Keeping Faith: A Novel (39 page)

Faith stares at Kenzie for several seconds, evaluating whether this is a cruel joke. Then she tears out of the room. “I gotta get my sneakers. Wait for me!”

Grinning, Kenzie draws on her coat.

Faith’s fear of hurting her parents could mean many things, but Kenzie knows that at the very least it suggests that the girl feels a heavy responsibility–and why shouldn’t she? Her family has broken apart, her yard is beset with people who think she’s the Messiah. Being a child advocate in this case means lightening the load,

allowing Faith the freedom to be a simple seven-year-old.

As spontaneous hunches go, it isn’t a bad one. Kenzie will get the opportunity to see Faith react to the press barrage that is sure to follow them at a distance. She pokes her head into the kitchen and tells Mariah her intentions, then walks into the parlor before Mariah can voice an objection. “You ready?” she asks as Faith returns, then twists the lock and steps onto the porch.

Faith hesitantly crosses the threshold.

With hands tucked into the pockets of her fleece coat, she kicks tentatively at a pile of leaves. Then she stretches out her arms and spins in a circle, her face lifted to the sky.

It doesn’t take long for the reporters to creep to the edge of the stone wall, regulated once again by the fortuitous arrival of the local police. But even from a distance, long-range lenses allow them to photograph Faith, and they cup their hands around their mouths to call out to her.

Faith is halfway to the swing set beside the farmhouse when she hears the first questions, lobbed like softballs to smack her off guard: “Is the world coming to an end?” “Does God want something from us?” “How come God picked you?”

She stumbles over a woodchuck’s hole, and would have fallen if Kenzie weren’t there to steady her. Ducking her head, Faith murmurs, “Can we go back in?”

“You don’t have to answer them,” Kenzie says softly.

“But I still have to hear.”

“Ignore them.” She takes Faith’s hand and leads her to the swing set. “Play,” Kenzie urges. “I won’t let them do anything to you.”

The media begin to react en masse–

photographing and running video and shouting out questions. “Close your eyes,” Kenzie yells over their voices. “Tip back your head.”

To illustrate, Kenzie does it first on the swing beside Faith’s. She watches Faith watch her, and finally sees the little girl tentatively begin to move back and forth, a smile gracing her face.

The press keeps yelling, and in the distance a rich, vibrating alto begins to sing “Amazing Grace,” and still Faith swings. And then,

suddenly, her eyes are open as she goes back and forth, back and forth. “Kenzie!” Faith cries. “Watch what I can do!” In one heart-stopping moment she lets go of the chain links of the swing and jumps into the air.

Collectively, the questions stop. They all hold their breath, including Kenzie. A hundred cameras capture the girl with her arms outstretched, her body an arrow, flying.

And then, in a thud and a giggle and a scrape of knee, Faith falls, just like anyone else.

I watch them from the living room, peeking between the horizontal slats of the blinds. I can feel it growing inside me like a tumor, something I haven’t felt since I came home to find someone else beside Colin, where I was supposed to be.

I am so jealous of Kenzie van der Hoven that I am having trouble breathing.

My mother comes up behind me. “Some people use a duster to clean their blinds.”

Immediately I fall back. “Do you see what she’s doing? Do you?”

“Yes, and it’s driving you crazy.” My mother smiles. “You wish you were the one to think of it. So why weren’t you?”

She leaves before I can come up with an excuse.

Why haven’t I taken Faith outside to play?

There’s the obvious reason, of course–the glut of reporters waiting like barracudas for the smallest bit of bait–but then again, so what?

They have managed to televise stories about Faith whether or not she appears to fuel the frenzy. They broadcast when she was all the way in Kansas City. How could footage of a little girl being,

well, a little girl be turned into something any more insidious?

Minutes later, Faith is standing at the sliding door. Her cheeks are pink with the cold,

her leggings are muddy at the knees. She proudly shows me the new scrape on her elbow.

“I brought her back,” Kenzie van der Hoven says. “I’ve got to be going.”

It takes all my strength to look her in the eye. “Thank you. Faith needed this.”

“No problem. The court–“

“You and I both know,” I interrupt, “that what you did today had nothing to do with a judge’s order.”

For a moment I see a light in Kenzie’s eyes, and I know that I have surprised her. Her face softens. “You’re welcome.”

