call your witness."

Metz's expert psychologist, Dr.
Celestine Birch, clearly resembles the tree
that shares his surname. Tall and cadaverously thin,
pale as the silver bark, he sits on the stand
stiffly with the air of supreme confidence that comes when
you know you are outstanding in your field.
"Where did you go to school, Doctor?"
"I attended Harvard University, then
Yale Medical School. I did my
residency at UCLA Medical Center and
practiced for ten years at Mount Sinai in
New York City before setting up my own
private practice back in California.
I've been practicing there for eleven years."
"What is your major field of practice?"
"I deal mostly with children."
Metz nods. "Are you familiar, Doctor,
with a psychiatric disorder called Factitious
Disorder by Proxy?"
"Yes, in fact I'm considered one of the top
three specialists in the nation on the disorder."
"Could you describe it for us?"
"Certainly," Birch says. "According to the
American Psychiatric Association's
DSM-IV, Factitious Disorder by Proxy
is a rare disorder in which a person deliberately
produces physical or psychological
symptoms in another person under his or her
care." The psychiatrist begins to warm to his
subject. "Basically, it involves one person
making another look or feel sick. It's often
called Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy--or
MSP--AFTER Baron von Munchausen, an
eighteenth-century mercenary who became famous for
his exaggerated tales.
"The majority of victims of Munchausen
by Proxy are children. Most often, a mother
artificially creates or exaggerates symptoms
in a child, and then presents the child for medical care
claiming to have no knowledge about the etiology of the problem.
The theory of mental-health
professionals is that these women do not want
to inflict pain on a child, but to indirectly
assume the role of the sick person--by getting
sympathy from doctors whom they encounter when they
bring in the ailing child."
"Whoa," Metz says. "Let's take this a
little more slowly. You're saying that the mother makes her
own kid sick, just to get attention?"
"That's exactly what it boils down to,
Mr. Metz. And making a child sick would be the
simpler end of the spectrum. Some mothers
contaminate urine samples with blood, create
leaks in an IV, or suffocate newborns.
Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy is considered
a form of child abuse, and there's a nine-percent
mortality rate."
"These mothers kill their children?"
"Sometimes," Dr. Birch says. "Unless they
can be stopped."
"What are some of the ailments produced by these
mothers?"
"Bleeding presents in forty-four percent of
MSP cases. Then seizures, forty-two
percent. Followed by central-nervous-system
depression, apnea, and gastrointestinal
disorders. Not to mention psychological
symptoms."
"Can you tell us what might trigger this
behavior in a mother?"
The doctor shifts in his chair. "Remember,
this isn't going to happen to ninety-nine percent of
mothers--it's not like a flu virus you come down with.
These women are disturbed. Often it's triggered
by life stressors--marital conflict,
divorce. Perpetrators may have a history of
being abused themselves, and they often have some exposure
to medical communities, so they know the ins and outs
and the lingo. They need--no, they crave support
and attention. To them, being sick is a way of being
loved and cared for."
"You said psychological symptoms can be
produced in a child, too? Can you explain?"
"By symptoms, I mean hallucinations or
delusions; memory loss or amnesia; or
conversion symptoms, like pseudoblness. It's
harder to understand how a mother can "fake" them in a
child, but basically it involves the mother
selectively reinforcing maladaptive
behavior. For example, she may provide
tremendous nurturing when the child reports
a vivid dream and ignore or harm a child when the
child is acting perfectly normal. Eventually, the
child will learn to give her mother what she wants, so
to speak."
"Would it make a difference if that child had only
one parent living with her?"
"Absolutely," Birch says. "In
fact, it makes parental approval that much more
integral."
"So an alleged vision is something that might be
reinforced in MSP?"
"Yes, although you'd be more likely to find
delusions and hallucinations reinforced in a child if the
mother has had some personal experience with either
delusions or hallucinations."
"Such as a mother who spent time in a mental
institution?"
Dr. Birch nods. "Entirely consistent."
"Doctor, what happens if the mother is
confronted with her behavior?"
"Well, they lie and say they're not doing it.
In rare cases, the mother may honestly be unaware
of her behavior, because she's unconsciously
harming the child during a dissociation that occurs as a
result of earlier trauma."
"You mean that you could ask these women flat-out if
they're hurting their children, and they'll tell you no?"
"They'll all tell you no," Birch says.
"It's part of the symptomatology for this disorder."
"So a woman who seems shocked, confused,
even righteously angry when confronted with this
behavior--a woman with no memory of harming her
child--might still have done it?"
"That's correct."
"I see," Metz says slowly. "How do you
diagnose MSP, Doctor?"
Dr. Birch sighs. "Carefully, Mr.
Metz, and not often enough. Remember, the ones with the
presenting symptoms are the children--and they're not
going to tell you what's happening, because it's what
buys the mother's love. Parents are the primary
informants for doctors, who assume their honest
report of a child's illness. But most physicians
don't make the mental leap and move from trying
to diagnose the child to diagnosing the parent.
"Moreover, these mothers don't exactly have
scarlet letters on their chests. They deny harming the
child and ironically look rather attentive to the child. One
way a health-care provider can be tipped off
to MSP is to see a long, complicated
medical history. Or a description of
symptoms that's almost too textbook. Or, in
the case of psychological symptoms, to discover
that administering drugs doesn't help a whit
... since these children of course are not truly
psychotic." Birch leans back. "But the only
conclusive way to diagnose MSP is to catch
the mother in the act--with video cameras rigged in
hospital rooms--or to remove the child from the
mother's care. Presumably, if it's
Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy, the acute
illness will remit once the child is taken away."
"Doctor, have you seen Faith White?"
"No, but not for want of trying. I tried
to get access to her hospital room three times
today but was told she was too ill to speak to me."
"Have you interviewed Mariah White?"
"No, I've reviewed information on her
institutionalization and her current mental health."
"Does Mariah White fit the profile of a
perpetrator of MSP?"
"In many ways. The behaviors in her child
ensued after a period of great personal stress.
Mrs. White has seemed a concerned parent,
taking her daughter for psychiatric treatment--which,
note, did not respond to drug therapy--and to the
emergency room. And perhaps what is most telling,
in this case, is the choice of stigmata as a
presenting ailment. Bleeding is easy to produce
in a victim, yet stigmata are fairly
brilliant. It has to be a symptom with a
textbook description, because there aren't any
chronicled cases. What physician can say that
the child's not a stigmatic, when he's never seen one
in his life?"
"Is that all, Doctor?"
"No. Mrs. White also has a history of
mental-health problems. As a result of
marital stress, she attempted to commit
suicide--and suddenly a hundred doctors and
nurses were there for her support. On some level
she equates being loved and taken care ofwith
attention from health-care personnel. Which could
explain why, when a similar marital stress
occurred, she began to make her child sick. Every time
she brings Faith in to be treated, Mrs. White
herself, by proxy, receives the attention she got seven
years ago from doctors and psychiatrists."
"Could she be hurting her daughter and not know it?"
Metz asks.
The doctor shrugs. "Not having examined her,
it's difficult to say. But it's possible.
Mrs. White suffered from severe depression before,
and the shock of finding her husband involved in another
extramarital affair might be enough to cause a
dissociative break. Rather than face the pain all
over again, she absents herself mentally. It's during
these episodes that she feels most neglected, and
therefore it's during these episodes that she harms her
daughter."
"What do you imagine would happen if you
confronted Mrs. White with this behavior?"
"She'd flatly deny it. She'd be very upset
that I would accuse her of something so heinous. She'd
tell me that she loves her daughter and only
wants her to be healthy."
Metz stops at the defense table. "Dr.
Birch, as you know, Faith is in the hospital.
If her mother were allowed no contact with her for a
period of time, what would you expect to happen?"
The psychiatrist sighs. "I wouldn't be at
all surprised to see Faith White bounce
back to health."

December 3, 1999--Late Afternoon
After the court empties, Joan and I are
left sitting alone. "What are you going to do
now?" she asks.
"I'm not going to go to the hospital, if that's
what you mean."
"It wasn't. I just ... well, I didn't
know if you had other plans."
I smile at her. "I was thinking of going
home, taking a hot bath, and then sticking my
head in a gas oven."
"Not funny." She touches my arm. "Do you
want me to call Dr. Johansen for you? I'm
sure, given the circumstances, he could squeeze
you in for an appointment, just to talk."
"No. Thanks."
"Then let's go out for a drink."
"Joan," I say, "I appreciate this.
But I don't feel like having company right now."
"Well, I'm going to go to the hospital
to check on Faith. I'll fill your mother in on
the court order and ask her to call you at home."
I thank Joan and tell her I'm going
to sit for another moment, and then I listen to her
heels click down the long aisle of the
courtroom. Resting my head on the
table, I close my eyes. I try very hard
to picture Faith. If I do, maybe she will
know that I'm here, thinking of her.
When the custodian comes in with the machine that buffs
the floor, I leave, surprised to find a
bustle of activity in the hallways and lobby of the
courthouse. Just because our hearing is finished for the day
does not mean anyone else's is. Leaning against
a wall is a weeping woman, an elderly man
with his arm ratcheted over her shoulders. Three
toddlers weave through a bank of plastic chairs.
A teenager hunches like a question mark over the receiver
of the pay phone, whispering furiously.
Although I don't want to see Ian, it is still
a disappointment not to find him waiting.
It has started to snow, the first snow of the winter.
The flakes are thick and fat; they melt against the
pavement as if I have only been dreaming them. I
am so caught up in the beauty of it that I do not
notice Ian standing beside my car until I am
only a few feet away.
"I have to talk to you," he says.
"No, you don't."
He grasps my arm. "Aren't you going to speak
to me?"
"Do you really want me to, Ian? Do you
want me to thank you for calling that idiot
reporter from the Globe and getting him to dig up
Greenhaven, so that Malcolm Metz could twist
it into some sick psychological disorder I have that
makes me mutilate my own child?"
"If I hadn't called, Metz would have dug
it up by himself."
"Don't you dare make excuses," I
say, my voice low.
I get into the car and try to close the door, but
Ian holds it fast. "I think I'm in love
with you," he says.
"And why is that? Because I had the good fortune
to give birth to an extraordinary child you could use
to boost your show's ratings?"
"What did you want me to say? I didn't
know you when I called McManus. Afterward, I
didn't want to tell you, because I thought you'd
hate me for it. And as for what I said about Faith
--well, Christ, I had to be vague. I thought
the last thing you wanted was for me to tell the world that
I believe Faith can heal."
"Somehow, Ian, I have a hard time believing you
had Faith in mind up there on the stand.
I have a hard time believing you were thinking of anything
but your show-biz reputation."
A muscle jumps along Ian's jaw.
"All right, maybe I was. But I was also
thinking of Faith. And you. What do I have to do
to convince you? I'll give the money Metz paid
me to Faith's college fund ... or to the
frigging Jesuits. I'll go public saying
whatever you want. I made a mistake, and
I'm sorry. Why can't you just believe me?"
Because, I want to say. Because of what's
happened to Faith. She believed, and look at
where it's gotten her.
"Mariah," Ian begs hoarsely, "let me
come home with you."
With a tremendous yank, I manage to pull the
door out of his grasp. "You can't always get what
you want," I say. "Not even you."

Let me tell you what you feel like when you know
you are ready to die.
You sleep a lot, and when you wake up the very
first thought in your head is that you wish you could go back
to bed.
You go entire days without eating, because food is
a commodity that keeps you here.
You read the same page a hundred times.
You rewind your life like a videocassette and
see things that make you weep, things that make you
pause, but nothing that makes you want to play it
forward.
You forget to comb your hair, to shower, to dress.
And then one day, when you make the decision that you
have enough energy left in you to do this one, last,
monumental thing, there comes a peace. Suddenly you
are counting moments as you haven't for months.
Suddenly you have a secret that makes you smile,
that makes people say you look wonderful, although you
feel like a shell--brittle and capable of
cracking into a thousand pieces.
I was looking forward to dying. I remember
holding the razor blade and hoping to make the
cleanest, deepest cut. I remember
calculating how long it would be until I heard
the voices of angels. I wanted nothing more than
to be rid of myself, of this body and this person who
had nothing coming to her but pain.
In short, I have been there. I, of all people,
should understand wanting to give up, when the ache is
too great. But instead I feel myself
fighting furiously, grasping at straws to keep
Faith from succeeding where I once failed.

"Her temp's at one-oh-six. Something's
got to give."
As if the doctor's words have prompted it,
Faith's limbs stiffen, and she begins to thrash from
side to side. "She's going into seizures," the
doctor calls out. A nurse gently pulls
Millie away from the bedside. "Ma'am, I'm
going to have to get in here."
The doctor holds down one of Faith's
wrists. The nurse holds the other one.
Faith's body continues to buck and heave, with the
jerky rhythm of an amusement-park ride.
"She's bleeding again," the nurse murmurs.
"I want pressure and elevation," the
doctor calls, and the bed levitates with the push
of a button as two nurses begin to press against
her palms.
High-pitched beeps suddenly break the
flurry of activity and make Millie jerk her
head toward the monitors behind Faith's bed.
"She's coding. Get a cart!" The doctor
moves to the side of the bed and starts to perform
manual CPR.
Within minutes, the room is filled with nurses
and doctors. "Ressler, bag her and intubate
her. Chest compressions at fifteen per minute."
The doctor checks the rhythm of Faith's
heartbeat and continues shouting orders. "Wyatt,
put in a central line and pour in lactated
Ringer's as fast as it'll go, for one liter. And
Abby, I want a CBC, platelets, and a
clot sent to the blood bank for type and
cross."
"Ma'am, why don't you come with me, so we can
help her?" The nurse tugs Millie out to the
hall, where she stands with her face pressed to the
glass of the pediatric ICU. Millie
watches someone rip open Faith's hospital
johnny and set defibrillator paddles on
her small chest. She does not realize that her
hand has crept up to cover her own strong heart.

