Keeping Faith Read online

  Millie, wearing cream on her face and a flannel nightgown, comes rushing into the room. "Are you watching this?"

  The screen changes to shots of the courthouse, where Colin and his attorney appear to speak into several microphones at once, their shoulders hunched against the bitter wind. "It's a tragedy," Colin says to the cameras. "No little girl should be raised like that--" His voice breaks, seemingly unable to continue.

  "Oh, for crying out loud," Millie says. "Did he hire an attorney or an acting coach?"

  Petra Saganoff's face reappears. "Malcolm Metz, the attorney for Mr. White, alleges that being placed in Mariah White's custody is physically and psychologically endangering Faith. Of course, the pending custody case is now a matter of public record. We'll have more on this story as it unfolds. This is Petra Saganoff, for Hollywood Tonight!"

  Millie walks to the television set briskly and turns it off. "It's drivel. No one with a brain is going to believe anything Colin says."

  But Mariah shakes her head and spits toothpaste into the sink. "That's not true. They're going to see him crying over his daughter, and that's what they're going to remember."

  "The only person who you should worry about is the judge. And judges don't watch garbage TV like that." Mariah, rinsing out her mouth, pretends not to hear. She wonders if Joan saw it, if Ian saw it, if Dr. Keller saw it. Her mother is wrong. You can reach a lot of people, without even trying--Faith is proof of that. She keeps the water running, until she hears Millie walk out of the room.

  He knows when to call her, because he has repositioned the Winnebago so that it faces Mariah's bedroom. After the light goes out, Ian closes his eyes, trying to imagine what she is wearing to bed, whether her legs scissor between the cool sheets. Then he picks up his cell phone and dials, his gaze on the small pair of windows. "Turn on the light," he says.

  "Ian?"

  "Please." He hears her shift, and then there is a golden glow to the room. He cannot see her, but he pretends he can; he imagines her sitting up and gripping the phone and thinking of him. "I've been waiting on you."

  Mariah settles into her bedding--he can tell by the soft sigh of the fabrics. "How long?"

  "Too long," Ian answers, and there is more to the words than easy flirting. Watching her walk away from him in the grocery store without being able to follow took all his self-control. He pictures her hair, spread over the pillow like a spray of gold, the curve of her neck and shoulder a puzzle piece made to fit flush against him. Curling the phone closer, he whispers, "So, Miz White. You gonna tell me a bedtime story?"

  He expects to hear a smile in her voice, but instead it is thick with tears. "Oh, Ian. I'm all out of happy endings."

  "Don't say that. You have a long way to go between here and that custody battle." He stands up, willing her to come toward the window. "Don't cry, sugar, when I can't be there."

  "I'm sorry. I--Oh, God, what you must think of me! It's just this whole thing, Ian. One nightmare after another."

  He takes a deep breath. "I'm not going to do a story on Faith, Mariah. I may even pull out of here entirely, make it look like I'm onto something else. At least until after the hearing."

  "It won't make a difference. There are plenty of other people left around to turn Faith into some kind of martyr. Did you see Hollywood Tonight!?"

  "No--why?"

  "Colin was on, breaking down and saying that Faith can't live like this."

  "He's putting the media to work for him, Mariah. His lawyer's just savvy enough to get his client's face out in front of the public for sympathy." He hesitates for a moment. "It's not such a bad idea, actually. You ought to turn right around to Hollywood Tonight! and invite them to hear the other side of the story. Give ol' Petra an exclusive."

  Mariah goes absolutely silent. "I can't do that, Ian."

  "Why, of course you can. I'll coach you through it, just like the lawyer did for your ex."

  "It's not that." Her voice is small and suddenly distant. "I can't have a reporter asking me all kinds of questions, because there are things that have happened to me that I don't want spread around. Things I haven't even told you."

  He learned long ago that sometimes the wisest course is to keep quiet. Ian sits on the edge of the Winnebago's couch and waits for Mariah to tell him what he learned weeks before. "I was suicidal seven years ago, and Colin had me sent to an institution."

  "I know." Ian thinks of The Boston Globe, and feels his gut twist.

  "You...you do?"

  "Well, of course," he says, aiming for a light tone. "Before I was smitten by your considerable charms, I was doing a story on you and your daughter."

  "But--but you didn't say anything."

  "Not in public, no. And not in private, because it didn't make any difference to me. Mariah, you're the sanest person I know. And as for not having anything to live for anymore, well, I'm doing my damnedest to keep you from thinking that these days."

  He hears it then, the joy breaking over her. "Thank you. Thank you so much for that."

  "I aim to please."

  "If memory serves, you hit the mark," Mariah says, and they both laugh.

  Then there is a comfortable quiet between them, punctuated by the distant calls of owls and barking dogs. "You should do it, though," Ian adds after a moment. "Have Petra Saganoff over. It's the best way to show a great number of people that your little girl is just a little girl. Tell Petra she can shoot B-roll and do a voice-over as she sees fit, but no interviews." He smiles into the phone. "Fight back, Mariah."

  "Maybe I will," she says.

  "That's my girl." He sees a shape appear at the window of the bedroom. "Is that you?"

  "Yes. Where are you?"

  He watches her turn, scan the darkness for a face she cannot see. Ian flickers the lights in the Winnebago. "Here. See?" Her hands come up to press against the glass, and Ian remembers them against the flat of his chest, cool and curious. "I wish I was with you now."

  "I know."

  "You know what I'd do if I were with you now?"

  "What?" Mariah asks breathlessly.

  Ian grins. "Go to sleep."

  "Oh. That wasn't what I had in mind."

  "Maybe that, too, then. But I haven't had a night's rest like I did with you in...God, well, years."

  "I think...I think I'd like to wake up with you," Mariah says shyly.

  "That would be a fine thing, too," Ian agrees. "Now, get away from that window. I don't want the whole crowd out here laying eyes on you." He waits until he hears the covers rustle, Mariah pulling up the sheets to cover herself. "Good night."

  "Ian?"

  "Hmm?"

  "About what you said before--you won't leave now, will you?"

  "I'll stay as long as you like," he says, and then watches the small square of light in her bedroom go black.

  Mariah has no sooner put the phone on the cradle than she realizes her mother is standing in the slightly open doorway. She does not know how much Millie has heard, how long Millie was standing there.

  "Who was calling so late?" her mother asks.

  "No one. Wrong number." With the weight of Millie's gaze thrown over her like another quilt, Mariah turns onto her side, toward the window, toward Ian.

  For reasons Father MacReady does not understand, Father Rampini has not hightailed it back to Boston after sending along his recommendation that afternoon to Bishop Andrews. He has spent several hours in the guest room at the rectory, not packing but instead tying up the telephone line with faxes he sends from his laptop computer. So it is a surprise when Father MacReady comes downstairs for a glass of milk before bedtime and finds the visiting priest sitting at the kitchen table with a bottle of wine.

  "Chianti?" Father Rampini says, a corner of his mouth lifting. "Why, Joseph," he jokes in an Irish brogue, "where are you hidin' the good malt whiskey?"

  Father MacReady grins. "I find it useful to break across cultural barriers every now and then."

  "Want some?" Rampini hands the other pr