Keeping Faith Read online

  "Was there a clinical explanation for this?"

  "Objection," Metz says. "When did she get her medical degree?"

  "Overruled."

  "The doctors said sometimes the presence of a family member acts as a catalyst for comatose patients," I answer. "But they also said they've only seen as dramatic a recovery as this once before."

  "When was that?"

  "When my mother came back to life."

  Joan smiles. "Must run in the family. Did anyone else witness this remarkable recovery?"

  "Yes. There were two doctors, six nurses. Also my mother and the guardian ad litem."

  "All of whom are on my witness list, Your Honor, should Mr. Metz feel the need to speak with them." But Joan has explained to me why he won't. It won't do his case any good to have eight people announce that a miracle happened.

  "Mariah, there have been some things said about you in this courtroom, some things the judge might want to hear your explanation for as well. Let's start with your hospitalization seven years ago. Can you tell us about that?"

  Joan has coached me. We rehearsed these questions until the sun came up. I know what I am supposed to say, what she is trying to get across to the judge. In short, I am prepared for everything that is about to happen--except how I feel, telling my story in front of these people.

  "I was very much in love with my husband," I start, just as we've practiced. "And I caught him in bed with another woman. It broke my heart, but Colin decided that it was my head that needed fixing."

  I turn in the seat, so that I am looking at him. "It was clear that Colin didn't want me. I became very depressed, and I believed that I couldn't live without him. That I didn't want to." I draw a deep breath. "When you're depressed, you don't pay a lot of attention to the world around you. You don't want to see anyone. There are things you want to say--real things, honest things--but they're buried so deep inside it's an effort to drag them to the surface." My face softens. "I don't think Colin was a tyrant for having me committed. He was probably terrified. But I just wish he'd talked to me first. Maybe I still wouldn't have been able to tell him what I wanted, but it would have been nice to know he was trying to listen.

  "Then all of a sudden I was at Greenhaven, and I was pregnant. I hadn't told Colin yet, and it became my secret." I look at the judge. "You probably don't know what it's like to be in a place where you belong to everybody else. People tell you what to eat and drink, when to get up and go to bed, they poke at you with needles and sit you in therapy sessions. They owned my body and my mind--but, for a little while, I owned this baby. Of course, eventually the pregnancy showed up on the blood tests, and the doctors told me that I still had to go on medication. They said a baby wouldn't be much good if I killed myself before giving birth. So I let them pump me full of drugs, until I didn't care about the risk to the baby. Until I didn't care about anything at all.

  "After I left Greenhaven, I began to panic about what I'd done to this baby just by trying to save myself. I made this little deal: It was all right if I wasn't a perfect wife, just as long as I became a perfect mother."

  Joan catches my gaze. "Have you been a perfect mother?"

  I know what I am supposed to say: Yes, the best that I could be. It made us laugh, because it sounded like an old Army slogan, but neither Joan nor I could come up with a better response. However, now that I am here, I find that the words will not come. I reach down, and the only thing that leaps to hand is the truth.

  "No," I whisper.

  "What?"

  I try to look away from Joan's angry expression. "I said no. After I had Faith, I used to go to playgrounds to watch other mothers. They could juggle the bottles and the stroller and the baby without breaking a sweat. But me, I'd forget her lunch when she went to school. Or I'd throw away a piece of paper with scribbles on it that was supposed to be a Valentine. Things every mother's probably done, but that still made me feel like I'd screwed up."

  Joan interrupts me with a quiet question. "Why is it so important to you to be perfect?"

  They say that there are moments that open up your life like a walnut cracked, that change your point of view so that you never look at things the same way again. As the answer forms in my mouth, I realize that this is something I've always known, but never before understood. "Because I know what it's like not to be good enough," I say softly. "That's why I lost Colin, and I don't ever want to go through it again." I twist my fingers together in my lap. "You see, if I'm the very best mother, Faith won't wish she had someone else instead."

  Sensing that this is a place I need to get away from, and fast, Joan throws me a lifeline. "Can you tell us what happened on the afternoon of August tenth?"

  "I was at my mother's home with Faith," I recite, grateful to be bogged down in the details. "She was going to ballet practice, but realized she'd forgotten her leotard. So we detoured home and found Colin's car in the driveway. He'd been on a business trip, so we went in to say hello. Faith ran upstairs first, and found Colin in the bedroom, getting ready to take a shower. I came in to tell Faith to get her leotard quickly, and then the bathroom door opened and...Jessica stepped out in a towel."

  "What did Colin say?"

  "He ran after Faith. Later he told me he'd been seeing Jessica for a few months."

  "Then what happened?"

  "He left. I called my mother. I was miserable, I was sinking fast, but this time I wasn't alone. I knew she'd take care of Faith for me, while I tried to get sorted out."

  "So although you were upset, you were functioning well enough to provide for Faith?"

  "Yes." I smile fleetingly.

  "What else did you do after Colin left?"

  "Well, I talked to Dr. Johansen. About getting a refill of Prozac."

  "I see," Joan says. "Has your medication continued to keep you in control of your emotions?"

  "Yes, absolutely. It certainly helped me cope."

  "How did Faith cope with this whole upheaval?"

  "She was very distant. She wouldn't talk. And then all of a sudden she developed an imaginary friend. I started to take her to Dr. Keller."

  "Did the imaginary friend concern you?"

  "Yes. It wasn't just some playmate. Faith was suddenly saying things that made no sense. She was quoting Bible verses. She referred to a secret from my childhood that I've never spoken about. And then--crazy as it sounds--she brought her grandmother back to life."

  At the plaintiff's table, Malcolm Metz coughs.

  "And then?"

  "A few local newspaper articles appeared," I say. "Ian Fletcher showed up, along with a cult, and about ten network-affiliate TV reporters. After Faith healed an AIDS baby, more press arrived, and more people who wanted to touch Faith, or pray with her."

  "How did you feel about this?"

  "Awful," I say immediately. "Faith's seven. She couldn't go out to play without being harassed. She was being teased at school, so I pulled her out and began doing lessons at home."

  "Mariah, did you in any way encourage Faith to have hallucinations about God?"

  "Me? Colin and I were a mixed-faith marriage. I don't even own a Bible. I couldn't have planted this idea in her mind; I don't know half the things she's come out with."

  "Did you ever harm your daughter in a way that would cause her to bleed from her hands and her side?"

  "No. I never would."

  "What do you think would happen to Faith if she went to live with Colin?"

  "Well," I say slowly, "he loves her. He hasn't always had her interests at heart, but he loves her. It isn't Colin I'm worried about...it's Faith. She'd have to deal with a new sibling, and a mother that isn't really hers, and right now I don't think it's fair to ask her to change her world again." Glancing at Colin, I frown. "Faith's performing miracles. Taking her away from me won't change that. And it won't change the fact that wherever she goes, people are going to follow her, or want a piece of her."

  I can feel my daughter's eyes on me, like the sun that touches the