Keeping Faith Read online

  Joan whispers to Mariah, "She's good."

  Metz feels his client's eyes on him, and shrugs. He doesn't know jackshit about GALs in New Canaan, New Hampshire. Manchester is one thing, but for all he knows Kenzie van der Whatever is Joan Standish's sister. "We think that's fine, Your Honor," Metz announces in a strong, clear voice.

  "We do, too," Joan adds.

  "Marvelous. The custody hearing will begin Friday, December third."

  "I have a conflict," Metz says, poring over his calendar. "I'm scheduled to be taking a deposition in the case of a boy who's divorcing his parents."

  "Is that supposed to impress me, Mr. Metz?" Judge Rothbottam asks. "Because it really doesn't. Find someone else to do it. You're the one who wants this case tried expediently."

  Metz folds the leather binding of his Filofax. "I'll be here."

  "Joan?"

  "I don't have any conflicts."

  "Excellent." The judge pushes the earphones into place. "I can't wait."

  Joan pulls into the driveway and touches Mariah's arm. "Remember what I told you. This isn't the end of the world."

  Mariah's smile does not quite reach her eyes. "Thank you. For everything." She folds her hands in her lap. "I was impressed."

  "Girl, you ain't seen nothing yet." Joan laughs. "I might have taken on this case for free, just to stand up to Malcolm Metz. Now, you go on inside and play with your daughter."

  Mariah nods and gets out of the Jeep, flinching at the questions hurled from distant reporters, and at the sight of a tremendous poster of Faith's face held by a large group of women. She feels fragile, an ornament made of spun sugar, but she steels her composure while she climbs the porch steps. As soon as she opens the door, her mother and Faith come running into the parlor. After a searching look at Mariah's face, Millie turns to her granddaughter. "Honey, I left my reading glasses on the arm of the couch. Could you get them?"

  As soon as Faith is out of hearing range, Millie closes in. "So?"

  "In five weeks we have to go to court."

  "That son of a bitch. I knew you--"

  "Ma," Mariah interrupts. "Don't do this now." She sinks down on the stairs and scrubs her hands over her face. "This isn't about Colin."

  "It's not about you, either, Mariah, but I'll bet five weeks from now it will be."

  "What's that supposed to mean?"

  "That your Achilles' heel, unfortunately, is a target as big as a barn. And that Colin and his fancy lawyer are sure to strike there."

  "By then Joan will have come up with something," Mariah says, but she knows she is trying to convince herself as well as Millie. What court would pick her as the better parent?

  Maybe Colin's right--maybe it is her fault. She has made poor choices before regarding Faith; this could be yet more proof of her inadequate parenting: one rash decision, one selfish move, one conversation that took root in Faith's imagination and brought her to this point. There have been times, after all, when Colin questioned Mariah's judgment with good reason.

  "Oh, no you don't," Millie mutters, pulling Mariah upright. "You go right upstairs and steam that look off your face."

  "What--"

  "Take a hot shower, Clear your head. I've seen you get like this before, all full of doubts about whether you've got the good sense God gave a beetle, much less a competent mother. I swear, I don't know how Colin does it, but the man's a Svengali when it comes to your mind." She pushes Mariah up the stairs as Faith comes into the parlor with her grandmother's eyeglasses. "Oh, good," she says to the girl. "Let's go see if we can find Sunday's comics."

  Aware of Faith's eyes following her, Mariah smiles with every step. She deliberately shoves aside the thoughts that batter away at her: what Joan will say in court, what the judge will make of Mariah's hasty escape to Kansas City, what Ian will say and do now that they have returned. She undresses and turns the shower on so that a white mist fills the bathroom. Inside the stall, the water pounds heavy and hot, but Mariah cannot stop shivering. Like the survivor of an accident, the close call hits all at once, and she is by turns frightened and stunned. What if, five weeks from now, her daughter is legally removed? What if, once again, Colin gets his way? Mariah slides down to the tiled floor, arms crossed tight, and lets herself fall apart.

  After Faith is bathed and put to bed, Mariah walks into the living room to find Millie peering out from the edge of the curtains. "Like Yasgur's Farm," she murmurs, hearing Mariah come up behind her. "Look out in the field. You can see all those little flickering lights...What were they holding up back then--candles?"

  "Cigarette lighters. And how would you know about Woodstock?"

  Millie turns and smiles. "Don't underestimate your mother." She reaches for Mariah's hand and squeezes. "You feeling better yet?"

  At the simple, sweet concern, Mariah almost breaks down again. She lets her mother lead her to the couch and lays her head in her lap. As Millie begins to smooth Mariah's hair back from her brow, she can feel some of the tension ebb, some of the problems fall by the wayside. "I wouldn't say I'm feeling better. Numb is more like it."

  Millie continues to stroke her daughter's hair. "Faith seems to be holding up all right."

  "I don't know if she understands what's happening."

  There is a moment of silence. "She isn't the only one."

  Mariah sits up, color flooding her face. "What do you mean by that?"

  "When are you going to tell me the rest?"

  "I already told you everything that happened in court."

  Millie tucks a strand of Mariah's hair behind her ear. "You know, you look just the way you did when you stayed out with Billy Flaherty two hours past curfew."

  "It was a flat tire. I told you that almost twenty years ago."

  "And I still don't believe you. God, I remember sitting up in bed watching the clock and wondering, What on earth does Mariah see in him, with his brooding and his moods?"

  "He was only sixteen, and his father was an alcoholic, and his parents were in the middle of a divorce. He needed someone to talk to."

  "The thing is," Millie continues, as if Mariah has not spoken, "the other night I was lying in bed watching the clock and wondering, Why on earth is Mariah staying with Ian Fletcher? And you come home, and you've got that same face on all over again."

  Mariah scoffs and turns away. "I don't have any face on."

  "Yes you do. It's the one that says it's already too late for me to keep you from going over the edge." She waits for Mariah to look at her again, slowly, and with great reservation. "So you tell me," Millie says softly. "How hard was the fall?"

  A stillness settles over Mariah as she realizes that her mother is no more prescient than Mariah herself. All the moments she's awakened in the middle of the night a split second before Faith's cries fill the dark, all the times she has looked at her daughter's face and cleaved a lie in half with a single look. This is the codicil of motherhood: Like it or not, you acquire a sixth sense when it comes to your children--viscerally feeling their joy, their frustration, and the sharp blow to the heart when someone causes them pain.

  "Fast." Mariah sighs. "And with my eyes wide open."

  As Millie opens her arms, Mariah moves into them, drawing close the comfort of childhood with a great rush of relief. She tells her mother of Ian, who was not following her when she thought he was, who was not the person he made himself out to be. She describes the way they would sit on the porch after Faith went to sleep, and how they would sometimes talk and sometimes just let the night settle over their shoulders. She does not tell Millie of Ian's brother, of what Faith might or might not have briefly done for him. She does not tell Millie how it felt to have Ian's body pressed against hers, heat from head to toe, how even during hours of sleep, he held on to her hand as if he could not bear to let her go.

  To her credit, Millie does not act surprised or ask if they are speaking of the same Ian Fletcher. Instead she holds Mariah close and lets the explanations fall where they may. "If this happened betw