A Half Hour Later
Joan sits beside Millie in the patient
lounge. She's never liked hospitals; this one
is no different ... but there's something she can't
put her finger on that seems even more
unnerving than usual. She smiles gently at
Mariah's mother, encouraging her to continue.
"The doctor," Millie tearfully
relates, "says that she has an excellent
prognosis because she spent less than a minute
in cardiac arrest. Her airway's clear, and her
rhythm's been steady."
Joan glances at the girl, limp on the
hospital bed. "She doesn't look good."
"But they've got her heart under control, and her
fever is down. The only thing they can't stop is
the bleeding." Millie takes a deep breath.
"So how long before Mariah gets here?"
"Actually, that's why I needed to speak to you.
Mariah can't come to the hospital."
"Did something happen? Is she all right?"
"She's fine. She's just under a restraining
order, courtesy of the judge and Malcolm
Metz. They think she's causing Faith's
symptoms."
"That's ... that's ridiculous!" Millie
sputters.
"You and I know that, but you don't mess with a
restraining order. I'm going to need you to stay with
Faith and call Mariah with updates."
"She can't even call?"
Joan shakes her head.
"This must be killing her." Millie rubs her
temples, clearly torn between keeping watch over
her granddaughter and going to her own child to provide
emotional support.
Joan glances down the hallway. It suddenly
hits her: The strange thing about this pediatric
ICU ward is that Faith is the only patient
in it. With the exception of the doctors and nurses
called in for Faith, there's no one around. "When
you call--"
"I won't make it sound this bad," Millie
says. "I'm not a fool."

Colin walks into the darkened ICU room and
stands at the foot of his daughter's bed.
Her arms are spread wide, loosely tied with
restraints to the bedrails to keep the wounds in her
palms from reopening. Her feet are anchored by the
blanket. His eyes touch upon the wires taped
to her chest, the tube in her throat, the gauze
pads cupped in her hands.
He does not know what to believe. He listens
to the doctors when they speak to him. He
listened to that psychiatrist, Birch. And he
listens to Mariah when she swears she'd never
hurt Faith. Colin sits gently on the bed
next to Faith.
""Hush little baby, don't say a word.
Daddy's gonna buy you a mockingbird.""
He presses his wet cheek against Faith's,
hears the steady beep of the monitor attached to her
chest. ""If that mockingbird don't sing,
Daddy's gonna buy you a diamond ring.""
The doctors told him that Faith's heart
gave out. That with all the stress put on it by the
other failing systems of her body, it simply
stopped.
He knows what that feels like. He would drop the
custody case this minute if it meant Faith would
walk out of the hospital as healthy and hale as
any seven-year-old.
He leans down and awkwardly wraps her in his
arms. "Hug me back," he whispers, and then more
forcefully, "Come on." Just one slight twitch
and he'll be happy. He shakes her a little,
urging her to consciousness, but then a nurse is beside
him and pulling him from the bed. "You need to let her
rest, Mr. White."
"I want her to hold me. I just want her
to do that one thing."
"She can't," the nurse says. "Her hands are
tied." And while Colin is still turning that
phrase over in his mind, she ushers him out of the
room.

"You're telling me everything?" I ask,
hanging on to the receiver of the portable phone so
tightly I must be leaving nail marks.
"Would I lie to you?" my mother answers.
"She's in there sleeping."
"So she hasn't gotten better, but she
hasn't gotten worse." Stability I can
handle. It is having to sit idly while Faith
is in trouble that sends me over the edge.
"Kenzie van der Hoven's here," my mother
says. "She's been at the hospital for an
hour."
"Did that idiot psychiatrist show up?"
"The one who kept coming all day? No."
She hesitates; I can hear it in her
voice. "What, Ma?"
"Nothing."
"It's something," I press.
"What?"
"Nothing. It's just that Colin came, too."
"Oh," I answer, in a very small voice.
"Did Faith wake up?"
"No. She didn't even know he was here."
I'm sure my mother says this to make me feel
better, but it doesn't. I hang up the phone,
realizing moments later that I never said good-bye.

Ian has walked the streets of New
Canaan for the past three hours. The town is
tiny and dark, and every store is closed, with the
exception of the Donut King, and he can't go back
inside there yet again without looking like a jerk. The
problem is, there's nowhere else to go.
He sits on the curb. He doesn't want
to head back to the Winnebago and face the people who
work for him, people sure to be confounded by his
testimony today. He doesn't want to go anywhere
near the hospital, where he's certain to be
accosted by the press.
He does want to be with Mariah, but she
won't let him.
Ian doesn't know when, exactly, he went
from thinking that Mariah was some kind of "Mommie
Dearest" putting her kid up to this kind of
attention, to thinking that Mariah was the victim in this
whole mess. Most likely it was in Kansas
City. He'd done such a thorough job of
pretending to want to help Mariah that at some
point it became an honest emotion.
But, just maybe, Mariah wasn't the one who
needed help. Maybe that distinction belongs to Ian
himself.
He's never really asked himself why he's an
atheist, but the answer's there for the taking. Knocked
down as a child by fate, he couldn't buy into the
concept of a loving God. After all the people close
to him were taken away, he couldn't buy into the
concept of love, period, so he re-created himself
into someone who wouldn't have to. And, like the Wizard of
Oz, he's learned if you hide long enough behind a
curtain of bluff and principle, people stop trying
to find out who you are in the first place.
Maybe there is more to a person than a body
and a mind. Maybe something else figures into the
mix--not a soul, exactly, but a spirit that hints you
might one day be greater, stronger than you are now.
A promise; a potential.
Mariah has fallen apart and pulled
herself back together. She may weave in the wind, but
she stands there, scars and all. And, unlike
Ian, she's stood up to the same bolt of
lightning that knocked her down before, willing to risk
it again. For all intents and purposes, she,
too, should shy away from love. But she doesn't
--and no one knows that better than Ian himself.
Mariah might have tried to kill herself once;
she may be the one whose credibility and mental
stability are being debated in a court of law; but
in Ian's eyes, she is one of the strongest people
he's ever met.
Ian stands, dusts off his bottom, and starts
walking down the street.

The last person I expect to find when I
open the door is Colin. "Can I ...?" he
gestures inside. I nod, step back, so that
he can enter the house he used to own.
I close the door behind him and hold my hand
to my throat, needing to physically keep all the
horrible things I want to say from springing to my
lips. "You shouldn't be here. Neither of our
attorneys would allow it."
"I don't really give a flying fuck what
Metz thinks right now." Colin crosses to the
stairs and sits down, burying his face in his
hands. "I just saw Faith."
"I know. My mother said you were there."
Colin glances up. "She's-- God, Rye.
She's so, so sick."
After the initial shock of fear that runs through my
system, I force myself to relax. After all,
Colin was not around the first time her hands bled. He
wouldn't know what to expect.
"They say that her heart's going to be all right
..."
"Her heart?" I say, my voice dry as
ash. "What about her heart?"
Colin seems honestly surprised that I do not
know. "It stopped. This afternoon."
"It stopped? She went into cardiac arrest and
nobody told me? I'm going there."
Colin is on his feet in one smooth motion,
grabbing my arm. "You can't. You can't, and I'm so
sorry about that."
I stare down at his hand on my arm, his skin
on my skin, and then suddenly he is holding me
and I am crying against his chest. "Colin, tell
me."
"She's been intubated, to help her breathe.
And they used defibrillator paddles--you know,
those things--to get her heartbeat steady again. Her
hands started bleeding again after she had a seizure."
I hear the tears in his throat, and stroke his
back. "Did we do this to her?"
I look at him, wondering if he is accusing
me. But he seems too upset for that; I think
he is truly just shaken. "I don't know."
Suddenly I remember the night that Faith was
born. It was only a month after I'd left
Greenhaven, and still buffeted by the drugs I'd
been given, I found that there was very little that seemed
real. Not Colin, not my home, not my life.
It wasn't until the pain of a contraction sliced
down my middle that I realized I'd come back.
I remember the lights that were set up at the
foot of the birthing bed, like some Hollywood
production. I remember the plastic mask the
doctor wore, and the smell of latex when she
snapped on her gloves. I remember the sound
of Colin's head striking the edge of the nightstand when
he fainted, and the fuss that was made over him while
I splayed my hands over my belly and waited
my turn. I remember thinking of my heart,
balanced just above the baby's feet, like the ball
on a trained seal's nose. And then there was the
remarkable drive that came when I realized the
only way to stop the pain was to get it out of me,
to push and push until I was certain I'd turn
myself inside out, even as I felt her head
widening and changing me and the small knob of her
nose and chin and shoulders as they slipped in
succession, streaming between my legs in a shuddering
rush of breath and blood and beauty.
But what I remember the most was the nurse who
held Faith up before her umbilical cord had
been cut. "What a beautiful daughter!" She
brought her closer, so that I could see the swollen
face, the pumping legs. And the baby, purely
by chance, kicked the umbilical cord. I felt
it all the way up inside me, an odd tug and a
trembling that continued straight along to the belly of
my daughter, so that Faith's eyes startled open,
too. And I thought for the first time, We are
connected.
Colin buries a sob against my hair.
"It's all right," I say, although it isn't, not
by a long shot. I turn in his arms and realize
I am glad he is here; I am glad
we can do this for each other. "Sssh," I soothe, as
I might have soothed Faith if I'd been by her
side.

December 4, 1999
First thing Saturday morning Joan gets a
cup of very strong, very black coffee at the
Donut King and enough jelly rolls to last through an
extended day, and then continues fifty yards down
the street to her law office. She starts to set the
key in the door and finds it already unlocked.
Thinking of vandals, robbers, and, actually,
Malcolm Metz, she pushes the door so that it
swings open.
Ian Fletcher is hunched over her
secretary's computer. He looks over his
shoulder. "It's about time. I've printed out
everything I could find on the Web about Munchausen
by Proxy. I think your best bet's going to be
pointing out the specificity of the disorder. There were
only two hundred cases nationwide last year.
What's the chance of Mariah being one of them?
Plus, she doesn't have the background for it.
She wasn't abused as a child, and if Millie's
on the stand--"
"Wait. What are you doing here?"
Ian shrugs. "What does it look like I'm
doing? I'm your legal assistant."
"The hell you are! Mariah doesn't want you
within state limits anymore, much less helping
out on the case. For all I know, you might be
playing double agent again, trying to bring us down before
we even get to present our side."
"Please," Ian says seriously. "This is
what I do for a living. I dig things up. I
unearth. I disprove. If Mariah won't let
me help her, at least let me help you."
Realistically, Joan has a marginal shot
at finding out enough to bring down Dr. Birch--that is,
if she's working alone. She doesn't have the time
or the resources Metz does at his high-end
law office; plus, she doesn't even know where
to start.
Sensing her weakening, Ian holds up a sheaf
of papers. "You need a defense against
Munchausen by Proxy. So I've been talking
on-line to a doctor out at UCLA who's a
specialist in psychosomatic illnesses that
present in children of divorce." He raises a
brow. "Dr. Fitzgerald says there have
even been cases of psychologically based
bleeding."
Joan hands him the box of jelly rolls.
"You're hired," she says.

When my mother calls first thing that morning, I
let her have it. I yell at her so long and so
loud for lying to me about Faith's condition that I
bring her to tears. She hangs up the phone, and
immediately I feel awful; I can't even call her
back to apologize.
Colin stayed until 4:00 A.m. It
crossed my mind that his new wife was probably
trying to find him. Then again, maybe she wasn't.
Maybe that's why she was his new wife.
Before he left, he kissed me good-bye. Not
with passion, but with an apology that slipped between my
lips like licorice, and tasted just as bitter.
The house is quiet. I sit in Faith's
bedroom, staring at her dollhouse and her art set
and her Barbies, trying to get up the nerve to touch
them. I sit so rigidly that my jaw hurts, just
from keeping it clenched.
I ought to be with her now, the way my mother used
to stay with me when I was sick, holding the cup of
juice to my lips, circling the Vicks
VapoRub over my chest, sitting there when I
woke up, as if she hadn't moved a muscle
all night.
It's what mothers do. They keep vigils; they
put their children first.
It is exactly what I have not done.
My first act of motherhood was to blame my
unborn child for her father's infidelity. My
second act of motherhood was to swallow a rainbow
of pills, although the doctors did not know what the
consequences would be to a fetus. They told me that
it was more important to cure my depression than
to worry about the risks to the baby. And I--fool
--believed them.
I spent months hoping Faith would be born
healthy, so I'd be off the hook. Then, when she
was, I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop.
But now I see it was a waste of time. Motherhood
isn't a test, but a religion: a covenant
entered into, a promise to be kept. It comes
one-size-fits-all, and it camouflages flaws
like nothing else. How could it have taken this to make
me see that Faith is the one thing in my life I
got right on the very first try?
I look down at my hands. Without realizing
it, I have wandered into the bathroom, picked up the
razor I use to shave my legs, and snapped
open its harmless plastic holder, so that I'm now
holding the lethal edge of a blade.
With care, I throw it into the trash.

