Keeping Faith Read online

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-Out. 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 piss-ant 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 georgeous 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. Righ