Faith tugs at my sweater. “Did you see me? Did you see how high I went?”

“I did. I was impressed.”

She turns to Kenzie. “Can’t you stay just a couple more minutes?”

“Ms. van der Hoven has other places she needs to go.” I tweak Faith’s ponytail.

“On the other hand, I bet I could swing as high as you did.”

The look of surprise on Faith’s face is almost comical. “But–“

“Are you going to argue with me, or are you going to accept the challenge?”

I barely have time to register the wide smile that splits Kenzie van der Hoven’s face before I’m tugged across the yard, following in my daughter’s footsteps.

Ian stands outside his Winnebago, drawn by the clamor that ensues when Faith comes out to play. He watches her kick up her heels on the swing set and stifles a grin–whoever this woman is with her, she’s doing Faith a good turn.

“I’m surprised you’re not at the front line.”

Ian turns at the sound of a voice. A woman stands beside him. “And who might you be?” he asks dryly.

“Lacey Rodriguez.” She extends a hand. “Just another worshipper from afar.”

“You’re with an outfit,” Ian speculates.

“Which one?”

“What makes you think I’m with an outfit?”

“Call it a hunch, Miz–Rodriguez,

is it?–but most of the faithful fanatics, as you pointed out, are too busy calling out hosannas to be shooting the breeze back here. Now, don’t go telling me where you work … it must be Hard Copy. Or Hollywood Tonight!–they’ve got some inspired underlings there.”

“Why, Mr. Fletcher,” Lacey drawls.

“You’ll turn my head with all this flattery.”

At that, Ian laughs. “I like you, Miz Rodriguez. Definitely Hollywood Tonight! You stick to your guns, and one day you’ll bump Saganoff off her throne.”

“I’m not in the entertainment business,” Lacey says quietly. “I deal in information.”

She watches his eyes narrow as he runs through the options: FBI, CIA, Mafia. Then he raises his brows. “Metz sent you. He should have known I’m not inclined to share.”

Lacey takes a step closer.

“I’m not asking you to be a bit player on some TV newsmagazine. I’m talking about the wheels of justice–“

“Thanks, Lois Lane. I’ll pass.

If and when I feel like exposing Faith White it’ll happen on my own terms and my own agenda.”

“How much more credibility can your word carry than when it’s used in a court of law?”

“What you mean to say,” Ian corrects,

“is that Metz can’t dig up jackshit, and wants my proof that she’s a hoax.”

“You have proof,” Lacey breathes.

“Would I still be here if I didn’t?”

After a long moment Ian reaches into his pocket and extracts a card, then scrawls a phone number on it. “Tell Metz that I just might be willing to talk.”

No sooner has Lacey Rodriguez left than James Wilton approaches Ian.

“There’s a reason we’re not filming this,” he says slowly. “Right?”

His eyes, like everyone else’s, are at the front door, where Faith is standing with her mother and the woman Ian doesn’t recognize. Ian feels himself begin to sweat. His producer, of course, will expect him to continue his investigation of Faith, no matter how he feels personally.

And, to be honest, he doesn’t want to sacrifice his show and his reputation. He turns to James and smiles. “Of course there’s a reason. I’m waiting for … this.”

The strange woman gets into her car, and Mariah and Faith start off down the porch steps.

“Tony! You ready yet?” Ian calls,

startling the cameraman, who he knows would never have the nerve to mention to Ian that he hadn’t been summoned at all. Slinging the camera on his shoulder, he follows Ian through the crowd, nodding as Ian gives him directions for filming. Ian checks back one more time, to make sure that James is watching, and then to the audible surprise of the crowd, hops the police barricade and strides toward Mariah and Faith.

Behind him, he can sense the policeman on guard pushing through the mass of bodies in an effort to get to him. He hears other reporters murmuring praise for his go-to-hell brand of journalism, and some contemplating following him. But what he keeps his eyes on is Mariah, standing beside the swing set, watching him approach.

Startled, her eyes dart from his face to the crowd behind him. “What are you doing?”

Ian reaches out and grasps her arm. It will look, he knows, as if he were trying to keep her from running away. But right now, it only feels wonderful to have her close enough to touch, close enough to smell the soap on her skin. “They’re all watching,” he says softly. “Act like you want me to go away.”

The policeman, a young boy really, comes to a halt a few feet behind them. “Miz White,”

he pants, “you want I should arrest him for trespassing?”