"What do you mean we can't speak to her?"
Malcolm Metz yells. "Do you have any idea
what we had to do to get upstairs? It's a
fucking zoo in the lobby."
A nurse turns toward Dr. Blumberg.
"What's up?"
"A bunch of AIDS patients. Their
T-cell counts are suddenly in normal
range."
"No kidding?" the nurse says.
"I don't care if the bodies in the
goddamned morgue are now eating lunch in the
cafeteria," Metz growls. "I want Dr.
Birch to be granted permission to speak to Faith
White."
"Oh, he has my permission," Blumberg
says. "Just don't expect him to get too
far."
At the sound of raised voices, Kenzie comes
out of Faith's room. She's been reading to her
for the past three hours, even though Faith is
unconscious. "What's going on?"
"This is the fifth time Dr. Birch has tried
to interview Faith," Metz says. "My case
will be seriously hampered if we don't walk
into court on Monday with this information."
"I'm sorry Faith can't accommodate you,"
Kenzie says tightly. "She's comatose."
At that, Metz looks surprised. "She
is? I thought Standish was exaggerating to win
sympathy. Christ, I'm sorry." He turns
to Birch. "Maybe you could speak to her
doctors."
"I'd be happy to talk to you," Dr.
Blumberg says.
But before he and Dr. Birch can leave,
Millie suddenly sways on her feet.
Malcolm Metz catches her in his arms before she
hits the floor.
"Millie?" Kenzie asks. "When was the last
time you got some rest?"
"I don't know. I guess it's been a
while."
"Go lie down. There are enough free beds around
here. I'm not going to let anything happen
to Faith."
"I know. I just don't want to miss it when
she comes around. Maybe if I close my eyes
for ten minutes ..."
"Take your time," Kenzie answers, but she
does not say what she's thinking: that Faith may
never wake up.

That night I dream I am talking to Faith's
God.
She is, quite definitely, a She. She comes
to sit at the foot of my bed, and I stare at the
bright edges of Her hair, at the glow at the
seams of Her fingers, like a child cupping a
flashlight. Her mouth is turned down at the
corners, as if She, too, is missing Faith.
A peace settles over the bed like an extra
blanket, but I feel myself stirring and sweating.
"You," I say, anger clawing its way up my
chest.
"She isn't in pain."
"Do you think that makes it all right?" I shout.
"Believe in what I'm doing."
I cannot trust myself to answer right away. I
think of Ian, of what he has said about God.
"How can I believe in You," I whisper, "when
You would do this to a little girl?"
"I'm not doing it to her; I'm doing it for
her."
"Semantics don't make much difference when
you're about to die."
For a while God just sits on the edge of my
bed smoothing Her hand over the covers and leaving behind
a silver patina, like the gilding of great ages
gone by. "Did you ever consider," She says
softly, finally, "that I know what it's like
to lose a child?"

December 5, 1999--2:00 A.m.
Faith goes into cardiac arrest again an hour
later. This time Kenzie stands outside the glass
windows with Millie, watching the doctors fight
to stabilize the little girl. After several minutes
of confusion and brutal intervention on Faith's
body, Dr. Blumberg approaches them. He
knows of the court order, and disapproves. He
invites Millie to step aside so they can speak
privately, but she waves away the
suggestion and tells him to speak in front of
Kenzie.
"She's hanging on, but her heart stopped
beating for a while, and she lost oxygen. We
won't know if there's brain damage until she
wakes up."
"What ..." Kenzie tries to ask a question, but
it lodges in the pit of her stomach.
"I can't say for sure. Kids can tolerate
a lot more than adults. But in Faith's case,
things are happening that don't follow logic." The
doctor hesitates. "There's no apparent
medical cause for Faith's cardiac distress,
but her body is failing. She's comatose.
We're keeping her alive on machines. And I
don't know how long that's going to last."
Millie tries to steady her voice. "Are you
telling me--"
Blumberg inclines his head. "I'm telling you
that friends and family should think about saying their
good-byes," he says gently. Then he turns
to Kenzie. "And I'm telling you to think about whether
a piece of paper signed by a judge is as
important as that."
As he walks away, Kenzie finds herself
frozen in place. It is early Sunday
morning. Only twenty-four hours till they
all return to the courtroom. If that's even
necessary.
At the sound of a muffled sob, she turns.
Millie's face is stoic; even now, she is
trying to be the strong one.
Kenzie embraces her. They both know what
has to be done. "Don't call Colin,"
Millie blurts out. "He's the one who's
keeping Mariah away. He doesn't deserve
to be here."
She watches the older woman clutch on to her
anger like a lifeline. "Millie," she says
softly, "I'll be right back." Then Kenzie
walks down the hall to the nearest pay phone.
Digging into her pocket, she pulls out a piece
of paper, and dials the phone number on it.

The telephone rings in the middle of the night.
"Mariah," Kenzie van der Hoven says,
"I want you to listen carefully."
Now, nearly twenty minutes later, I
feel foolish walking through the entrance of the
hospital wearing my mother's spare pair
of reading glasses and an old wig Faith used
to use for dress-up. I act as if I know where
I am going, and, true to her word, Kenzie is
waiting at the elevator banks. Once the
doors of the elevator close behind us, I put
my arms around Kenzie in gratitude. She
told me, on the phone, that Faith was not getting
better. That her heart had stopped again. That she
might even die. "At this point I don't care
about the judge," Kenzie said. "You ought to be
here."
She did not point out the obvious--that keeping
me from Faith had done no apparent good, that, in
fact, since I've been away from her, she's
been failing faster.
I move through the halls of the hospital
quietly behind Kenzie, terrified that at any
moment someone is going to jump out and point a finger,
tag me, cart me off to jail. I concentrate
instead on keeping a center of calm, like a hard
little nut in my chest, so that when I see Faith--
no matter how bad it is--I do not fall apart.
At the elevator it strikes me that something is
odd. There is virtually nobody in this
hospital. Even at two in the morning, there should
be red-eyed doctors, tired relatives, women
having babies. As if Kenzie can read my
thoughts, she turns to me. "The rumor mill
says Faith's healed a bunch of patients,"
she explains simply. "Just by being here."
For only a moment, I wonder if it's
true. Then I think: at what cost? After bringing
my mother back to life, Faith's strength had been
sapped. How many patients have come in contact with
her in the past two days? And suddenly I understand
why Faith is so much sicker this time.
Healing others has been killing her.
Just before the elevator doors open, I say
what has been on my mind since Kenzie
telephoned. "You have to call Colin."
"I already did. He told me to call you."
"But--"
"He didn't care about the court order either.
He said you ought to be here, too."
Then we are on the pediatric ICU floor.
I follow Kenzie to Faith's room--she's
been moved since I last saw her. At the
glass window, I stop. My mother is sitting on
a chair beside Faith's bed, and I'm struck by how
old she suddenly looks. Faith ...
well, I would not have recognized her at all.
Full of tubes and pads and wires, she looks
so small on the narrow bed.
A nurse moves like a shadow as I enter.
My mother stands, embraces me. Without speaking,
I sit down in the spot she's vacated.
Right now I understand those mothers who can lift
automobiles off children who are pinned, women who
step heroically in front of bullets. I would
give anything to be the body that is lying so still. I
would give anything to take her place.
I lean over, my words falling on her face.
"I never told you that I'm sorry," I
whisper. "For a long time I was so busy with myself that
there was no time for you. But I knew you would still be
waiting for me, when I was ready." I touch my
hand to her cheek. "It's your turn, now. Take
your time. When you look over your shoulder--days from
now, months from now--well, I'm not going anywhere
without you." I close my eyes, listening to the
fleeting, occasional whir of the machines feeding
into Faith. One piece of equipment picks up
its pace, beeping with quick regularity. The nurse
looks up, frowns. "Something's going on," she
says, reading the printout from the
electrocardiogram. "I'd better page
Dr. Blumberg."
She's barely left the room when Faith's
eyes fly open. They focus on Kenzie first,
then my mother, and finally come to rest on me. Faith
opens and closes her mouth, trying to speak.
The doctor flies into the room, pulling his
stethoscope from around his neck. He checks
Faith's vital signs, murmuring quietly
to her as his hands move over her body. "Don't
talk yet, kiddo." He nods to a nurse, and
she braces Faith's shoulders while he
extracts the endotracheal tube. Faith coughs
and gags, and then her voice comes in a sandpaper
snap. "Mommy," she rasps, smiling, her
bandaged hands coming up to frame my face.

SIXTEEN

So lonely 'twas that God himself
Scarce seemed there to be.
--Samuel Taylor Coleridge,
"The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner"

December 6, 1999
Because it is bitterly cold, the snow does not
stick to the pavement. It swirls beneath the
undercarriage of Mariah's car; it lies down in
her path before twisting out of reach of the wheels.
Mariah keeps her eyes on the road. She
concentrates on where she is going, on when she will
arrive.

"Dr. Birch," Malcolm Metz says,
"did you interview Faith White this weekend?"
"I went to the hospital, and I did get
to see her, but we didn't speak."
"Why was that, Doctor?"
"She couldn't conduct a conversation. She was
comatose."
"Were you able to speak to anyone affiliated with
her case?"
"Yes. I spent some time with a doctor in
charge of Faith's medical care, who outlined her
symptoms and test results for me."
"Can you tell us what you learned?"
"She was admitted for observation due
to unexplained bleeding from the hands. Once
hospitalized, she developed a high fever,
along with febrile convulsions, renal-system
failure, and she went into cardiac arrest. This
wasn't caused by pulmonary problems, nor
does it seem to be a myocardial infarction,
myocarditis, or a cardiomyopathy. In
short, the doctors are treating the symptoms
without necessarily knowing the cause."
"Could any of these symptoms have been caused
by her mother?"
"I suppose so, under the right circumstances,"
Birch says. "Of course, in this case, since
Mrs. White has not been present at her
daughter's bedside since Friday, I'd have
to say that the bleeding and the fever are the symptoms
most likely produced by her hand. I would have
to reserve final judgment until interviewing
Faith."
Metz pauses in front of the witness stand.
"In your expert opinion, Dr.
Birch, how would you summarize the case of Faith
White?"
"Again, this is hypothetical without a chance
to talk to the child herself. But if the interview
corroborates my gut feelings, I'd have
to say that she's a victim of Munchausen
by Proxy. The child is obviously failing, and
requires immediate long-term separation from her mother
to ensure her mental and physical health. Her
father is the obvious alternative--he can
provide a supportive, loving, and mentally
healthy environment for the girl. Of course, this is
all dependent on whether the physicians can
patch up the damage that's already been done. But
if Faith is a victim of MSP, if she
comes out of the coma and is separated from her mother and
given constructive psychotherapy, I think her
prognosis would be excellent."
"Thank you, Doctor." Metz glances at
Joan. "Your witness."
Joan braces her hands on the defense table.
She is wearing her kick-ass pink suit, as she
likes to call it, and feeling confident. "Dr.
Birch, are you here at the request of Mr.
Metz?"
"Yes."
"Has he paid you to be here?"
"Objection," Metz says. "Asked and
answered."
"Withdrawn. How many years have you been
practicing?"
"Twenty-three."
"In those twenty-three years, how many
patients have you treated?"
"Oh ... five hundred? Six?"
Joan nods. "I see. Out of those five or
six hundred patients, how many have you personally
diagnosed with Munchausen Syndrome
by Proxy?"
"Sixty-eight."
"In each of these sixty-eight cases, did
you have a psychiatric interview with the mother?"
"Yes."
"In each of these sixty-eight cases, did
you have a psychiatric interview with the child?"
"Yes."
"Have you had a psychiatric interview with
Mariah White?"
"No."
"Have you had a psychiatric interview
with Faith White?"
"No. She's in a coma, for God's sake."
"So you're basing your diagnosis of this case
--of this incredibly rare disease--on newspaper
articles you've read, and doctors' reports,
and seven-year-old records from a psychiatric
institution ... oh, and on hearsay?"
"No--"
"You can't truly diagnose this illness without
interviewing Faith and Mariah, can you?"
The psychiatrist's cheeks flag with color.
"I can make a contingent diagnosis. I'm just
one step removed."
Joan arches a brow. "I see. So, you've
... contingently diagnosed Mariah White with
Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy. Are there
any other diagnoses this case might
support?"
"Well, there's always something, Ms. Standish.
But having studied this syndrome for years, I'd
say it's a likely diagnosis."
Joan looks at a pad. "Have you ever heard
of somatization disorder?"
"Of course."
"Could you define it for us?"
"It's when a child manifests symptoms that are
psychologically induced--in other words, he's
sick, but it's his mind that's making him sick.
Imagine a child who breaks out in hives every time his
father has visitation rights; the child is expressing some
internal psychological disturbance with physical
symptoms. Often it's an unconscious means
of getting attention."
"Have you ever seen clients with somatization
disorders?"
"Many times."
"It's far less rare than Munchausen
by Proxy, then."
"That's correct."
"Is it true, doctor, that often the victim
of a somatization disorder looks a lot like a
victim of MSP?"
"Yes. In both disorders, the presenting
symptoms have no organic etiology--in
MSP because they're faked, in somatization disorder
because they're psychologically driven."
"I see. How do you go about diagnosing
somatization disorder, Doctor?"
"You'd interview the parents and the child. And you'd
order many medical tests."
"The same strategy you'd use to diagnose
Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy, then."
"Yes. However, in MSP separation from the
parent results in a disappearance of ailments.
If the child suffers from somatization disorder, they'll
continue."
Joan smiles. "May I approach the
bench?" Judge Rothbottam beckons the
attorneys. "Your Honor, can I have a little
leeway here? I'd like to bring in a live
exhibit."
Metz frowns at her. "What the hell have you
got? A chicken?"
"You'll see in a second. Your Honor,
there's really no other way to make my point."
"Mr. Metz?" the judge asks.
"Why not? I'm feeling charitable today."
After Rothbottam agrees, Joan nods
to Kenzie van der Hoven, who walks to the
doors at the rear of the courtroom. She
summons a bailiff, who enters with Faith in
tow.
Faith is wearing a pink dress a shade
lighter than Joan's suit. Her hair is
bright and silver, her smile infectious. She
waves at Mariah as she approaches, and
doesn't seem to see the press snapping shut
its collective jaw. With the exception of her
pallor and tiny bandages at her throat and
palms, there is no evidence that hours ago the
girl was hovering on the edge of death.
Malcolm Metz does a double take. He
turns to Colin, who is suddenly very interested in
his lap. "Did you know about this? Did you?"
But before Colin can answer, Joan speaks.
"Dr. Birch, do you know this child?"
"I think ... I assume ... that it's
Faith White," he says.
"When was the last time you saw her?"
"Late Saturday night. She didn't
look like she'd live through the weekend." His eyes
are wide with wonder, riveted to Faith.
"How does she look to you now?"
Birch grins, triumphant. "Absolutely
fine."
"What's your explanation for this?"
The psychiatrist looks proudly at
Malcolm Metz, then at Joan. "Clearly,
my hunch was right. Mariah White is suffering from
Munchausen by Proxy. When sequestered
from the mother by court order, Faith's illness--very
obviously--abated." He gestures toward
Faith, sitting primly beside the guardian ad
litem. "I only hope that the court continues
to keep her mother at a distance."
Joan smiles broadly. "Doctor," she
says, "I can't thank you enough."

