Keeping Faith Read online

  "I don't want to hurt my mother," Faith whispers, so softly that Kenzie has to lean closer. "And I don't want to hurt my father." She turns away. "I want..."

  Kenzie takes a deep breath, waiting. But instead of speaking, Faith curls her hands into fists and tucks them beneath her armpits. Kenzie stares at her fine-boned wrists, wondering if the girl's hands hurt, if she ought to call Mariah, if she just ought to come back another time.

  Kenzie knows nothing about stigmata--alleged or real. But the one thing she understands inside out is what it feels like to be a little girl who doesn't fit in.

  "You know," Kenzie says casually, "I don't want to talk anymore."

  Faith pops to her feet. "Does that mean I can go?"

  "I guess so. Unless you'd like to come outside."

  "Out...side?" Faith's voice breaks with delight.

  "It's beautiful out. Just cold enough that your throat tickles when you breathe in deep." She cocks her head. "I'll tell your mom where we're going. What do you say?"

  Faith stares at Kenzie for several seconds, evaluating whether this is a cruel joke. Then she tears out of the room. "I gotta get my sneakers. Wait for me!"

  Grinning, Kenzie draws on her coat. Faith's fear of hurting her parents could mean many things, but Kenzie knows that at the very least it suggests that the girl feels a heavy responsibility--and why shouldn't she? Her family has broken apart, her yard is beset with people who think she's the Messiah. Being a child advocate in this case means lightening the load, allowing Faith the freedom to be a simple seven-year-old.

  As spontaneous hunches go, it isn't a bad one. Kenzie will get the opportunity to see Faith react to the press barrage that is sure to follow them at a distance. She pokes her head into the kitchen and tells Mariah her intentions, then walks into the parlor before Mariah can voice an objection. "You ready?" she asks as Faith returns, then twists the lock and steps onto the porch.

  Faith hesitantly crosses the threshold. With hands tucked into the pockets of her fleece coat, she kicks tentatively at a pile of leaves. Then she stretches out her arms and spins in a circle, her face lifted to the sky.

  It doesn't take long for the reporters to creep to the edge of the stone wall, regulated once again by the fortuitous arrival of the local police. But even from a distance, long-range lenses allow them to photograph Faith, and they cup their hands around their mouths to call out to her. Faith is halfway to the swing set beside the farmhouse when she hears the first questions, lobbed like softballs to smack her off guard: "Is the world coming to an end?" "Does God want something from us?" "How come God picked you?"

  She stumbles over a woodchuck's hole, and would have fallen if Kenzie weren't there to steady her. Ducking her head, Faith murmurs, "Can we go back in?"

  "You don't have to answer them," Kenzie says softly.

  "But I still have to hear."

  "Ignore them." She takes Faith's hand and leads her to the swing set. "Play," Kenzie urges. "I won't let them do anything to you."

  The media begin to react en masse--photographing and running video and shouting out questions. "Close your eyes," Kenzie yells over their voices. "Tip back your head."

  To illustrate, Kenzie does it first on the swing beside Faith's. She watches Faith watch her, and finally sees the little girl tentatively begin to move back and forth, a smile gracing her face.

  The press keeps yelling, and in the distance a rich, vibrating alto begins to sing "Amazing Grace," and still Faith swings. And then, suddenly, her eyes are open as she goes back and forth, back and forth. "Kenzie!" Faith cries. "Watch what I can do!" In one heart-stopping moment she lets go of the chain links of the swing and jumps into the air.

  Collectively, the questions stop. They all hold their breath, including Kenzie. A hundred cameras capture the girl with her arms outstretched, her body an arrow, flying.

  And then, in a thud and a giggle and a scrape of knee, Faith falls, just like anyone else.

  I watch them from the living room, peeking between the horizontal slats of the blinds. I can feel it growing inside me like a tumor, something I haven't felt since I came home to find someone else beside Colin, where I was supposed to be.

  I am so jealous of Kenzie van der Hoven that I am having trouble breathing.

  My mother comes up behind me. "Some people use a duster to clean their blinds."

  Immediately I fall back. "Do you see what she's doing? Do you?"

  "Yes, and it's driving you crazy." My mother smiles. "You wish you were the one to think of it. So why weren't you?"

  She leaves before I can come up with an excuse. Why haven't I taken Faith outside to play? There's the obvious reason, of course--the glut of reporters waiting like barracudas for the smallest bit of bait--but then again, so what? They have managed to televise stories about Faith whether or not she appears to fuel the frenzy. They broadcast when she was all the way in Kansas City. How could footage of a little girl being, well, a little girl be turned into something any more insidious?

  Minutes later, Faith is standing at the sliding door. Her cheeks are pink with the cold, her leggings are muddy at the knees. She proudly shows me the new scrape on her elbow.

  "I brought her back," Kenzie van der Hoven says. "I've got to be going."

  It takes all my strength to look her in the eye. "Thank you. Faith needed this."

  "No problem. The court--"

  "You and I both know," I interrupt, "that what you did today had nothing to do with a judge's order."

  For a moment I see a light in Kenzie's eyes, and I know that I have surprised her. Her face softens. "You're welcome."

  Faith tugs at my sweater. "Did you see me? Did you see how high I went?"

  "I did. I was impressed."

  She turns to Kenzie. "Can't you stay just a couple more minutes?"

  "Ms. van der Hoven has other places she needs to go." I tweak Faith's ponytail. "On the other hand, I bet I could swing as high as you did."

  The look of surprise on Faith's face is almost comical. "But--"

  "Are you going to argue with me, or are you going to accept the challenge?"

  I barely have time to register the wide smile that splits Kenzie van der Hoven's face before I'm tugged across the yard, following in my daughter's footsteps.

  Ian stands outside his Winnebago, drawn by the clamor that ensues when Faith comes out to play. He watches her kick up her heels on the swing set and stifles a grin--whoever this woman is with her, she's doing Faith a good turn.

  "I'm surprised you're not at the front line."

  Ian turns at the sound of a voice. A woman stands beside him. "And who might you be?" he asks dryly.

  "Lacey Rodriguez." She extends a hand. "Just another worshipper from afar."

  "You're with an outfit," Ian speculates. "Which one?"

  "What makes you think I'm with an outfit?"

  "Call it a hunch, Miz--Rodriguez, is it?--but most of the faithful fanatics, as you pointed out, are too busy calling out hosannas to be shooting the breeze back here. Now, don't go telling me where you work...it must be Hard Copy. Or Hollywood Tonight!--they've got some inspired underlings there."

  "Why, Mr. Fletcher," Lacey drawls. "You'll turn my head with all this flattery."

  At that, Ian laughs. "I like you, Miz Rodriguez. Definitely Hollywood Tonight! You stick to your guns, and one day you'll bump Saganoff off her throne."

  "I'm not in the entertainment business," Lacey says quietly. "I deal in information."

  She watches his eyes narrow as he runs through the options: FBI, CIA, Mafia. Then he raises his brows. "Metz sent you. He should have known I'm not inclined to share."

  Lacey takes a step closer. "I'm not asking you to be a bit player on some TV newsmagazine. I'm talking about the wheels of justice--"

  "Thanks, Lois Lane. I'll pass. If and when I feel like exposing Faith White it'll happen on my own terms and my own agenda."

  "How much more credibility can your word carry than when it's used in a court of law