Keeping Faith Read online

  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