“No,” she says, in a voice that wavers before it gets stronger and carries. “I just asked Mr.

Fletcher to get off my property, since my daughter and I do not wish to be disturbed.”

The policeman grabs hold of Ian’s other arm. “You heard her.”

Ian’s eyes burn into hers. “This isn’t over,” he says, words for the camera that speak differently to Mariah. “Not by a long shot.” His thumb, hidden, strokes the soft underside of her upper arm, leaving Mariah trembling with what will later be described by reporters on numerous broadcasts as righteous indignation.

The telephone wakes me up from a deep sleep, and I breathe Ian’s name.

“Well, of course it’s me,” he says,

irritated. “How many other men call you in the middle of the night?”

I wrap my arms around myself. “Hundreds,”

I say, smiling. “Thousands.”

“Really? I’ll have to make you forget the competition.”

“What competition?” I whisper, and I am only half joking. When Ian surrounds me I do not think about anything else–not of the press just outside the house, not of Colin and the custody battle, not even of Faith. When I loved Colin, it was because he anchored me. But Ian–

well, he does for me what Kenzie van der Hoven did for Faith. He takes me away.

My blood begins to move more quickly, making me restless. “I’m too old to be feeling like this.”

“How do you feel?”

I close my eyes. “Like I’m going to jump out of my skin.”

For a moment all I can hear is his breathing on the line. When he speaks, his voice is higher,

tense. “Mariah, about this afternoon.”

“Yes. What was that?”

“My producer. He expects something to be happening, some sense that I’m still with the story.”

“Are you?” I ask, suddenly cold.

“I’m with you,” Ian answers. “I also knew that if I jumped the police line, I’d get to touch you.”

I turn onto my side, hoping to see the lights on in the Winnebago, and then cry out softly as I start to tumble off the edge of the bed and drop the telephone. “Sorry,” I explain a moment later. “I lost you.”

“Never,” Ian says, and with all my defenses down, I believe it.

Keeping Faith

TWELVE

I have long time holden my peace; I have been still,

and refrained myself: now will I cry like a travailing woman;

I will destroy and devour at once.

–Isaiah 4214 November 8, 1999 Jessica White adjusts a pale-green glass vase an inch to the right, making lavender tulips sway. Beside her, Colin White relaxes against throw pillows in increasing degrees of purple. I have fallen into a catalog, Kenzie thinks, and I can’t get out.

“Ms. van der Hoven,” Jessica says,

“can I get you more seltzer?”

“No, thanks. And it’s Kenzie.” She smiles at the couple. “I hear that you’re going to have a baby.” Is it her imagination, or does Colin lean the slightest bit away from his wife?

Jessica’s hand steals over her abdomen.

“In May.”

“We’re hoping his big sister is here for the event,” Colin adds.

She knows exactly what he’s trying to get across. “Yes. Well. Maybe you can tell me, Mr. White, why you’ve suddenly developed an interest in your daughter’s custody.”

“I’ve always wanted custody of Faith,” he says quietly. “I was just trying to get myself back on my feet first. I didn’t think that ripping Faith away from her home was smart, right after the shake-up of the divorce.”

“So you had her best interests in mind?”

Colin offers a remarkable smile, and thoughts scatter through her head–this was a man who could sell sand in the desert, who could charm the shoes off a horse. “Exactly!” He leans forward,

relinquishing his wife’s hand to clasp both of his together. “Look. This is a messy situation, and I’m not going to look like a saint. I didn’t expect Mariah to come home that day with Faith, and I know that’s not an excuse, but clearly you can see it wasn’t just some … some passing fling. I love Jessica; I married her. Whatever problems I was having in my relationship with Mariah, they had nothing to do with Faith. I’m her father, I’ll always be her father, and I want to give her the kind of home she deserves.”

Kenzie taps her pencil. “What’s wrong with the kind of home she’s in now?”

He seems startled for a moment. “Well,

you’ve been there! Is it normal for a little girl to have an entire press corps follow her when she opens the door? Is it normal for her to believe, for Christ’s sake, that she’s having conversations with God?”

“It’s my understanding that your ex-wife made an attempt to remove Faith from media scrutiny.”

“Is that what she told you?” Colin’s jaw sets. “She made an attempt to buck the legal system. The day after I told her I was going to sue for custody, she disappeared.”