Somewhat flustered, Malcolm Metz
announces that the plaintiff rests. He
doesn't trust Joan Standish as far as he can
throw her, but he certainly isn't about to question her
if she wants to make his case for him. He
touches his client on the shoulder after the judge
orders a short recess. "Let's go get some
coffee," he says to Colin. "It's looking
good, don't you think?"

"Joan," Mariah says, as soon as they are
alone in a small room the size of a
janitorial closet, "what are you doing?"
"Trust me," the attorney says.
"You're making it look like I hurt her! Why
didn't you tell Birch I saw her Sunday?"
"Well, because you'd get slapped into jail right
now, for one."
Mariah narrows her eyes. "Faith isn't
making herself sick either, you know," she says.
Joan sighs. "Mariah, there are three
branches to your defense: to prove that you're a
fit mother, to prove that Faith isn't psychotic,
and to show the judge there might be a different
disorder, other than Munchausen by Proxy,
to explain what's going on. It's a loophole
defense--we just need to come up with an
alternative to the plaintiff's story. And if
our story is better than theirs, we win. It's
that simple." She stares directly at
Mariah. "I'm not trying to place the blame on
Faith instead of you. I'm just trying to arrange
things so you get to keep your daughter."
Mariah looks up. "All right," she says,
resigned. "You do what you have to."

Judge Rothbottam peers at Joan over
his half-glasses. "Ms. Standish," he says,
"I believe you're entitled to make an opening
statement, if you're so inclined."
"You know, Your Honor, I wasn't planning
on making one--"
"Ah," the judge mutters. "Maybe God
does have a hand in this case."
"--b after all that's been happening, I think
I actually would like to say a few things." She
gets to her feet and walks in front of the
defense table. "This is a confusing case," she
says flatly. "It's confusing because it's a
custody case, but there's a side issue going
on, too. And we can't help but notice that
issue--namely, that there's a reason this little girl
has been in the news. If you listen to all the
reports, well ... Faith White says
she's seen God. Pretty wild, don't you
think?" Joan smiles, shakes her head.
"Mr. Metz says that all this is her mother's
fault. That somehow Mariah White is managing
to get Faith to hallucinate and see God, and
is physically harming her daughter to boot. And,
actually, I think that's pretty wild, too."
Joan turns toward the window, looking at the
rapidly falling snow. "You know, I just read the
other day that Eskimos have over twenty words for
snow. There's crusty snow, there's sleety snow,
there's powder. I might look out this window and see
something beautiful. Mr. Metz might look out and
think it's going to make the commute a mess. And,
Judge, you might look out here and see a day on
the slopes.
"There are many ways to look at the same thing.
You've seen Mr. Metz's case. I'm going
to show you the same facts, but I view them a little
differently. In the first place, unlike Mr.
Metz, I don't think this is a case about
Mariah White. I think it's about Faith. So
I'm going to prove that, number one, Faith is
a happy little girl. She's not sick, she's not
psychotic, and she's certainly not comatose.
I'm not going to prove whether or not she's seeing
God, because that's not my job. My job is to show
you that she's psychologically happy, she's
physically okay, and she's going to act the same
way no matter which parent she is living with. The
question is: Which parent should that be?"
Joan takes a deep breath. "The answer
is Mariah White. And that's the second thing
I'm going to prove. Regardless of what happened
seven years ago--right now, the best parent for
Faith is her mother." She trails her fingers on
the edge of the defense table. "Mr. Metz has
given you his interpretation of the
circumstances surrounding Faith White. He's
shown you what he wants to see. Don't rely
on his eyes."

Dr. Mary Margaret Keller seems nervous
on the stand. Her eyes dart about the courtroom as
if they were following a mouse no one else can
see. She crosses and uncrosses her legs.
And when Joan first asks her to list her
credentials, her voice shakes.
"How long have you been a child psychologist,
Dr. Keller?"
"Seven years."
"What are your specialties, Doctor?"
"I do a lot of work with younger children who've
suffered family trauma."
"Why were you chosen to be Faith's
psychiatrist?"
"I was referred to Mrs. White by her own
psychiatrist, Dr. Johansen. He called
me up and asked me, as a favor, to take this
case."
"How many times did you see Faith?"
Dr. Keller folds her hands in her lap.
"Fourteen," she says.
"What sorts of things did you do?"
"Basically, I watched her play. It's an
excellent way to pick up on disturbing
behaviors."
"What were some of the behaviors you noticed?"
"Well, there was a very strong defense
mechanism she'd developed--an imaginary friend
who could keep her safe. Faith referred to her
by a certain name--her guard, I thought she was
saying. It made wonderful psychological
sense: A little girl who's been dealt several
difficult blows found someone to protect her. I
thought it was very healthy."
"Then what happened?"
"Mrs. White became concerned because Faith
began to exhibit behaviors not consistent with her
upbringing. She was quoting Bible verses, although
she'd never seen a Bible in her life. And there were
a couple of instances where Faith came in contact
with an ill person, and managed to make them
better."
"What did that lead you to believe, Doctor?"
Dr. Keller smiles ruefully. "I
didn't jump to any conclusions at first. But I
started to wonder if instead of calling her
imaginary friend her "guard," Faith was actually
saying "God."" She removes her glasses
and wipes them on the hem of her skirt. "Seeing
God is usually a sign of psychosis," she
explains. "It didn't sit well with me, because
Faith was able to function normally in every aspect of
her life, with the exception of these hallucinations.
But I recommended to Mrs. White that Faith go
on a trial run of Risperdal."
"What happened when she was taking the medicine?"
"She became groggy and tired, but the visions
didn't abate. We tried a different
antipsychotic medicine, and she still exhibited this
behavior."
"Finally, Dr. Keller, what did you
decide to do?"
"I called in a colleague, a specialist
in childhood psychosis. He observed Faith
and agreed that she didn't seem psychotic. I
felt validated. There are a great deal of things
I don't understand in this world, but I do know what a
psychotic child looks like, and Faith isn't it."
Metz stands up for his cross-examination and
walks toward the psychologist. "Dr.
Keller," he says, "do you know what you're
suggesting here?"
She blushes. "Yes."
"Isn't it true you went to parochial school
for twelve years?"
"Yes."
"And didn't you have a very strong Catholic
upbringing?"
"Yes, I did."
"At a symposium, Doctor, didn't you
go so far as to admit that once you personally felt
God beside you when you were praying?"
Dr. Keller looks into her lap. "I was
only a child, but I've never forgotten it."
"Don't you think that you might be predisposed
to believing Faith is also seeing God?"
At that, the psychiatrist glances up with a
cool, professional demeanor. "Regardless of
my personal beliefs, Mr. Metz, I
conducted a variety of clinical tests--"
"Yes or no, Dr. Keller?"
"No," she says militantly.
Metz rolls his eyes. "Aw, come on,
Doctor. Don't you believe in God?"
"Yes."
"Don't you go to Mass every week?"
"I do."
"And the conclusion you've drawn is that Faith's
seeing God. Do you think your conclusion might be
different from someone who's ... say ... an
atheist?" Metz turns around, his eyes skimming
over Ian, sitting in the gallery.
"If I was an atheist," she says, "I'd still
be a very thorough psychiatrist. And I'd still say
this child is not psychotic."
Metz narrows his eyes. This is not going the
way he planned. The little wren of a woman should have
folded five questions ago. "Dr. Keller,
didn't you present Faith's case at a
psychiatric symposium?"
"Yes, I did."
Metz advances on her. "Isn't it true that
you brought up the case at the symposium because you
wanted to make yourself look good, Doctor?"
"No. In fact, I was putting my reputation
on the line." She smiles sadly. "How many
psychiatrists honestly want to go on record as
saying that a child is seeing God?"
"But you did get attention for yourself, at the
expense of the client's confidentiality," he
repeats. "Isn't that somewhat unethical?"
Surprising him yet again, Dr. Keller
withdraws a piece of paper from the notebook on
her lap. "I have a signed release right here from
Mariah White, authorizing me to take her
daughter's case to the symposium as long as
Faith's name was not mentioned."
"Really!" Metz says. "So we have evidence
of Mrs. White trying to prostitute her
daughter to gain an audience."
"Mrs. White and I discussed this in depth,"
Dr. Keller says. "It was our hope that we
could involve a specialist with more experience than
I have, who might help us get to the root of
Faith's visions. As you know, twenty degrees
working together on a case is considerably better
than just one. We weren't looking for an audience,
Mr. Metz. We were looking for a cure."
"Did you ever interview Mrs. White in the
role of a therapist?" Metz asks.
"No, I was her daughter's psychiatrist."
"Then can you say with absolute certainty that
somewhere in this mother's twisted mind she wasn't trying
to make you put her daughter on display?"
Dr. Keller looks at Mariah, then at
Faith sitting several rows behind her.
"No," she says, her word soft as it falls
into Metz's outstretched hand.

"She was brought into the emergency room, bleeding
from both palms," Dr. Blumberg says in
response to Joan's question. "Traditional
emergency-medical procedures failed to stop the
bleeding, and I was called in for a consultation."
"What did you do, Doctor?"
He leans back in the chair. "I x-rayed
her hands."
"What did you find?"
"No sign of trauma. Literally, a hole
went straight through. No tearing of tissue, no
mangled bones, nothing to indicate that this was a
puncture wound of any kind, in spite of the slow
and steady flow of blood."
"Had you ever seen anything like this before, Dr.
Blumberg?"
"Absolutely not. It stumped me. I
called in experts and colleagues, pediatric and
surgical and orthopedic specialists, and we
ruled out the medical possibilities one by one.
Eventually I just treated the symptoms and sent the
girl home, then went back to my office and
started reading medical journals."
"What did you discover?"
"That, as many people know, this had happened in the past.
And I mean in the way, way past. I was wary of
believing it myself, but apparently several
Catholic saints have exhibited stigmata, or
spontaneous bleeding from the palms, side, and/or
feet that is medically inexplicable, but also
medically verifiable. And there is no physical
cause for it."
"When was the last documented case?" Joan
asks.
"Objection--Dr. Blumberg hasn't been
ordained."
"I'll allow it," the judge says.
"Doctor?"
"There was a man named Padre Pio, who died
in 1968. But the most famous stigmatic would
probably be Saint Francis of Assisi,
who lived in the twelfth century. According to the
reports I read, the wounds are quite real, quite
painful."
"What are the main characteristics you found in
journals about stigmata?"
"They can't be cured by ordinary
remedies used to control bleeding or induce
clotting. They last for months or years at a
time, but unlike long-term natural wounds,
don't fester."
"How does that correspond to Faith's
wounds?"
"Very closely," the doctor says.
"Did you officially diagnose Faith with
stigmata?"
Blumberg grimaces. "No. I was too
skeptical. On her record I wrote that after
weighing all medical possibilities, the
conclusion I'd reached was that it was possible that
Faith suffered from stigmata. But frankly,
I'm still not comfortable with that diagnosis."
"This past weekend, what was Faith's medical
status?"
"She was critically ill. She had been put
on dialysis and had gone into cardiac arrest
twice, her hands and side were bleeding again, and
she'd slipped into a comatose state. My
professional opinion was that she wasn't going
to recover."
"What is Faith's medical status now?"
Blumberg grins. "Shockingly healthy.
Kids tend to bounce back quickly, but this is
truly remarkable. Nearly all her bodily
systems are functioning at a hundred percent,
or are well on the way to doing so."
"In your opinion, Doctor, was Faith's
heart and kidney failure intentionally caused
by someone?"
"No. There are too many medical personnel
around in an ICU for that to happen. Not to mention that
traces of medicine which might, for example,
cause the heart to arrest were not found in Faith's
bloodwork."
"Were her hand and side wounds caused
by someone?"
He shakes his head. "As I've said, there was
no indicative trauma. Just a tiny tunnel
... right through the skin and muscle and bone and
sinew." He holds up his palm. "There are more
bones in the hand than anywhere else in the body,
Ms. Standish. It's virtually impossible
to puncture it without causing some trauma. Yet
that's what I saw. Faith was just ... bleeding."
"Doctor, are you required by law to file
reports of possible child abuse?"
"Yes, any physician must."
"Did you file this report after seeing Faith
White a month and a half ago?"
"No, I did not."
"Did you file this report after admitting
Faith White on Thursday night?"
"No."
"Was there any reason for you to file that
report?"
"Absolutely none."
"Thank you," Joan says. "Nothing
further."

