Keeping Faith Read online

  "Not since years ago, when she'd just been released from Greenhaven. She was pretty fragile back then, and taking care of herself was hard enough, not to mention a newborn. But then things got better, much better--or so I believed," Colin says.

  "Do you feel you can provide a safer home for Faith?"

  "God, yes. We live in a wonderful neighborhood, with a terrific backyard for her to play in--and I wouldn't let the reporters get to her. I'd nip the whole issue in the bud, just so that she could have her childhood back."

  "As a father, how do you feel about Faith's situation?"

  Colin's eyes meet Mariah's. His are wide and honest and bright. "I'm worried about her," he says. "I think her life is in danger. And I think her mother is to blame."

  Mariah tugs on Joan's sleeve before she stands to do the cross-examination. "They think I hurt Faith," she whispers, stunned. "They think I'm doing this to her?"

  Joan squeezes her client's hand. She's coached Mariah to expect the worst, but--like Mariah--she figured that would mean some calculated barbs about her hospitalization, not posing her as an abusive parent. Mariah's late arrival at court prevented Joan from warning her about Metz's strategy, and she is not about to break the news to her client now, in the middle of testimony, that the judge has instructed Mariah to have no contact with Faith for the duration of the trial. "Relax. Just let me do my job." Joan stands, staring at Colin long and hard, so that he knows just how reprehensible she truly thinks he is. "Mr. White," she says coolly, "you say your marriage was in trouble."

  "Yes."

  "Yet you didn't talk about this with your wife, because she was emotionally fragile."

  "That's correct."

  "Can you define 'emotionally fragile' for me?"

  "Objection," Metz says. "My client isn't a professional in the field of psychology."

  "Then he shouldn't have used the term in the first place," Joan counters.

  "I'll allow the question," the judge says.

  Colin shifts in his chair, uncomfortable. "She was in a mental institution seven years ago, because she had suicidal tendencies."

  "Ah, that's right. You said she tried to kill herself."

  Colin glances at Mariah. "Yes."

  "She just tried to kill herself out of the blue?"

  "No, she was very depressed at the time."

  "I see. Was there any reason that she was depressed?"

  Colin nods shortly.

  "I'm sorry, Mr. White. You're going to have to speak up for the court stenographer."

  "Yes."

  Joan moves beside Mariah, so that the judge's eye--not to mention the voracious gaze of the press in the gallery--must fall on her as well. "Maybe you could help us out by telling us the reason she was depressed." Seeing the mutinous set of Colin's jaw, she crosses her arms. "I can ask you, Mr. White, or you can tell me."

  "I was having an affair, and she found out."

  "You were having an affair seven years ago, and it made your wife depressed. And four months ago, when you were having yet another affair, you were worried that the discovery might make her depressed again?"

  "Correct."

  "Was the only mistake you made in your marriage these liaisons with other women?"

  "I think so."

  "Would it be correct to say that these two incidents--four months ago and seven years ago--were the only times in your marriage that you--how did you put it?--that you felt a need to seek solace."

  "Yes."

  "I guess, then, that the names Cynthia Snow-Harding and Helen Xavier don't ring a bell."

  As Colin turns white as his shirt, Mariah digs her nails into her thighs. Joan had warned her this was coming, and yet she still feels like running out of the room, or maybe up to the witness stand to scratch his eyes out. How could Joan have so quickly discovered something Mariah had not known for years?

  Because, Mariah thinks, she wanted to know. I didn't.

  "Isn't it true, Mr. White, that Cynthia Snow-Harding and Helen Xavier are two additional women with whom you had affairs?"

  Colin glances toward Metz, fuming behind the plaintiff's table. "I wouldn't say they were affairs," he quickly responds. "They were very brief...connections."

  Joan snorts. "Why don't we move along?" she suggests. "When your wife, Mariah, became severely depressed seven years ago after finding out that you were having an affair with another woman, you say she was institutionalized."

  "Yes. At the Greenhaven Institute."

  "Did the people from Greenhaven just show up at your door to get her?"

  "No," Colin says. "I arranged to have her sent there."

  "Really?" Joan feigns shock. "Did you try psychiatric counseling for Mariah first?"

  "Well, briefly. It didn't seem to be working."

  "Did you ask the psychiatrist to have Mariah put on medication?"

  "I was more worried about what she--"

  "Just answer the question, Mr. White," Joan interrupts.

  "No, I did not ask the psychiatrist that."

  "Did you try to support her through this crisis?"

  "I did support her through it," Colin says tightly. "I know it's easy to make me look like the bad guy, the one who locked up his wife so he could conveniently keep having an affair. But I did what I felt was best for Mariah. I loved my wife, but she was...like a different person, and I couldn't make the old Mariah come back. You don't know until you've lived with someone who's suicidal--how you keep obsessing over the fact that you didn't see this coming, how you blame yourself for the really bad days, how you panic about keeping them safe. I could barely forgive myself every time I looked at her, because--somehow--I'd turned her into that. I wouldn't have been able to handle it if she'd tried to kill herself again." He looks into his lap. "It was already my fault. I only wanted to do something right for a change."

  Mariah feels something turn over in her chest. It is the first time she's truly considered that being sent to Greenhaven might have hurt Colin as well as herself.

  "Did you take time off work to be home with Mariah, so that you could keep watch over her for safety's sake?" Joan asks.

  "Briefly--but it scared the hell out of me. I was afraid that if I turned my back for a second, I'd lose her."

  "Did you ask her mother, living in Arizona at the time, to come stay with Mariah?"

  "No," Colin admits. "I knew Millie would think the worst. I didn't want her to believe that Mariah wasn't improving."

  "So instead you got a court order, and you had Mariah institutionalized against her will?"

  "She didn't know what she wanted at the time. She couldn't drag herself out of bed to go to the bathroom, much less tell me how to help her. I did what I did for her own safety. I listened to the doctors when they said that round-the-clock supervision was best." His troubled gaze meets Mariah's. "I am guilty of many things, including stupidity and naivete. But not of malicious behavior." He shakes his head. "I just didn't know what else to do."

  "Hmm," Joan says. "Let's come back to the present now. Seven years have passed, and your wife catches you in the act again."

  "Objection!"

  "Sustained."

  "After Mariah discovered you were having another affair," Joan says smoothly, "you were worried that she might become depressed again. So rather than taking the time to talk it over, you just ran off?"

  "It wasn't like that. I'm not proud of what I did, but I really needed to get myself together before I took on anyone else's responsibilties."

  "You weren't worried that Mariah might be a little upset finding you in bed with another woman, just like seven years ago?"

  "Of course I was."

  "Did you make an effort to get Mariah psychiatric help?"

  "No."

  "Even though the last time this happened, she became severely depressed?"

  "I told you, I just wasn't thinking past myself at that point."

  "Yet you left your daughter with her," Joan says.

  "I honestly didn't think Mariah