Kenzie sits up at this. “She knew she was going to be subpoenaed?”

“I said, “You’ll hear from my lawyer.” And –bam–she went into hiding.”

Kenzie makes a note on her pad. As a woman nearly weaned on the value of the law, the very thought of stepping outside the system immediately raises her suspicions. “Mariah did come back, though,” she says.

“Because her attorney put the fear of God into her. Can’t you see now why I want Faith out of her reach? If things start to look bad for Mariah during the hearing, she’s going to pack up and run away with Faith again. Mariah doesn’t stick around for a fight; it’s not in her nature. In fact, she’s been in therapy for that for years.”

“Are you an advocate of psychotherapy?”

“Sure,” he says. “When it’s warranted.”

“And yet your ex-wife says it wasn’t an option you considered after her suicide attempt.”

Colin’s mouth tightens. “Forgive me, Ms.

van der Hoven, but you don’t seem very objective.”

Kenzie meets his gaze. “It’s my job to turn over stones.”

Jessica interrupts by standing suddenly and clearing her throat. “Wouldn’t now be a lovely time for cake?”

They both watch Jessica go into the kitchen.

As soon as she is out of earshot, Colin begins to speak, clearly agitated. “Don’t you think it upset me to send Mariah to Greenhaven? God,

she was my wife. I loved her. But she was … she was … Well, almost overnight she became someone I didn’t recognize. I didn’t know how to talk to her or take care of her. So I did what I thought I had to do,

to help her. And now it’s like history’s repeating itself. My little girl isn’t acting like my little girl anymore. And I can’t stand to see this happening again.”

Kenzie learned a long time ago that sometimes the wisest course of action is to say nothing at all. She sits back and waits for Colin White to continue.

“Right after Faith was born, I used to walk around the house at night with her when she fussed.

She was this tiny little thing, with all the right pieces,

and sometimes she’d just stop crying and look at me like she already knew me.” Colin looks down into his lap. “I love her. Whatever happens, whatever the court does, you can’t take that away.”

Kenzie has stopped taking notes. “Have you never in your life made a mistake, Ms. van der Hoven?” he asks softly.

She glances away and notices a large box hidden behind the dining room table. From its label,

she sees it is a plastic easel. Clearly not a toy for the baby on its way–and yet, clearly new. Colin follows her gaze and reddens. “I’m an optimistic man,” he says, and smiles shyly.

Kenzie realizes that–out of sympathy for Mariah White–she has been expecting a monster. But this man has his reasons for setting a battle in motion. And they are not vengeful, or vindictive–he’s simply seen something that scares him, and he wants to fix it.

Then again, Colin White may be a consummate actor.

November 9, 1999 Father Rampini stands in a nicely appointed office at the Diocesan Chancery with his hands clasped behind his back, staring at a bookshelf and idly wondering why His Excellency the Bishop of Manchester would have sixteen copies of the biography of Saint Theresa, the Little Flower.

As the door opens, he whirls around,

surreptitiously wiping the sweat from his palms before nodding at Bishop Andrews. “Father,” the bishop grunts, settling down in a burgundy leather wing chair.

“Your Excellency.”

“Please.” Andrews gestures, and Rampini edges into a smaller chair and fixes his eyes on the swaying chain of the pectoral cross tucked into the bishop’s pocket.

Rampini has examined alleged visions before to make sure there was nothing in them contrary to faith.

In every case to date, even the promising ones,

he’s recommended a wait-and-see policy.

He has been careful not to make a hasty judgment, lest he come off looking foolish.

And that, in a nutshell, is why his hands keep shaking. He’s going out on a limb here. Because he really believes that Faith White may just be envisioning God.

Bishop Andrews takes off his glasses and polishes them before slipping them back on. “According to the rector at St. John’s, you’re the most esteemed theologian in the Northeast.”

“If you say so, Your Excellency.”

“On behalf of the diocese, I’d like to thank you for coming.”

“Perfectly all right,” Rampini says.

The bishop nods graciously. “I only have a couple of questions, Father.”

“With all due respect, Your Excellency,

I’ve already submitted my report.”

“Yes, in fact … two of them. The original recommendation and–what did you call it?–ah, the revised update. You know, I can’t quite figure out why a theologian–the most esteemed theologian in the Northeast, that is–would file two completely contradictory reports within a few hours’ time, regarding the substantive miracles of Faith White.” At Rampini’s affronted silence, Andrews gets impatient.

