Keeping Faith Read online

  He walks up the curiously quiet steps into the curiously quiet lobby. Usually when he returns--hell, every time--there's a throng of reporters waiting for him to throw off a witty comment about how easy it was to win. He doesn't even get a grunt from the security guard standing beside the elevator, and he takes this as a harbinger of what is yet to come.

  "Mr. Metz," the receptionist says as he comes through the double glass doors. "You've had messages from Newsweek, The New York Times, and Barbara Walters." At this, he almost stops. Do they always talk to the losers, too?

  "Thanks." He nods at the associates he passes, trying to cultivate an aura of absorption. He completely ignores his own secretary and goes into his corner office like a wounded lion seeking refuge in his den. He locks his door, something he never does. Then he closes his eyes and lays his head on his desk.

  Ma nish-tah-naw ha-lie-law ha-zeh me-call ha-lay-los.

  Why is this night different from all other nights of the year?

  Metz blinks. They are words from the Passover Seder. Words he spoke when he was Faith White's age, the youngest Jewish boy in his family. Words that, until now, he did not remember.

  With slow, shaky movements, he rises, unlocks the office door, and props it open.

  My mother is the one who notices first. "Why did I think they'd all have disappeared?"

  I stop the car just in front of the driveway. Faith is back, she is healthy, it is a new start. But the groupies and the press and the cult members remain, thicker than ever. The police are absent; there's no one to help to clear a path so that we can enter safely. As I inch down the gravel, people reach for the car, smoothing palms over Faith's window with light, tapping noises.

  "Stop," Faith says quietly from the backseat.

  "What? Are you hurt?"

  As the car comes to a standstill, people jump on the hood. They pound on the windshield. They scrape at the paint, trying to get inside. Faith says, "I'll walk."

  At that, my mother puts her foot down. "I don't think so, young lady. Those meshuggenahs will probably trample you before they know what they're doing." But before my mother and I can stop her, Faith pulls open the back door and vanishes into the swarm of the crowd.

  Immediately, I panic. I rip off my seat belt and get out of the car, pushing aside people in an effort to save Faith. I'm more worried for her now than when she was hospitalized, because these people do not want to make her better. They only want to make her theirs.

  "Faith!" I yell, my voice lost in the roar. "Faith!"

  Then the crowd falls back on either side, cleaved in two to form a narrow lane that leads to our front door. Faith stands halfway down it. "You see?" she says, waving.

  His body is lined with the light of the moon, and the stars fall into place around him. "Wow," I say, as Ian steps into the house. "You actually used the front door."

  "I actually walked up the front steps. And actually shoved about ten people out of my way." Coming into the parlor, he locks his arms around my waist so that our legs and foreheads are pressed together.

  "You must be happy."

  "Very."

  "Is she asleep?"

  "Yes."

  I slide my hand down his arm and pull him to the stairs. "I saw your press conference on the news. You are being evasive."

  Ian laughs. "God. You just can't win with some people."

  I lace my fingers with his. "You...hinted that we had something going on."

  "We clearly must. After all, you did let me in that front door."

  "Really, Ian," I say softly. "What are you going to do?"

  He leans over, and I smell the night, still on his skin. He kisses my cheek. "Be with you."

  I can feel myself blushing. "That wasn't what I meant."

  Ian's mouth traces the line of my neck, the edge of my ear. Then he pulls away, and stares at me until we are both perfectly still. "Why wasn't it?" he says, and smiles.

  Her mother thinks she is asleep. She knows because she can hear the house settling like a fat lady arranging her skirts, twitching and creaking and sighing all around her. Faith sits up in bed and turns on the tiny lamp on the nightstand. She pulls up her pajama top, examining critically the thin ladder of her ribs, the rainbow bruises on her skin where tubes and needles were connected. Then she holds one palm beneath the lamp and feels for the small flap of skin where the hole was. It's gone now, nothing but the smooth pink bowl of her hand.

  "God," she whispers aloud.

  Nothing.

  She glances from the windowsill to the nightlight to the dresser.

  "God?"

  Faith tosses back the covers and gets onto her hands and knees. She checks under the bed, and then gathers all her courage and throws open the door of the dark, dark closet. She hears only the rhythm of her own breathing, and the fan from the bathroom down the hall. The round sounds of her mother and Ian, talking downstairs. "God?" she tries again.

  But with the same casual confidence she has that the sun is going to come up in a matter of hours, Faith knows that she is alone inside these white walls.

  Suddenly she is very cold, and a little scared. She dives beneath the covers, thudding hard enough as she sprints across the floor for her mother to come investigate. She hears her footsteps on the stairs, the creaky one at the count of seven, the muffle of her shoes once she hits carpet. She guesses how long it is before her mother is within spitting distance of the bedroom.

  "They asked a lot of questions," Faith says just loud enough for her words to carry, her eyes on the slice of light from the nearly closed door. "But then again, they've never seen You." She holds her breath. From the corner of her eye she sees the knife edge of her mother's tired smile.

  With her heart pounding and her fists clutching the comforter, Faith continues to talk to no one at all, until she hears her mother's voice again downstairs, until she is certain that nobody is listening.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  While researching this book, I was for the first time shooed out of someone's office. It quickly became clear to me that simply bringing up the concept of God for conversation was likely to raise people's hackles. Add to that my plot, and it became an all-out war. So, for their open-mindedness in considering my ideas along with their strong religious convictions, I'd like to thank the following people: Rabbi Lina Zerbarini, Herman F. Holbrook, Father Ronald Saunders, Father Andrew F. Kline. Kudos also to my physicians-on-call, Dr. James Umlas and Dr. Spencer Greene. Thanks to Nancy Veresan, and to Kim Keating--who has moved beyond legal expert to become a valued contributor to my books. I only hope she's ready for the next one. And to the various psychiatric professionals who made my characters and my court case come to life, a heartfelt thanks: Dr. Tia Horner, Dr. Burl Daviss, Dr. Doug Fagen. My appreciation to Sarah Gross for her prompt responses to e-mail questions. Thanks to Jane Picoult and Laura Gross for their insightful first-reader comments; to Beccy Goodhart for her painstaking editing and for helping me deliver my masterpiece before she delivered her own; to Camille McDuffie, who I know will jump through hoops to make people read this book. And finally, my gratitude to Kyle, Jake, and Samantha van Leer...and their dad, Tim--for getting through all those baths and bedtime stories without me, so that I'd have time to write.

  Phenomenal acclaim for

  JODI PICOULT

  "A master--almost a clairvoyant--at targeting hot issues and writing highly readable page-turners about them.... It is impossible not to be held spellbound by the way she forces us to think, hard, about right and wrong."

  Washington Post Book World "[An] ingenious author...Ms. Picoult has carved her own niche."

  Dallas Morning News "Picoult has a remarkable ability to make us share her characters' feelings."

  People

  "Picoult is a writer of high energy and conviction."

  Booklist

  By Jodi Picoult

  KEEPING FAITH

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