"Dr. Blumberg," Metz asks, "how many
cases of stigmata have you treated?"
The doctor smiles. "Just this one."
"But you feel qualified to give us an expert
opinion here? Isn't it true that because you couldn't
diagnose Faith's wounds, you made an
educated guess?"
"First let me tell you what I ruled out,
Mr. Metz. I considered both direct and
indirect trauma to the appendage. I examined
the possibility of skin secretions, or nerves
adjacent to the skin producing some substance, but the
emissions were laboratory-tested, and they were indeed
blood. Stigmata was the only diagnosis I
could find that even came close to matching the
clinical observations I made."
"Can you say without a doubt that this is
stigmata?"
"Of course not, it wouldn't be my job. It's
the pope's, I guess. All I can tell you
is, Faith White was bleeding. And there was no
medical explanation for it."
"Is there a psychological explanation for
it?"
Blumberg shrugs. "In journals I read,
there were attempts to replicate stigmata in
patients under hypnosis. In a couple of very
rare cases, psychiatrists managed to induce a
kind of colored sweat ... but no blood.
There's no scientific proof that the imagination can
produce stigmata apart from a religious
idea."
"Could the wounds have been produced during a
sleepwalking episode?"
"I doubt it. As I said, they looked nothing
like puncture wounds."
"Can you say conclusively that Faith's
injuries were not caused by Faith herself,
or by another person?"
"It wasn't apparent," Blumberg says
carefully. "I certainly couldn't come down with an
absolute, but this clearly was not a case of child
abuse. Mrs. White refused to leave her
daughter's side, was extremely concerned about
Faith's prognosis, and became very agitated
when I hypothetically suggested a diagnosis of
stigmata."
"Have you ever seen cases of child abuse, Dr.
Blumberg?"
"Unfortunately, yes."
"In any of those cases did the parent harm the
child in front of you?"
"No."
"In any of those cases did the parent seem
concerned about the child's prognosis?"
"Yes," the doctor admits.
"In any of those cases did the abusive
parent herself bring the child in to be treated?"
Blumberg clears his throat. "Yes."
Metz turns on his heel. "Nothing
further."

Faith leans to the right. "Kenzie," she
whispers, "I've got to pee."
"Now?" the guardian ad litem asks.
"Yeah. Like right now."
Kenzie grabs the girl's hand and makes their
excuses down the row of seated people. Outside the
courtroom, she turns left toward the ladies'
room. She waits for Faith to finish in a stall
and come out and wash her hands. Then she smooths the
girl's hair. "How you doing?"
"It's boring in there," Faith whines. "Can we
get a Coke?"
"It's important that we stay inside. It
won't be too much longer."
"Just a Coke? Five minutes?"
Kenzie stretches out the kink in her back.
"All right. Five minutes." She leads
Faith to the machines just inside the main lobby of the
courthouse. People mill about: sequestered witnesses
awaiting their limelight, attorneys on cell
phones, uniformed men laying new mud mats on
the floor. Kenzie deposits seventy-five
cents and lets Faith push the buttons so that the
can hurtles out of the chute.
"Mmm. That's good," Faith says after taking
a sip. She pirouettes, testing out her
legs after sitting so long, and stops abruptly
when she looks through the glass doors of the
courthouse. On the steps, on the snow-covered
lawn, are hundreds of people. Some of them hold up
placards with Faith's face posted; some of them
wave rosaries in the air. Their shout of
support swells like a tsunami as they catch a
glimpse of her.
She had not seen them coming in; Kenzie had
taken her through a rear entrance simply so that she
would avoid this. "Hold my drink, please,"
Faith says, handing Kenzie the Coke can.
"Faith, don't--" she calls, but she's
too late. Faith has already pushed open the
doors to stand on the stone steps that lead into the
courthouse. After a rousing cheer from her
supporters, she raises her hands, and they cry
out even louder. Stupefied, Kenzie finds herself
unable to move. "Hello," Faith says,
waving. She smiles as their prayers fall over
her, accepting her due like a queen.

"I've been treating Mariah White for seven
years," Dr. Johansen says. "Ever since
she left Greenhaven."
"What was your opinion about her
institutionalization?"
"It never should have happened in the first place," the
doctor says. "There were a variety of other
treatments for depression that would have been just as
effective."
"Was there any way Mariah could have prevented
herself from being hospitalized?"
"No. Her husband believed it was the best
option. Her mother was in Arizona at the time,
unaware of the proceedings. Mariah was heavily
medicated, and so removed from reality that she couldn't
stick up for herself."
"What was your opinion of Mariah White's
mental state upon release from Greenhaven?"
Dr. Johansen frowns. "I found her to be
emotionally fragile, but receptive to learning
coping skills. And, of course, she was very
preoccupied with her pregnancy."
"Did she exhibit signs of psychosis at
that time?"
"No."
"No delusions, no hallucinations?"
"Never. Even when Mariah was hospitalized,
it was for depression."
"Dr. Johansen, what is your opinion of
Mariah's mental state today?"
The psychiatrist stares at his client as if
divining her thoughts. "I think she's getting
stronger and stronger," he says solemnly. "As
evidence of that, you need only consider that she's
waived doctorstpatient confidentiality here in
court, in an effort to retain custody. And look
back to August: When presented with virtually the
same trigger situation that once made her
suicidal, she reacted this time in a much healthier
manner. She pulled herself together, took care of
her daughter, and went on with her life."
"Doctor, in your mind is there any
possibility that this woman would harm her
daughter?"
"No."
"In your therapy over the past seven years,
has there ever been an admission, inclination, or
thought of Mariah harming her daughter?"
"Absolutely not."
"Has Mariah spoken to you about the current
circumstances surrounding Faith?"
"You mean the visions and the media? Yes."
"Does Mariah believe that her daughter is,
indeed, a visionary?"
Dr. Johansen is silent for so long that
Joan starts to repeat the question. "Mariah
believes her daughter is telling the truth," he
says. "For whatever that's worth."

"How do you go about getting someone committed to a
mental institution?" Metz begins.
"It's a court process," Johansen
says. "A psychiatrist evaluates the
person, and the judge reviews the files."
"So several people are involved in the decision."
"Yes."
"Does the system work?"
"Most of the time," the psychiatrist says.
"In the cases where you can't trust a person's
own judgment on the matter." He stares
pointedly at Metz. "However, in this particular
case the system didn't work. Mariah White was
severely depressed and overmedicated, and her own
wishes were not respected."
"If the judge had believed that Mrs. White
didn't need institutionalization, would the court
order have been passed?"
"No."
"If the psychiatrist had believed that Mrs.
White didn't need institutionalization, would the
court order have been passed?"
"No."
"If the next of kin, Colin White, had
believed that Mrs. White didn't need
institutionalization, would the court order have been
passed?"
"No."
"I see. So you're suggesting that these various people
should have set aside their observations and taken the
opinion of a woman who cut open her wrists a
week earlier?"
"That's not--"
"Yes or no, Doctor?"
The psychiatrist nods firmly. "Yes, that
is what I'm saying."
"Let's move on. What did you
prescribe for Mariah White when she first left
Greenhaven?"
Dr. Johansen looks down at his notes.
"Prozac."
"Was this a continuous prescription?"
"For a while. But after a year she went off it,
and she functioned beautifully."
"You considered her emotionally stable?"
"No question in my mind," Johansen answers.
"Has Mariah White asked for a refill of
that prescription?"
"Yes."
"When?"
"Three months ago," the psychiatrist
says. "August."
"Right after her husband left? Then she wasn't
as stable as you thought--right, Doctor?"
Dr. Johansen straightens. "The same
exact thing that threw her for a loop seven years
ago happened again, Mr. Metz. This time, instead
of attempting suicide, she called me up and
said, "I need help." Any psychiatrist in
the country is going to view that as a mark of mental
stability."
"Are there side effects to Prozac?"
"Occasionally."
"Such as?"
"Sometimes fluoxetine may cause headaches,
chills, nervousness, insomnia, drowsiness,
anxiety, dizziness. Also hypertension, rashes,
nausea, diarrhea, weight loss, chest pain,
and tinnitus."
"What about hallucinations?"
"Yes," Dr. Johansen admits. "But quite
rarely."
"And suicidal ideation?"
"On occasion. However, you must remember that
I've seen this particular patient on this
particular drug at a dosage of twenty
milligrams P.o. for over a year. I know
how her body reacts to it. were this a new
prescription, Mr. Metz, you might be right.
But not in the case of Mrs. White."
"Was she off the drug, Doctor, for a
period of several years?"
"Yes."
"Aren't there adverse effects associated with
its discontinuation?"
"Yes."
"Such as suicide attempts, psychosis,
delusions, and hallucinations?"
"Again," Johansen cautions, "you're talking
about a minute percentage of people."
"But might she have had some adverse effects
to discontinuation?"
"None that she reported, Mr. Metz."
The lawyer turns. "Dr. Johansen,
what's the likelihood of someone who undergoes
successful treatment of depression having a
recurrence of the illness?"
"I don't have statistics."
"But it happens fairly often, doesn't it?"
"Yes. But usually the well-adjusted ones know
to return to a psychiatric professional, at that
point, for help."
"I see. So basically you're telling us that
someone who's crazy once has a good shot at
going crazy again."
"Objection!"
"Withdrawn," Metz says. "Nothing further,
Doctor."
Joan is out of her seat before the words leave his
mouth. "I'd like to redirect," she snaps.
"I'd like to qualify the terms "mental
disorder" and "depression." Are they one and the
same?"
"Of course not."
"What was Mariah's diagnosis?"
"Suicidal depression," Johansen says.
"Have you ever heard of Munchausen Syndrome
by Proxy?"
"Yes."
"Does it stand to reason that a person
diagnosed and treated for suicidal depression
would seven years later develop Munchausen
Syndrome by Proxy? Is that a direct
relationship?"
Dr. Johansen bursts out laughing. "No more
than saying that because you eat breakfast in the morning,
you're likely to be wearing underwear."
"Thank you, Doctor," Joan says.
"I'm through here."

What Millie decides as she sweeps up
to the witness stand is that she's held her tongue
long enough. As long as Joan intends to make her
a character witness for Mariah, she wants to get her
two cents in. She settles in the chair and
nods at the attorney, ready to begin.
"Mrs. Epstein, how often do you see
Faith?"
"At least every other day."
"How often do you see Faith interacting with
Mariah?"
"Again, just as frequently."
"In your opinion, is Mariah a good mother?"
Looking every inch the proud parent, Millie
beams. "She's a wonderful mother. She works
twice as hard as any other parent because she's so
intent on doing the best possible job."
"How has Mariah dealt with the media surrounding
Faith these days?"
"How would you?" Millie says. "She's
pulled Faith out of school; she keeps her
hidden from their cameras. She does whatever she can
to give her a normal life." There. That's her
obligation to Joan, the material they've
rehearsed ad nauseam. But she continues to speak,
causing Joan to stop in her tracks and glance
up, surprised at the change in script. "You
all think that Mariah's the one who has to measure
up. But whose fault is this, really?" With a
trembling finger, she points to Colin. "He's the
one who did this to my daughter before. He had her
committed. Well, he should be the one committed, for
not being able to keep his pants zipped--"
"Mrs. Epstein," Joan says firmly.
"If you could just please stick to the questions?" She
clears her throat and gives Millie a very
pointed look.
"No, I think now that I'm up here, I'd like
to talk. Who wouldn't be depressed if
your husband starts sleeping around behind your back?
I don't know why--"
"Ma'am," Judge Rothbottam warns,
"I must ask you to control yourself."
Joan walks toward the witness stand during this
digression, smiling tightly. "Cut it," she
says through clenched teeth, and turns away,
muttering something about loose cannons. "Mrs.
Epstein, there are a variety of reasons to legally
support a change of custody. To your knowledge, has
Mariah ever sexually abused Faith?"
"God, no."
"Has she ever hit her daughter?"
"She doesn't even smack Faith on the
bottom when she's being wise."
"Has Mariah ever emotionally abused
Faith?"
"Absolutely not!" Millie says.
"She's completely supportive."
"Does Mariah work outside the home, or in
any other way spend most of the day away from her
daughter?"
"She's with her every minute." Millie looks
sourly toward the judge. "When she's allowed
to be."
"Thanks," Joan says, and then sits down
before Millie has a chance to say anything else.