He reaches into his pocket and fingers his rosary –it makes a handy set of worry beads.

“I’m certain a man of your credentials has been called in for consultation on a wide number of religious sightings.”

“Often.”

“Yet you’ve never before given your personal endorsement.”

Father Rampini tightens his mouth. “That’s true. And yes, the revised report indicates that this time I am.”

The bishop decides to play dumb. He scratches his head. “I’m a little confused, Father.

Now, I don’t presume to be half the theologian you are, naturally, but it seems to me that a Jewish child seeing a female God goes against traditional Catholic dogma.”

Father Rampini crosses his arms. “Are you asking me to justify my findings?”

“No, no. But for my own … edification …

I’d love to know your thought process.”

Rampini clears his throat. “There are a variety of supporting criteria. The fact that Faith White isn’t Catholic is unorthodox, Your Excellency, but not inauthentic. One would be more leery of the elderly ladies who pray for sixteen hours a day and then confess Jesus appeared to them at the kitchen table. Faith wasn’t asking for this vision, but it came. She’s also very closemouthed about her conversations with God, and she tries to hide episodes of stigmata.”

“Stigmata,” the bishop says. “Did you see them?”

“I did. I’m not personally familiar with Holy Marks, of course, but the general consensus of the medical community is that they aren’t self-inflicted.”

“She could be a hysteric.”

“Entirely possible,” Rampini agrees.

“Except that in addition to the wounds,

there’s proof apart from the person of the seer. In this case, healing.”

“You’re the expert, of course, but I have to admit–it would bother me a bit to know she’s running around saying God’s a woman.”

“Actually, she’s not. The MotherGod Society is spreading the propaganda. Faith isn’t saying much of anything at all. In addition to the fact that–as I said in my second report –she isn’t seeing God as a woman. She’s seeing Our Lord Jesus Christ, in His traditional form and clothing, yet interpreting Him as a female figure.”

Bishop Andrews raises a brow. “That’s a stretch, son.”

“Surely you’re not telling me, Your Excellency, how to do my job.” Father Rampini speaks softly. “You meet her. And then come talk to me.”

They stare at each other silently. “You feel this strongly,” the bishop finally says.

“I do.”

“You think I should take this to the U.s.

Bishops’ Conference.”

“I wouldn’t presume to tell you what to do.”

Bishop Andrews taps his forefingers together. “You know, this isn’t The X-Files, Father. No matter what the public wants, some fantastic display isn’t the way to get the flock back to the Church. Even if I were to go along with your recommendation, I’d be wary of the haste with which you made it. The last thing I want is to be exposed as some loony on a supernatural scavenger hunt–can you imagine what that would do to the diocese? To Catholicism in general? There’s a reason these evaluations take years, Father.

It’s so that in the event Faith White is a charlatan, you and I will be dead and buried and blissfully unaware of the backlash.” Bishop Andrews tilts his head. “Has this child ever even been in a Catholic church?”

“Not that I know of, Excellency.”

“Has she been raised according to the Jewish faith?”

“No. Since her mother isn’t a practicing Jew, she felt taking the child to temple would be hypocritical. I confirmed with a rabbi, however,

that if the mother is Jewish, so is the child.

Regardless.”

“And that,” the bishop says, “is the stumbling block. We have no jurisdiction over a child who isn’t Catholic.”

A muscle tics in Rampini’s jaw. “Then why did you ask me to come?”

He watches the bishop walk to his desk, and suddenly realizes that Andrews is going to hedge his bets. He won’t use Rampini’s endorsement of Faith White–unless the tide turns and he needs it. He’ll keep both contradictory reports, so that he’s ready for either contingency; and Father Rampini won’t be able to say a thing about it without making himself look indecisive. Heat floods the priest’s face, moving up from his white collar. “You will disregard the first report,”

Rampini orders. “I’m officially submitting the second one, and only the second one, for your consideration.”

Without taking his eyes off the younger man’s face, Bishop Andrews slides the paper he’s holding into a desk drawer. “Which one was that?” he says.

November 10, 1999 When Ian enters Malcolm Metz’s office, the attorney doesn’t get up from his seat. “Well,” he says instead, leaning back in his chair. “This certainly is a pleasure.