Keeping Faith Read online

  My mother doesn't say a word. She stares at my mouth, red and kissed, and raises a brow.

  "I wasn't thinking," I confess, and at least this much is true.

  "What did you say to him?"

  "To be polite to my attorney in the future," I lie, staring Joan right in the eye, "or else he'll have to answer to me."

  A few minutes before Petra Saganoff and her film crew are due to arrive, I pull Faith aside into an alcove by the bathroom. "You remember what we talked about?"

  Faith nods solemnly. "No talk about God. At all. And there's going to be a big camera," Faith adds. "Like the ones outside."

  "That's right."

  "And I can't call Petra Saganoff the B word."

  "Faith!"

  "Well, you called her that."

  "I was wrong." I sigh, thinking that if I survive this day, I will never complain again in my life. Through Joan, I've arranged to have Petra Saganoff in to film what she calls "B-roll"--background footage of Faith playing and of us just being us in our house, that she'll then go off and record over with her own narrative, before airing the segment on Hollywood Tonight! Joan made sure that Saganoff signed a release about what she is allowed to film and what she isn't, but I worry about her visit all the same. Although I think Faith will be able to act normally for a half hour, this could backfire...something Joan has pointed out to me ever since I suggested this exclusive. Our lives haven't exactly been predictable lately. What if Faith starts bleeding again? What if she forgets, and starts talking to God? What if Petra Saganoff makes us all look like fools?

  "Mommy," Faith says, touching my arm. "It'll be okay. God's taking care of it."

  "Excellent," I murmur. "We'll make sure to give her a good seat."

  The doorbell rings. I pass my mother on the way to answer it.

  "I still don't like this. Not a bit."

  "Neither do I," I say, scowling at her. "But if I don't say something, people are going to assume the worst." I pull open the door and fix a smile on my face. "Ms. Saganoff, thank you so much for coming."

  Petra Saganoff, primed and in person, is even more attractive than she is on television. "Thanks for the invitation," she says. With her are three men, whom she introduces as a cameraman, a sound man, and a producer. She does not make eye contact with me; instead her gaze darts around the hall, looking for Faith.

  "She's just inside," I say dryly. "Why don't you follow me?"

  We have agreed to allow her access to Faith's playroom. What better way, I figure, to show that a child is just a child, than to watch her with her dolls and puzzles and books? But by the time the cameraman and the producer have decided where to set the camera and arranged the lighting for the shot, nearly thirty minutes have passed. Faith's getting fidgety; the cameraman even gives her a "gel"--a colored piece of plastic that he's affixed to the lights with clothespins. She takes it and peers through it, screening her world yellow, but I can tell that she's reached the end of her patience. At this rate, Faith will be ready to leave her toys and go somewhere else by the time Petra's just getting started.

  I am thinking of the time Ian filmed Faith at my mother's stress test, of how even with limits in place, there is still so much that can go wrong--when suddenly a fuse blows. "Ah, damn it," the cameraman says. "Circuits are overloaded."

  Another ten minutes until we fix the fuse. By now Faith is whining.

  The cameraman turns to the producer. "You want continuous time code or time of day?" Then the sound man holds up a white card in front of Faith's face. "Give me some tone," the cameraman says, and a few moments later, "Speed." The producer looks at Petra Saganoff. "Whenever you're ready."

  When filming begins, I'm on the floor helping Faith play with a felt board. As per Joan's instructions, I don't talk to Petra or the camera; I do only what I would normally be doing with Faith. I try to keep Faith's attention from the little red light on top of the camera, a place she seems to want to fix her gaze. Petra watches from the corner.

  "I'm hungry," Faith says, and I realize it's already lunch-time.

  "Come on. We'll go into the kitchen."

  Well, that creates a quandary. Technically we haven't filmed for thirty minutes, but the crew is off limits to the rest of the house. I suggest that the crew take a break and continue filming after Faith eats. Graciously, I invite Petra into the kitchen.

  "You have a nice place here, Mrs. White," she says, the first words she's really addressed to me since her arrival.

  "Thank you." I reach into the refrigerator and pull out the peanut butter and jelly, set it on the table--Faith likes to spread her own sandwiches.

  "I imagine this has been hard for you," Petra says, and then smiles at the expression on my face. "Want to frisk me? See if I'm wearing a mike?"

  "No, of course not." Joan's ultimate command: Keep your cool. I choose my words carefully, sure that the voice-over narrative Saganoff does will somehow come back to whatever conversation we are about to have. "It has been difficult," I admit. "As you've probably noticed, regardless of what the people outside think, Faith's just a little girl. That's all she wants to be."

  Behind Petra's back, I see Faith holding up her palm. She's spread jelly all around the Band-Aid, so that it looks as if she's oozing blood, and she's waving her hand in the air and silently pretending to moan. My mother, catching my look, rushes over to Faith and wipes the jelly off her hand with a paper towel, firmly waggling a finger in her face in warning. I focus my attention on Petra again and smile brightly. "What was I saying?"

  "That your daughter's just like any other little girl. But, Mrs. White, there are a lot of people who'd disagree with you."

  I shrug. "I can't tell them what to think. But I don't have to believe what they believe either. First and foremost, Faith is my daughter. Plain and simple, and whatever else is going on really has nothing to do with us." Proud of myself, I stop while I'm ahead. Even Joan couldn't find fault with that last statement; I almost wish the camera had been rolling.

  I take a head of lettuce out of the refrigerator. "Would you like some lunch, Ms. Saganoff?"

  "If it's not too much trouble."

  For years afterward, I will never be able to figure out what made me say what I say next. It bursts out of me like a belch, and leaves me just as embarrassed. "No trouble at all," I joke. "We're just having loaves and fishes."

  For a single, horrifying moment, Petra Saganoff stares at me as if I've grown another head. Then she breaks into laughter, steps up to the counter, and offers to help.

  November 24, 1999

  On Wednesday, Hollywood Tonight! runs teasers, promising an inside look at the White household: "Home with an Angel." To my surprise, I begin to get nervous about the broadcast. I do not know, after all, what Saganoff is going to say about us. And millions of people are going to hear it, no matter what.

  At six o'clock, we eat dinner. At six-thirty, I make a bowl of microwave popcorn. By twenty to seven, my mother, Faith, and I are sitting on the couch, waiting for Peter Jennings to stop talking so that Hollywood Tonight! will come on. "Oh, shoot," my mother says, patting her chest. "I left my glasses at home."

  "What glasses?"

  "My glasses. You know, the ones I need to see."

  I raise a brow. "You were wearing them this afternoon. They're probably in the kitchen."

  "I wasn't wearing them; you're mistaken. I clearly remember leaving them on the kitchen counter in my house." She turns to me. "Mariah, you know how I hate driving in the dark. You have to get them for me."

  "Now?" I ask, incredulous. "I can't leave when this show's about to go on."

  "Oh, please. My house is five minutes away, even less. You'll be back before the news is over. And if you aren't, you can always turn on my TV and watch, too."

  "Why can't you just pull a chair up close to the television set?"

  "Because she'll hurt her eyes," Faith pipes in. "That's what you always tell me."

  Frustrated, I press my lips together. "I cannot believe yo