Keeping Faith Read online

  "Did you ever interview Mrs. White in the role of a therapist?" Metz asks.

  "No, I was her daughter's psychiatrist."

  "Then can you say with absolute certainty that somewhere in this mother's twisted mind she wasn't trying to make you put her daughter on display?"

  Dr. Keller looks at Mariah, then at Faith sitting several rows behind her. "No," she says, her word soft as it falls into Metz's outstretched hand.

  "She was brought into the emergency room, bleeding from both palms," Dr. Blumberg says in response to Joan's question. "Traditional emergency-medical procedures failed to stop the bleeding, and I was called in for a consultation."

  "What did you do, Doctor?"

  He leans back in the chair. "I x-rayed her hands."

  "What did you find?"

  "No sign of trauma. Literally, a hole went straight through. No tearing of tissue, no mangled bones, nothing to indicate that this was a puncture wound of any kind, in spite of the slow and steady flow of blood."

  "Had you ever seen anything like this before, Dr. Blumberg?"

  "Absolutely not. It stumped me. I called in experts and colleagues, pediatric and surgical and orthopedic specialists, and we ruled out the medical possibilities one by one. Eventually I just treated the symptoms and sent the girl home, then went back to my office and started reading medical journals."

  "What did you discover?"

  "That, as many people know, this had happened in the past. And I mean in the way, way past. I was wary of believing it myself, but apparently several Catholic saints have exhibited stigmata, or spontaneous bleeding from the palms, side, and/or feet that is medically inexplicable, but also medically verifiable. And there is no physical cause for it."

  "When was the last documented case?" Joan asks.

  "Objection--Dr. Blumberg hasn't been ordained."

  "I'll allow it," the judge says. "Doctor?"

  "There was a man named Padre Pio, who died in 1968. But the most famous stigmatic would probably be Saint Francis of Assisi, who lived in the twelfth century. According to the reports I read, the wounds are quite real, quite painful."

  "What are the main characteristics you found in journals about stigmata?"

  "They can't be cured by ordinary remedies used to control bleeding or induce clotting. They last for months or years at a time, but unlike long-term natural wounds, don't fester."

  "How does that correspond to Faith's wounds?"

  "Very closely," the doctor says.

  "Did you officially diagnose Faith with stigmata?"

  Blumberg grimaces. "No. I was too skeptical. On her record I wrote that after weighing all medical possibilities, the conclusion I'd reached was that it was possible that Faith suffered from stigmata. But frankly, I'm still not comfortable with that diagnosis."

  "This past weekend, what was Faith's medical status?"

  "She was critically ill. She had been put on dialysis and had gone into cardiac arrest twice, her hands and side were bleeding again, and she'd slipped into a comatose state. My professional opinion was that she wasn't going to recover."

  "What is Faith's medical status now?"

  Blumberg grins. "Shockingly healthy. Kids tend to bounce back quickly, but this is truly remarkable. Nearly all her bodily systems are functioning at a hundred percent, or are well on the way to doing so."

  "In your opinion, Doctor, was Faith's heart and kidney failure intentionally caused by someone?"

  "No. There are too many medical personnel around in an ICU for that to happen. Not to mention that traces of medicine which might, for example, cause the heart to arrest were not found in Faith's bloodwork."

  "Were her hand and side wounds caused by someone?"

  He shakes his head. "As I've said, there was no indicative trauma. Just a tiny tunnel...right through the skin and muscle and bone and sinew." He holds up his palm. "There are more bones in the hand than anywhere else in the body, Ms. Standish. It's virtually impossible to puncture it without causing some trauma. Yet that's what I saw. Faith was just...bleeding."

  "Doctor, are you required by law to file reports of possible child abuse?"

  "Yes, any physician must."

  "Did you file this report after seeing Faith White a month and a half ago?"

  "No, I did not."

  "Did you file this report after admitting Faith White on Thursday night?"

  "No."

  "Was there any reason for you to file that report?"

  "Absolutely none."

  "Thank you," Joan says. "Nothing further."

  "Dr. Blumberg," Metz asks, "how many cases of stigmata have you treated?"

  The doctor smiles. "Just this one."

  "But you feel qualified to give us an expert opinion here? Isn't it true that because you couldn't diagnose Faith's wounds, you made an educated guess?"

  "First let me tell you what I ruled out, Mr. Metz. I considered both direct and indirect trauma to the appendage. I examined the possibility of skin secretions, or nerves adjacent to the skin producing some substance, but the emissions were laboratory-tested, and they were indeed blood. Stigmata was the only diagnosis I could find that even came close to matching the clinical observations I made."

  "Can you say without a doubt that this is stigmata?"

  "Of course not, it wouldn't be my job. It's the pope's, I guess. All I can tell you is, Faith White was bleeding. And there was no medical explanation for it."

  "Is there a psychological explanation for it?"

  Blumberg shrugs. "In journals I read, there were attempts to replicate stigmata in patients under hypnosis. In a couple of very rare cases, psychiatrists managed to induce a kind of colored sweat...but no blood. There's no scientific proof that the imagination can produce stigmata apart from a religious idea."

  "Could the wounds have been produced during a sleepwalking episode?"

  "I doubt it. As I said, they looked nothing like puncture wounds."

  "Can you say conclusively that Faith's injuries were not caused by Faith herself, or by another person?"

  "It wasn't apparent," Blumberg says carefully. "I certainly couldn't come down with an absolute, but this clearly was not a case of child abuse. Mrs. White refused to leave her daughter's side, was extremely concerned about Faith's prognosis, and became very agitated when I hypothetically suggested a diagnosis of stigmata."

  "Have you ever seen cases of child abuse, Dr. Blumberg?"

  "Unfortunately, yes."

  "In any of those cases did the parent harm the child in front of you?"

  "No."

  "In any of those cases did the parent seem concerned about the child's prognosis?"

  "Yes," the doctor admits.

  "In any of those cases did the abusive parent herself bring the child in to be treated?"

  Blumberg clears his throat. "Yes."

  Metz turns on his heel. "Nothing further."

  Faith leans to the right. "Kenzie," she whispers, "I've got to pee."

  "Now?" the guardian ad litem asks.

  "Yeah. Like right now."

  Kenzie grabs the girl's hand and makes their excuses down the row of seated people. Outside the courtroom, she turns left toward the ladies' room. She waits for Faith to finish in a stall and come out and wash her hands. Then she smooths the girl's hair. "How you doing?"

  "It's boring in there," Faith whines. "Can we get a Coke?"

  "It's important that we stay inside. It won't be too much longer."

  "Just a Coke? Five minutes?"

  Kenzie stretches out the kink in her back. "All right. Five minutes." She leads Faith to the machines just inside the main lobby of the courthouse. People mill about: sequestered witnesses awaiting their limelight, attorneys on cell phones, uniformed men laying new mud mats on the floor. Kenzie deposits seventy-five cents and lets Faith push the buttons so that the can hurtles out of the chute.

  "Mmm. That's good," Faith says after taking a sip. She pirouettes, testing out her legs after sitting so long, and sto