Metz eyes Millie Epstein with
calculation. He knows damn well why Joan
wrapped up so quickly--the old bat's loopy.
Like Joan, he plans to steer clear of questions
involving reincarnation and second leases on
life, questions that would only make him the butt of
jokes in the legal community. He smiles,
catching Millie off guard. From what Joan's
told her, he's sure that he's been built up
as a piranha. "Mrs. Epstein, you really
love Mariah, don't you?"
Millie's face softens. "Oh, yes."
"She grew up very close to you, I bet."
"Yes."
Metz leans against the witness stand. "You watched
her graduate from high school?"
"Class valedictorian," Millie says
proudly.
"And college? Magna cum laude?"
"Summa."
"That's amazing. I barely made it through
Freshman English," Metz jokes.
"And you, of course, were there when she got married."
Millie's mouth turns down at the corners.
"Yes."
"I bet you taught her everything she knows about
being a good mother."
"Well," Millie says, flushing
modestly, "you never know."
"I bet you taught her how to help Faith through
these difficult times. Am I right?"
Millie's chin comes up. "I told her over
and over: When you're a mother, you stick up for your
child. And that's that."
"Is that what Mariah's been doing all along
for Faith?"
"Yes!"
Metz pins her with his gaze. "And is that what
you're doing now for Mariah?"

Millie glances at the judge. "So? Is that
it?"
Judge Rothbottam taps his fingers on the
desk. "You know, Mrs. Epstein, actually I
have a couple of questions." He glances at each of the
attorneys in turn. "Apparently our esteemed
counsel is running a bit shy."
Millie preens under his regard. "Go right
ahead, Your Honor."
"I've, um, read in some of the papers that you were
... resurrected?"
"Oh, yes. In fact," Millie
rummages in her large purse, "I've got
my death certificate somewhere in here."
"I don't need to see it." He smiles at
her. "Can you tell me about it, though?"
"The death certificate?"
"Well, no. The resurrection. For
example, how long were you clinically dead?"
Millie shrugs. "About an hour. Signed,
sealed, and delivered."
"What happened?"
"I got into a shouting match with Ian
Fletcher. The next thing I know, I'm lying on
the floor and I can't breathe. After that, I don't
remember." Pausing dramatically, she leans
toward the bench. "Then I'm all of a sudden in a
hospital room with Faith leaning over me."
The judge shakes his head, amazed. "Any
medical explanations for what happened?"
"As far as I know, Judge, the doctors
can't explain it."
"Mrs. Epstein, what do you think happened?"
She looks at him seriously. "I think my
granddaughter brought me back to life."
"What do you make of Faith's visions?"
"I believe her. Goodness, if I didn't
believe her now, I'd be an idiot, wouldn't
I?" She smiles. "Or worse--I'd be
dead."
"Thank you, Mrs. Epstein. Mr. Metz,
do you have any more questions?" The attorney shakes his
head. "Well," Rothbottam says. "I think
I need a recess."

Mariah watches her daughter leave the
courtroom with Kenzie. She's still not allowed to go
near Faith, and to her surprise it's harder
to keep her distance now, knowing that Faith is no
longer ill. She cranes her neck, watching
Faith disappear into the hallway.
She hopes Kenzie is taking care of her.
From the corner of her eye she sees Ian.
Immediately she turns away.
"Mariah." Joan draws her attention.
"You're on after Dr. Fitzgerald."
"That soon?"
"Yeah. Are you going to be all right?"
She presses a fist to her stomach. "I
don't know. It's not you I'm worried about; it's
Metz."
"Listen to me," Joan answers. "When you're
up there, no matter what he says to you, you look
right here." She points behind her, to the row where
Faith has been sitting. "She's going to get you
through this."

Dr. Alvin Fitzgerald has no sooner
taken the stand than Metz stands up.
"Approach!" The attorneys walk up to the
bench. "I want to know if this guy interviewed
Faith."
Joan barely spares him a glance. "No,
because I knew you'd complain if he did. If there
needs to be an interview at a later date,
both of our experts can have a chance. However, I can
show what I need to show without Dr. Fitzgerald
interviewing Faith."
At this, some of the wind goes out of Metz's
sails. "All right," he says tightly.
"Dr. Fitzgerald," Joan begins, "can you
state your credentials for the record?"
"I graduated from the University of
Chicago's medical school, did a residency
and fellowship in child psychology at UCSF, and
I was the principal investigator on a large
grant studying CFS and somatoform disorders."
"We've heard an awful lot about
Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy. Can you tell
us if this particular case fits the criteria for that
disorder?"
The psychiatrist shrugs. "Well, there's a
lot that matches the basic DSM-FOUR
criteria."
Joan watches Metz's mouth drop open in
surprise as the psychiatrist repeats the
highlights of Dr. Birch's testimony. Then
she asks, "Are there elements in this case that
don't seem to fit MSP?"
"Yes. For one, Faith's symptoms are
real, and bizarre. It's a lot easier to fake
nausea than to fake stigmata. As for the
hallucinations, I disagree with Dr. Birch. Just
because Mariah White was at an institution with
psychotics doesn't mean she could make Faith
convincingly fake a hallucination--that's like saying that
riding on the Bulls' team bus will make you
play like Michael Jordan." He grins.
"Another discrepancy is that Munchausen
by Proxy is chronic. These parents go from
emergency room to emergency room so that doctors
don't pick up on what they're doing. Yet
Mrs. White has taken Faith to the same
health-care provider, Dr. Blumberg,
repeatedly. She's gone so far as to request him
to examine Faith numerous times."
"Is that all, Doctor?"
"Oh, I'm just getting warmed up. The
perpetrators of Munchausen by Proxy
traditionally have an emotionally distant childhood,
which Mariah White did not have. But the biggest
problem I have with a diagnosis of MSP is
simply that there are alternative diagnoses that
explain this case equally as well."
Joan acts surprised. "Really? Like
what?"
"Somatoform disorder, for one. Basically,
it's when a patient experiences emotional
distress in a physical way. Imagine a child
who develops severe stomach cramps every time she
has to take a test, because she's so anxious about
school. She's truly hurting, but she
can't articulate why. Remember Freud's
hysterical patients? They were the great-grandmas of
today's somatoform-disorder patients."
He holds up his hands, demonstrating a
sort of scale. "It's helpful to consider these
disorders by imagining a range," the psychiatrist
says. "On one end is malingering, which we've
all done: You pretend you have the flu to get out of
jury duty, for example--symptoms are
intentionally faked to achieve an intended goal.
On the other end is somatoform disorder, where a
patient unintentionally produces a symptom that
looks and feels like the real thing--and doesn't know
that she's doing it, much less why. Somewhere in between
these is Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy, where
symptoms can be intentionally feigned ... but for
unintentional reasons."
"So the difference, Doctor, is in the intent."
"Exactly. Otherwise, these two disorders
look similar. Just as in Munchausen by Proxy,
a doctor will examine a child with somatoform disorder
and not be able to find any organic etiology for the
symptom. She may undergo CT scans and
MRI'S and dozens of tests, to no avail, because
the presenting problem doesn't fit with the
physiology. However, in a somatoform disorder,
the symptom is set off by stress. In MSP,
the symptom is set off by Mom. In somatoform
disorders, the symptom is real. In MSP,
it's faked. Often deciding which is which comes down
to a judgment call requiring the knowledge of the context of the
illness, the players involved, and what gains have
been made by them."
"Then part of the diagnosis involves who's
trying to get attention--the mother or the child."
"Exactly."
"How do Faith's symptoms fit a
somatoform disorder, Doctor?"
"First, the presenting problem isn't organic.
She's bleeding from her hands, but there's no tissue
mutilation inside--kind of hard to fake a wound like
that. She may be hallucinating, but she's not
psychotic. And there's an argument to be made that
the illness was brought on by stress, that she
unconsciously believes that by being sick, the
stressor will go away."
"Would a divorce qualify as a stressor?"
Fitzgerald grins. "You catch on fast,
Ms. Standish. In a child's mind is the
unconscious thought, "If I get
sick, my parents will stay together to take care of
me." Without even knowing she's doing it, the child
makes herself ill and draws attention to herself. Not
having actually met Faith, of course, I can
only hypothesize that her mind is making her
body sick, in the hopes that her family will
remain intact. And look--it's working. Her
parents are both here today, aren't they?"
"If that were true, would Mrs. White be in
any way involved in her daughter's illnesses?"
"Oh, no. It's all being done
psychogenically, by Faith's mind."
Joan pauses. "How would you go about determining
whether Faith's illnesses were caused by her mother's
hand or by her own mind?"
"By default. I'd remove Mrs. White
from her child to see if the symptoms abated."
"What if I told you that a comatose child whose
bodily systems were in acute distress was
restored in a period of an hour to perfectly
normal levels of functioning once she was
reunited with her mother after an extended separation?"
"Well," Dr. Fitzgerald says, "it would
certainly rule out Munchausen by Proxy."

"You're not a hundred-percent sure, are you?"
asks Metz. "That it's somatoform disorder
plaguing Faith ... or that it's Munchausen
by Proxy plaguing her mother."
"Well--"
"Do children always develop somatoform disorders
after messy divorces?"
"No," Dr. Fitzgerald says. "A
variety of maladaptive behaviors might
occur."
"Can you list them for us, Doctor?"
"Sometimes kids act out behaviorally, or
sexually. Grades drop in school.
Appetites rise or wane. There's a whole
range, Mr. Metz."
"I see. Are only a small percentage of
Munchausen by Proxy cases reported?"
"Yes."
"So, although it is a rare disorder, it may be more
prevalent than one might think?"
"That's right."
"Is it true that most patients diagnosed with
MSP are female, with a median age of
thirty-three?"
"Yes."
"How old is Mariah White, and what sex
is she?"
"She's a thirty-three-year-old female."
"Is it true that the perpetrators of MSP
are usually mothers?"
"Yes."
"Is Mariah White Faith White's mother?"
"Yes."
"Have most people who suffer from MSP undergone a
significantly stressful life event, such as
a divorce?"
"Yes."
"Did Mariah White just go through a
divorce?"
"Yes."
"Most of the perpetrators of MSP have some
experience in the health field, as either patients
or professionals, correct?"
"Yes."
"Did Mariah White spend several months
in a mental institution?"
"Yes."
"Is it true that in MSP, the parents seem
very interested in the child's treatment?"
"Yes," Dr. Fitzgerald says dryly.
"But most parents with a sick child--whether they have
MSP or not--tend to be interested in the child's
treatment."
Metz shrugs off the response. "Has
Mariah White been very interested in her child's
treatment?"
"That's what I hear."
"Is it true that most symptoms presented in
cases of MSP do not often respond to conventional
medical treatment?"
"Yes."
"Have Faith White's hand wounds resisted
responding to traditional clotting medicines?"
"Yes."
"Have Faith White's hallucinations persisted
in spite of antipsychotic drugs?"
"Yes."
"Is it true that patients with MSP are
unconsciously looking for attention?"
"Yes."
"Is there an incredible amount of attention
focused on the case of Faith White?"
"Yes." The doctor sighs.
"Is it true that the perpetrators of MSP
deny what they're doing, either because they're
pathological liars or because they've dissociated
from the behavior?"
"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."

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, telling 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 in 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."
Judge Rothbottam takes the tape from
Metz's hand. "I'll look at it in chambers
and make my decision. Let's take a short
recess."
The attorneys head back to their seats. On
the witness stand, unsure of what is happening,
Mariah remains frozen, until Joan
realizes her predicament and quietly
approaches to help her step down.

