Keeping Faith Read online

  Millie nods. "I will."

  Lake Perry, Kansas--October 24, 1999

  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.