Keeping Faith Read online

  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.