"What's on the tape, Mariah?" Joan
asks as soon as we are sitting at the defense
table.
"I don't know. Honestly." Although it is
cold in the courtroom by anyone's standards, sweat
trickles between my breasts and down my back.
The judge enters from a side door, settles
into his chair, and asks me to return to the witness
stand. From the corner of my eye I see a
bailiff wheeling in a TV/VCR
combination. "Shit," Joan mutters.
"I'm going to allow the tape to be entered
into evidence," Rothbottam says. Metz goes
through the legal process, then says, "Mrs.
White, I'm going to play the following tape for
you."
As he hits the play button, I bite my
lip. The small screen fills with an image of
me lunging toward the camera so that my features
spread and blur. I'm shouting so loud that the words
don't register, and after a moment my hand comes
up, clearly aiming to strike whoever has been
filming.
Then the camera swings wildly, panning in an
arc of color to touch briefly upon Faith, cowered
in a corner; on my mother in a hospital
johnny; on Ian and his producer.
The tape from the stress test, the footage
Ian said he would not use.
He's lied to me again. I turn toward the
gallery, my eyes scanning until I find him
--sitting just as still and white-faced as I must be.
The only way this tape could have come into Metz's
hands is, somehow, via Ian. And yet to look
at him, one would believe that he is as surprised
to see it surface in court as I am.
Before I can consider this, Metz begins to speak.
"Mrs. White, do you remember this incident?"
"Yes."
"Can you tell us about the day the video was
taken?"
"My mother was having a stress test done after her
resuscitation. Mr. Fletcher was being allowed
to film it."
"What happened?"
"He promised not to turn the camera on my
daughter. When he did turn it on her, I just
... reacted."
"You just ... reacted. Hmm. Is that something you
do often?"
"I was trying to protect Faith and--"
"A simple yes or no will do, Mrs.
White."
"No." I swallow hard. "If anything, I
usually think things through to death before I act on
them."
Metz crosses the courtroom. "Would you say
this tape shows you being "an emotionally stable
person"?"
I hesitate, choosing my words
carefully. "It is not one of my finer moments,
Mr. Metz. But on the whole I am emotionally
stable."
"On the whole? What about during those other odd
incidents of fury? Is that when you physically
harm your daughter?"
"I do not harm Faith. I've never harmed
Faith."
"Mrs. White, you yourself said you're an
emotionally stable woman, and yet this videotape
clearly disproves your claim. So you've lied
to us under oath, haven't you?"
"No--"
"Come on, now, Mrs. White ..."
"Objection!" Joan calls out.
"Sustained. You've made your point,
Counselor."
Metz smiles at me. "You say you'd never
harm your daughter physically?"
"Absolutely not."
"You'd never harm her psychologically either,
right?"
"Right."
"And you're an intelligent woman. You've
followed the testimony in this courtroom."
"Yes, I have."
"So if you had Munchausen Syndrome
by Proxy, and I accused you of harming your
daughter, what would you probably say?"
I stare at him, bile burning the back of my
throat. "That I didn't do it."
"And you'd be lying--just like you lied about being
emotionally stable. Just like you've lied about protecting
Faith."
"I don't lie, Mr. Metz," I say,
fighting for control. "I don't. And I have
protected Faith. That's what you saw me doing
on the video--primitively, maybe, but
protecting her all the same. It's why I
took her out of school when other children began to tease
her. It's why I took her away, in secret,
before this hearing started."
"Ah, yes. Going into hiding. Let's talk
about that. You disappeared the night after your husband
informed you that he'd be filing for a change of
custody, correct?"
"Yes, but--"
"Then you had the misfortune of discovering that your
great escape wasn't that great, after all. Ian
Fletcher had managed to follow you.
We've already proven Mr. Fletcher to have been
less than honest up on the witness stand, and now
we've seen evidence of your own falsehoods.
Maybe you'd like to tell us--truthfully, for a
change--what happened in Kansas City?"

What happened in Kansas City?
This, Ian knows, is the moment that Mariah will be
able to exact revenge. First the McManus
incident, then the video--regardless of the fact that
he personally had nothing to do with the latter, it's not
going to soften Mariah's heart toward him just now.
Plus, the simplest way for her to regain her
credibility is to offer up as proof the evidence that
Faith is truly a healer. The evidence that's
all tangled up in the story of Ian's own
brother.
An eye for an eye. At that, Ian almost
laughs. It is downright ironic for him to be
brought down by biblical justice. But just as he
exploited Mariah's privacy, she now has the
opportunity to uncover his own.
Ian braces his hands on the wooden seat and
prepares himself for Judgment Day.

What happened in Kansas City?
Malcolm Metz is standing right in front of
me. To his right, I know that Joan is
desperately trying to catch my attention so I will
not say anything stupid. But the only person I
can see is Ian, buried in the middle of the
courtroom gallery.
I think of Dr. Fitzgerald and his
testimony. Of Joan walking into her office
to find Ian waiting for her, ready to play
paralegal. Of the look on Ian's face when
Allen McManus walked up to the witness stand,
when that horrible videocassette began to play.
He isn't perfect. But then again, neither am
I.
I look at Ian, wondering if he can tell
what I am thinking. Then I turn to Malcolm
Metz. "Absolutely nothing," I say.

The bitch is lying. It's written on her
face. Metz would bet his life savings that,
somehow, Fletcher's arrival in Kansas City
led to direct proof that all the mumbo jumbo
surrounding Faith is just that, and that, consequently,
the miraculous hallucinations and
physical trauma are actually being caused
by Mariah. Fletcher's been close-mouthed because
he doesn't want to give away his big story;
Mariah's keeping quiet because it only ruins her
credibility. But short of accusing her of
fabricating testimony again, there's very little he can
do.
He takes a moment to compose himself. "You
love your daughter, don't you?"
"Yes."
"You'd do anything for your daughter?"
"Yes."
"Would you give up your life for her?"
He can practically see her imagining Faith
in that pitiful hospital bed. "I would."
"Would you give up custody of her?"
Mariah falters. "I don't understand."
"What I mean is this, Mrs. White: If
it was proven to you by a series of experts that Colin
was the better parent for Faith, would you want her
to go?"
Mariah frowns, then looks at Colin. After
a moment she faces the attorney again. "Yes."
"Nothing further."

Furious, Joan asks to redirect.
"Mariah," she says, "first I want to address
that clip of videotape. Can you tell us what
happened prior to the outburst on that tape?"
"Ian Fletcher had sworn that he wouldn't
exploit Faith. It was the only way I
agreed to allow him in to film my mother's stress
test. When I turned away for a minute, he had
his cameraman pan over to Faith, and I jumped
between her and the lens."
"What was going through your mind at that moment?"
"That he not film Faith. The last thing I
wanted was more media interest in her. She's just a
little girl; she ought to be allowed to live like one."
"Do you think that you were emotionally unstable at that
moment?"
"No. I was steady as a rock. I was
completely focused on keeping Faith safe."
"Thank you," Joan says. "Now I want
you to consider Mr. Metz's final question. Under this
scenario of his, Faith would be moved to a new
environment. She'd be living with the woman she
caught in a compromising position with her father.
She's got a new sibling coming. She's not in
familiar surroundings. Not to mention the
fact that her groupies from the front lawn will
probably drive across town to take up
residence at her new home. Does this sound like
an accurate representation?"
"Yes," Mariah says.
"Good. Now, during this trial, did Colin
convince you that he was the better parent for Faith?"
"No," Mariah answers, confused.
"Did Dr. Orlitz, the state-appointed
psychiatrist, convince you that Colin was the better
parent for Faith?"
"No," she says, her voice a little stronger.
"Did Dr. DeSantis, the private
psychiatrist for the plaintiff, convince you that
Colin was the better parent for Faith?"
"No."
"How about Allen McManus?"
"No."
"Mr. Fletcher?"
"No."
"What about Dr. Birch? Did he convince you
that Colin is the better parent for Faith?"
Mariah smiles at Joan and pulls the
microphone a little closer. Her voice is
strong and steady. "No. He did not."

After the defense rests, the judge calls a
recess. I go to wait in the tiny conference room
Joan and I have been using, and after a few
minutes the door opens and Ian enters. "Joan
told me I'd find you here," he says
quietly.
"I asked her to."
He doesn't seem to know how to respond.
"Thank you for finding Dr. Fitzgerald."
Ian shrugs. "I sort of owed it to you."
"You didn't owe me anything."
Pushing away from the table, I stand and walk
toward him. His hands are deeply set in his
pockets, as if he is afraid to touch me.
"Maybe I should thank you, too," he
murmurs. "For what you didn't say."
I shake my head. Sometimes there aren't words.
The silence between us is flung wide as an ocean,
but I manage to reach across it, to wrap my arms
around him.
His hands close over my back; his breath
stirs the hair at the nape of my neck. He will
be with me. Right now, that's enough. "Mariah," he
whispers, "you may be my religion."

The judge calls the guardian ad litem to the
stand. "The attorneys and I have all read your
report. Do you have anything you'd like to add at this
point?"
Kenzie nods briskly. "I do. I think the
court needs to know that I am the one who let
Mariah White into the Medical Center at two
A.m. on Sunday."
At the plaintiff's table, Metz's jaw
drops. Joan looks into her lap. The judge
asks Kenzie to explain herself.
"Your Honor, I know that you can hold me in
contempt of court and send me to jail. But before you
do, I'd like you to hear me out, because I've become
very attached to the child in this particular case, and I
don't want a mistake to be made."
The judge eyes her warily. "Continue."
"As you know, I've filed a report. I
met with many people, and I originally concluded that if the
child's life was at all endangered, moving her out of
that situation would be best. So in the paper you're
holding in your hand, I recommend that custody be
granted to the father."
Metz claps his client on the shoulder and
grins.
"However," Kenzie says, "I made a
decision late Saturday night, after a doctor
told Mrs. Epstein that Faith might be dying.
I didn't think that the U.s. justice system
had the right to keep a mother from saying good-bye. So
I called Mrs. White and told her to come to the
hospital. I thought, Your Honor, that I was
simply being kind ... and I would have expected my
report to stand on its own.
"But then something happened." Kenzie shakes her
head. "I wish I could explain it, really.
All I know is that I saw, with my own eyes,
a child who was comatose and failing come back from the
edge once her mother was at her side." She
hesitates. "The courtroom is no place for
personal observation, Your Honor, but I want
to share a story with you because it has relevance to my
decision. My great-grandmother and great-grandfather were
married for sixty-two years. When my
great-grandfather died of a stroke, my great-grandma--
who was in perfect health--passed away two days
later. In my family we've always said that
Nana died of a broken heart. It may not be
medically accurate ... but then again,
doctors concentrate on people's bodies, not their
emotions. And if it is possible to die of
grief, Judge Rothbottam, then why on earth
can't someone be healed by happiness?"
Kenzie leans forward. "Your Honor, I
switched from being a lawyer to being a guardian ad
litem ten years ago, and I have a fairly
legal mind. I've tried to come at this from a
rational viewpoint, and it just doesn't work. I
had people telling me about visions and crying statues
and the passion agony of Christ. I had other people
telling me about religious hoaxes. I heard
about people who were very sick, then completely healthy after
brushing Faith in the hospital elevator.
"I've witnessed a lot of inexplicable things
lately, but none of them point to the fact that
Mariah White is hurting Faith. In fact,
I think she saved her life. And it's not going
to help this little girl one whit to be moved away from
her mother's influence." She clears her throat.
"So I'm sorry, Judge. But I'd like you
to completely disregard my report."
The courtroom erupts in confusion. Malcolm
Metz furiously whispers to Colin. The judge
rubs his hand over his face.
"Your Honor," Metz says, getting to his
feet, "I'd like to give a closing argument."
"You know, Mr. Metz, I bet you would."
Rothbottam sighs. "But you're not the one I
want to hear from. I've listened to you and Ms.
Standish, and to Ms. van der Hoven, and I
don't know what the heck to believe. I need a
little lunch break--and I'd like to spend it with
Faith."
Mariah turns toward her daughter. Faith's
eyes are wide, confused.
"What do you say?" Judge Rothbottam
asks. He comes out from behind the bench and walks
toward the gallery. "Would you like to have lunch with me,
Faith?"
Faith glances at her mother, who nods
imperceptibly. The judge holds out his hand.
Faith slides hers into it, and walks out of the
courtroom beside him.

She likes his chair. It goes around and around,
faster than the one at her father's office. And she
likes the music he plays. Faith glances at
the collection of compact discs on one shelf.
"Do you have Disney stuff?"
Judge Rothbottam plucks out a CD,
slides it into the player, and the strains of the
Broadway-cast recording of The Lion
King fill the room. As he shrugs out of his
robes, Faith gasps.
"What is it?" he asks.
She looks down, feeling her cheeks heat the
way they do when she's caught stealing a brownie
before dinner. "I didn't know you had clothes on
under there."
At that, the judge laughs. "Last time I
checked." He sits down across from her. "I'm
glad you're feeling better."
She nods over the turkey sandwich he's
placed on the massive desk for her. "Me,
too."
He draws a chair closer. "Faith, who do
you want to live with?"
"I want them together," she says. "But I
can't have that, right?"
"No." Judge Rothbottam looks at
her. "Does God talk to you, Faith?"
"Uh-huh."
"Do you know that a lot of people are interested in you
because of that?"
"Yes."
The judge hesitates. "How do I know if
you're telling the truth?"
Faith lifts her face to his. "When you're
in court, how do you tell?"
"Well, people swear it. On a Bible."
"If I'm not telling the truth ... then
wouldn't they just be saying words over some book?"
He grins. So much for God not belonging in a
courtroom; He's already there.
But Faith's God, according to the media, is a
She. "People have pictured God as a man for many
years," he points out.
"My teacher in first grade said that long ago people
used to believe all kinds of things, because they
didn't know any better. Like you shouldn't take a
bath, because it could make you sick. And then someone
saw germs under a microscope and started to think
different. You can believe something really hard,"
Faith says, "and still be wrong."
Rothbottam stares at Faith, and wonders
if maybe this girl isn't a prophet after
all.

