Keeping Faith Read online

  That morning Father MacReady accompanied him to the medical center. While the parish priest visited members of his congregation who were recuperating on the patient floors, Father Rampini spent hours reading the reports about Millie Epstein, with no firm conclusions. Medically, the woman had died. Certainly she was alive and kicking now. And yet rumor had it that Faith touched the woman to bring her back--a laying-on of hands smelled a little fishy.

  The only way to prove that Faith White was an out-and-out liar would be to interview her directly. And that is what he's slated for today. Father Rampini has decided on a three-pronged attack: First, he will narrow down the truth regarding this female vision--Mary maybe, but certainly not God. Second, he will prove that the vision is inauthentic. Finally, he'll examine the alleged stigmata and list the reasons they aren't the genuine article.

  Father MacReady asks him to remain silent during his introduction to Mariah White, and out of professional courtesy Father Rampini agrees. "If you wait here," the woman says, "I'll get Faith for you."

  Father MacReady excuses himself to use the bathroom--Lord knows, he eats enough breakfast sausage to fell a horse, much less upset his bowels--while Rampini idly glances around. For a farmhouse, it is in remarkably good shape, the exposed beams of the ceiling straight and sanded, the floors buffed to high polish, the steely milk paint and flocked wallpaper meticulous. It looks like a residence featured in Country Home, except for the glaring evidence that real people abide here: a Barbie doll wedged between the bananas of a decorative fruit bowl, a child's mitten snugged like a skullcap over the knob of the banister. He sees no Palm Sunday crosses tucked behind mirrors, no Sabbath candles on the dining-room table, no evidence of religion whatsoever.

  He hears footsteps on the stairs and draws himself erect, ready to stare down this heretic.

  Faith White skids to a stop three feet in front of him and smiles. She is missing one of her front teeth. "Hi," she says. "Are you Father Rampenis?"

  Mariah White's face goes scarlet. "Faith!"

  "Rampini," he corrects. "Father Rampini."

  The parish priest appears in the doorway, laughing. "Maybe you should just call him Father."

  "Okay." Faith reaches for Rampini's hand, pulling him toward the stairs. Rampini is aware of two things at once: the rasp of Band-Aids against his own palm, and the extraordinary magnetism he feels when their gazes connect. It reminds him of being a child and seeing the first big snow stretch over his family's Iowa farm--so diamond-bright and pure that he could not tear his eyes away. "C'mon," she says. "I thought you wanted to play."

  MacReady folds his arms across his chest. "I'll stay down here. Have a cup of coffee with your mom."

  Rampini can see by the look on the woman's face that she believed she'd be present for the interview. Well, good. It will be easier to get out the truth in her absence.

  Faith leads him to her bedroom and sits down in the middle of the floor with a Madeline doll and a collection of interchangeable outfits. Pulling out his notepad, Rampini jots down several ideas. If he remembers correctly, Madeline lived in a parochial school. It is possible that this so-called religious innocent knows more than people think.

  "Do you want her skating clothes," Faith asks, "or her party dress?"

  It has been so long since he's played with a child--since he's done more than examine hoaxes and heretics and write lengthy dissertations on his findings--that for a moment he is nonplussed. Once this might have come easily to him. Now he is an entirely different man. "What I'd really like is to play with your other friend."

  Faith's mouth pinches shut. "I don't want to talk about her."

  "Why not?"

  "Because," she says, and jams Madeline's leg into a set of tights.

  Well, Rampini thinks, surprised. The visionary who chatters away about what she's seen is usually lying. Genuine seers, in fact, often have to be coerced into discussing their visions. "I bet she's very beautiful," he urges.

  Faith peeks up from beneath her lashes. "You know Her?"

  "I work in a place where a lot of people study and learn about God. That's why I wanted to talk to you so badly, so that we can compare what we know. Does your friend have a name?"

  Faith snorts. "Duh. It's God."

  "Your friend told you this. She said, 'I am God.'"

  "No." Faith slides a shoe onto the doll's foot. "She said, 'I'm your God.'"

  He writes this down, too. "Does she come whenever you need her to?"

  "I guess."

  "Could she come now?"

  Faith glances over her shoulder. "She doesn't want to."

  Against his better judgment, Rampini looks toward the same spot. Nothing. "Is she wearing a blue dress?" He struggles for a term for Mary's mantle that would be familiar to a seven-year-old. "One with a hood?"

  "Like a raincoat?"

  "Exactly!"

  "No. She wears the same thing over and over. It's a brown skirt and top, but it's all together in one piece, and it looks like the things people from olden times wear on TV. Her hair is brown and comes to here." Faith touches her shoulders. "And she has those shoes that you can wear on the beach and even into the water and everything without your mom getting mad. The ones with Velcro."

  Father Rampini frowns. "She has Tevas?"

  "Yeah, except hers don't have the Velcro and they're the color of throw-up."

  "I bet you wanted to see this friend of yours for a while, before she first appeared to you."

  But Faith doesn't answer. She rummages in the closet, returning with the Lite-Brite box. Father Rampini feels a pang of sentiment--he remembers giving the toy to his own son, long before he was ordained. Has it been around so many years?

  Faith is watching him curiously. "I'll let you do the yellows."

  Rampini shakes his thoughts back to center. "So...you asked to see her?"

  "Every night."

  Father Rampini has seen enough alleged visionaries to make comparisons. The religious devotees who pray to see Jesus for years and then have Him suddenly appear are always the ones who've simply gone off their rockers. Even, sad to say, in the case of that very sweet elderly nun from Medford whom he was sent to evaluate the previous winter. Compare that to the Fatima children, who were simply tending sheep when Mary appeared, unexpected. Or Saint Bernadette, who was gathering wood near a garbage dump when Our Lady materialized.

  Heavenly visions come from heaven, but out of nowhere. Yet, according to Faith, she'd been asking for one--religiously, one might say.

  "I wanted a friend really bad," Faith continues. "So every night I wished on a star. Then she came."

  He hesitates before writing on his notepad. Desiring a friend wasn't quite the same thing as praying for a miraculous appearance, but there were cases of child visionaries who'd played, so to speak, in the fields of the Lord. Saint Herman-Joseph romped with Mary and a boy Jesus; Saint Juliana Falconieri had visions where the Christ Child wove her a garland of flowers.

  His eyes fall on Faith's hands, grasping the tiny pegs and stuffing them into the gridded holes of the Lite-Brite. "I heard that you hurt yourself."

  She quickly hides her fists behind her back. "I don't want to talk anymore."

  "Why? Is it because I asked about your hands?"

  "You'll make fun of me," she whispers.

  "As a matter of fact," Father Rampini says gently, "I've seen other people who have the same kinds of cuts you do."

  This catches Faith's attention. "Really?"

  "If you let me take a look, I can tell you if yours are the same or different."

  She takes one hand and places it on the floor between them, uncurling her fingers like the petals of a rose. With her other hand she peels back the Band-Aid. In the center of her palm is a small hole. The flesh around it isn't mangled on either side of the hand, and neither are there protuberances such as Saint Francis of Assisi had, as if nails were stretching the skin from beneath its surface. "Do they hurt?" Rampini asks.

  "Not now."