Keeping Faith Read online

  "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 M&M'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 med