Judge Rothbottam slides his
half-glasses down his nose and glances out at the
plaintiff, the defendant, and the tightly packed
gallery of reporters. "I stood up several
days ago and told you that in a trial, there's
only one God, and that's the judge. A very wise
young woman reminded me that's not necessarily the
case." He holds up the Bible. "As Mr.
Fletcher pointed out so eloquently during his
swearing-in, we do still rely on convention in a
court, regardless of one's religious
tendencies.
"Now, I'm not here to talk about religious
tendencies. I'm here to talk about Faith
White. The two subjects are related, but not
mutually exclusive. As I see it, we've
raised two questions here: Is God talking
to Faith White? And is Mariah White harming
her child?"
He leans back in his chair, folds his hands
over his stomach. "I'm going to start with the second
question first. I can see why Faith's father is
concerned. I would be, too. I've heard astounding
things from Mr. Metz and his succession of experts,
and from Ms. Standish and her experts, and even from the
guardian ad litem assigned to this case. But
I don't believe that Mariah White is
capable of intentionally or unintentionally harming her
daughter."
There is a gasp to the right of the gallery, and the
judge clears his throat. "Now ... for that first
question. Everyone came into this courtroom--myself
included--wondering if this kid was really some kind
of miracle worker. But the job of this court isn't
to ask whether Faith's visions and hand wounds are of
divine origin. We shouldn't ask if she's
Jewish or Christian or Muslim, if she's
the Messiah or the Antichrist. We shouldn't
ask whether God's got something important
to say to a seven-year-old girl. What this court
must ask, and answer, is this: Who listened, when
this particular seven-year-old girl had something
important to say?"
Judge Rothbottam closes the legal
file spread out in front of him. "Based on
all the testimony I've heard, I think
Mariah White's ears are wide open."

EIGHTEEN

For where your treasure is,
There will your heart be also.
--Matthew 621

December 6, 1999, Early Evening
"Who the hell am I," says Ian,
"to tell you all what you should and should not think?"
His voice rings as high as the rafters in the
Town Hall, unsettling the old bird's nest
that's been there for as long as anyone can remember.
In front of the makeshift podium, two
cameramen weave back and forth. A confection of
spotlights and reflectors decorates the
sides of the stage where the voting booths are usually
set up in November. And in a shoving, jostling
knot are the representatives of over two
hundred networks and newspapers.
The Town Hall's auditorium is the only
place large enough in New Canaan
to accommodate Ian's no-holds-barred press
conference. Announced with two hours' lead time in the
lobby of the courthouse, it is packed. The media
want to hear what Ian Fletcher will have to say,
now that custody has officially been retained
by Mariah.
Ian smiles. "Why are you guys even here?
Why does it matter what I have to say?"
A reporter in the rear yells out, "Because of the
free coffee?"
Laughter ripples through the press, as well as
Ian. "Maybe." He sweeps the crowd with his
gaze. "For years I've made a name for myself
condemning God, and the people who believe in God.
Trying to win people over to my side. I know y'all
are waiting to hear what I have to say about Faith
White, and you're going to be disappointed. I
told the truth to Mr. Metz on the witness stand
--nothing happened in Kansas City. I'm not
going to say whether that girl's got God in her
back pocket. I'm going to say that it isn't
my business, and it isn't your business."
He rocks back on his heels. "Quite a
kick, isn't it? That after building a whole
bankable empire on atheism, I'd tell you
religious beliefs are a private affair? And
I can see it right now, you shakin' your heads,
saying that reporters can damn well make anything
their business--but it's not so. There's a difference
between a fact and an opinion; any
newsman knows that. And religion, for all that
it's provocative, isn't about only what people
believe in--it's also about the simple act of
believing. Just like I have a right to walk out here and
say that God is a farce, Faith White has
a right to shout out her bedroom window that God's
alive and well. My opinion, versus her
opinion. But nowhere in that tangle is there a
pure, hard fact.
"So who's right? The answer is ... I
don't know. And I shouldn't care. My mama
used to tell me you can't change the way someone
thinks about God or their politics, although I've
certainly given both a run for my money. But,
you know, I might wind up living next door to the
pope one day. Or down the road from Faith.
Or in the hotel room beside the Dalai
Lama's. And going from door to door trying
to convince them I'm the one who's right is going to be
a waste of time. No, correction: It has
been a waste of time. We don't have to accept
each other's beliefs ... but we do have to accept
each other's right to believe them."
He nods toward the rear of the auditorium.
"Now, I said this was open season on me, and I
don't go back on my promises. Anyone
got a question?"
"Yeah, Ian," calls a reporter from
Time. "That's a nice, politically correct
speech, but what kind of proof did you get on the
kid's miracles?"
Ian crosses his arms. "My guess is,
Stuart, that you really want to ask me if
Faith's a healer." The reporter nods.
"Well, I saw things I've never seen before, and
that I doubt I'll see again. But you might say
the same thing about surviving a world war, or watching
the northern lights, or assisting at the birth of
Siamese twins. None of which are, by definition,
miraculous."
"So is she seeing God?"
Ian shakes his head. "I think you're all
going to have to decide that for yourself. For some people,
Faith's the genuine article. For others, she
doesn't come close." He shrugs,
effectively ending his comment.
"Sounds like a cop-out to me," says a
reporter in the front row.
Ian glances down at her. "Too damn
bad. I'm up here speaking my mind.
Maybe you just don't want to hear what's on
it."
"Will Pagan Productions be dissolved?"
calls out a voice.
"I certainly hope not," Ian says.
"Though we may have to rewrite our corporate
goals."
"Are you involved with Mariah White?"
"Now, Ellen," Ian chides the Washington
Post reporter, "if I'm up here going out on
a limb to tell you God is nobody's business
but your own, what do you think I'm going to say about
a personal relationship?" He glances back
over the crowd, finally pointing to a young man wearing
a CBS News baseball cap. "Yes?"
"Mr. Fletcher, if you're not going to tell people
God's a crock, what will you do?"
He grins. "I don't really know. Are
y'all hiring?"

"Let me take you out to dinner," I say
impulsively, but Joan shakes her head.
"I think you've got your own party to attend."
By unspoken agreement, she lets me walk
her to her car while my mother takes Faith to the
bathroom. "You deserve to be there, too."
Joan smiles. "My idea of a victory
dance is a lot of bubbles in a tub and a very large
glass of wine."
"I'll send over some Calgon, then."
She laughs. "You do that."
We have reached her car. Joan sticks her
briefcase in the back and then turns, arms
crossed. "You know, it's not over. Not by a long
shot."
"You think Colin will appeal?"
She shakes her head, thinking of the thousands of people
who have heard about Faith, who will still want a
piece of her. "I'm not talking about Colin,"
she says.

In Vatican City, Cardinal Sciorro
has spent the morning organizing his desk at the
Sacred Congregation for the Preservation of the Faith.
He sets decrees in formal files, he
passes along deposition information, he stacks and
he sorts. Several cases, he tosses into the
trash can.
Faith White's he sets in an "active"
pile, under a large stack of other
issues the office is considering, and has been for
years.

I have just entered the courthouse to find Faith and
my mother when I am waylaid by Colin. "Rye!"
He catches me by the shoulders before I plow into him
in my haste. "Hey."
Immediately, I feel a rush of triumph, and
on its heels, guilt. "Colin," I say
evenly.
"I, uh, wanted to say good-bye to Faith.
If that's all right with you."
He is staring at his shoes, and I can only
imagine how difficult this must be for him. I
wonder where Jessica is. I wonder,
uncharitably, if he'll go home and stroke his
new wife's belly and think about replacing
Faith. "It's fine. I just have to find her."
But before I have a chance, she tears around the
corner, her dress hiked up on her bottom.
I tug it down and smile, tuck her hair behind
her ear. "Daddy wants to say good-bye."
Her face crumples. "Forever?"
"No," Colin says, kneeling down. "You
heard the judge. I get to see you on
weekends. Every other one."
"So, like, not this one but maybe the one after that."
He tips his forehead against hers.
"Exactly."
This could have been me. Colin could be taking
Faith home and I could be the one begging for a
minute of her attention. I could be bent on one
knee, trying hard not to cry.
I have never understood how children know you better than
you know yourself, how they can touch you when you need it most
or offer a distraction when the last thing you want is
to focus on your problems. Faith strokes her
father's cheek. "I'll still be with you," she says, and
she slides her hand into his shirt pocket.
"Right here."
She leans forward, flutters her eyes
closed, and kisses a promise onto his lips.

Malcolm Metz sits in the parking lot of his
law office in Manchester and considers if he should
just go home for the day. He knows that by now people will have
heard. By now he might even have been subtly
demoted, doomed to negotiating real-estate
transactions or probate controversies.
"Well, shit," he says to his
reflection in the rearview mirror. "Gotta go
back inside sooner or later."
He walks up the curiously quiet steps
into the curiously quiet lobby. Usually when he
returns--hell, every time--there's a throng of
reporters waiting for him to throw off a witty
comment about how easy it was to win. He doesn't
even get a grunt from the security guard standing
beside the elevator, and he takes this as a harbinger
of what is yet to come.
"Mr. Metz," the receptionist says as he
comes through the double glass doors. "You've had
messages from Newsweek, The New York
Times, and Barbara Walters." At this, he
almost stops. Do they always talk to the losers,
too?
"Thanks." He nods at the associates
he passes, trying to cultivate an aura of
absorption. He completely ignores his own
secretary and goes into his corner office like a
wounded lion seeking refuge in his den. He
locks his door, something he never does. Then he
closes his eyes and lays his head on his desk.
Ma nish-tah-naw ha-lie-law ha-zeh
me-call ha-lay-los.
Why is this night different from all other
nights of the year?
Metz blinks. They are words from the Passover
Seder. Words he spoke when he was Faith
White's age, the youngest Jewish boy in his
family. Words that, until now, he did not
remember.
With slow, shaky movements, he rises,
unlocks the office door, and props it open.

My mother is the one who notices first. "Why
did I think they'd all have disappeared?"
I stop the car just in front of the driveway.
Faith is back, she is healthy, it is a new
start. But the groupies and the press and the cult
members remain, thicker than ever. The police
are absent; there's no one to help to clear a path
so that we can enter safely. As I inch down the
gravel, people reach for the car, smoothing palms over
Faith's window with light, tapping noises.
"Stop," Faith says quietly from the
backseat.
"What? Are you hurt?"
As the car comes to a standstill, people jump on the
hood. They pound on the windshield.
They scrape at the paint, trying to get inside.
Faith says, "I'll walk."
At that, my mother puts her foot down. "I
don't think so, young lady. Those
meshuggenahs will probably trample you before
they know what they're doing." But before my mother and I
can stop her, Faith pulls open the back door
and vanishes into the swarm of the crowd.
Immediately, I panic. I rip off my seat
belt and get out of the car, pushing aside people in an
effort to save Faith. I'm more worried for her
now than when she was hospitalized, because these people do
not want to make her better. They only want
to make her theirs.
"Faith!" I yell, my voice lost in the
roar. "Faith!"
Then the crowd falls back on either side,
cleaved in two to form a narrow lane that leads to our
front door. Faith stands halfway down it.
"You see?" she says, waving.

His body is lined with the light of the moon, and the
stars fall into place around him. "Wow," I
say, as Ian steps into the house. "You actually
used the front door."
"I actually walked up the front steps. And
actually shoved about ten people out of my way." Coming
into the parlor, he locks his arms around my waist
so that our legs and foreheads are pressed together.
"You must be happy."
"V."
"Is she asleep?"
"Yes."
I slide my hand down his arm and pull him to the
stairs. "I saw your press conference on the
news. You are being evasive."
Ian laughs. "God. You just can't win with some
people."
I lace my fingers with his. "You ... hinted
that we had something going on."
"We clearly must. After all, you did let
me in that front door."
"Really, Ian," I say softly. "What
are you going to do?"
He leans over, and I smell the night, still
on his skin. He kisses my cheek. "Be with
you."
I can feel myself blushing. "That wasn't what
I meant."
Ian's mouth traces the line of my
neck, the edge of my ear. Then he pulls
away, and stares at me until we are both
perfectly still. "Why wasn't it?" he says, and
smiles.

Her mother thinks she is asleep. She knows because
she can hear the house settling like a fat lady
arranging her skirts, twitching and creaking and
sighing all around her. Faith sits up in bed and
turns on the tiny lamp on the nightstand. She
pulls up her pajama top, examining
critically the thin ladder of her ribs, the rainbow
bruises on her skin where tubes and needles were
connected. Then she holds one palm beneath the lamp
and feels for the small flap of skin where the hole
was. It's gone now, nothing but the smooth pink
bowl of her hand.
"God," she whispers aloud.
Nothing.
She glances from the windowsill to the nightlight
to the dresser. "God?"
Faith tosses back the covers and gets
onto her hands and knees. She checks under the
bed, and then gathers all her courage and throws
open the door of the dark, dark closet. She
hears only the rhythm of her own breathing, and the
fan from the bathroom down the hall. The round
sounds of her mother and Ian, talking downstairs.
"God?" she tries again.
But with the same casual confidence she has that the
sun is going to come up in a matter of hours,
Faith knows that she is alone inside these white
walls.
Suddenly she is very cold, and a little scared.
She dives beneath the covers, thudding hard enough as she
sprints across the floor for her mother to come
investigate. She hears her footsteps on the
stairs, the creaky one at the count of seven, the
muffle of her shoes once she hits carpet.
She guesses how long it is before her mother is within
spitting distance of the bedroom.
"They asked a lot of questions," Faith says just
loud enough for her words to carry, her eyes on the
slice of light from the nearly closed door. "But
then again, they've never seen Y." She holds her
breath. From the corner of her eye she sees the
knife edge of her mother's tired smile.
With her heart pounding and her fists clutching the
comforter, Faith continues to talk to no one at
all, until she hears her mother's
voice again downstairs, until she is certain that
nobody is listening.

THE END