Keeping Faith.

by Jodi Picoult.

August 10, 1999 Under normal circ.u.mstances, Faith and I should not be home when my mother calls and invites us to come see her brand-new coffin."Mariah," my mother says, clearly surprised when I pick up the phone. "What are you doing there?""The grocery store was closed." I sigh."The sprinklers in the produce section had a flood. And the dry cleaner had a death in the family."I do not like surprises. I live by lists.In fact, I often imagine my life like a September loose-leaf binderneatly slotted and tabbed, with everything still in place. All this I attribute to a degree in architecture and my fervent intent to not turn into my mother as I grow older. To this end, every day of the week has a routine. Mondays I work on the frames of the tiny dollhouses I build. Tuesdays I build the furnis.h.i.+ngs. Wednesdays are for errands,Thursdays for housecleaning, and Fridays for tending to emergencies that crop up during the week. Today,a Wednesday, I usually pick up Colin's s.h.i.+rts, go to the bank, and do the food shopping. It leaves just enough time to drive home, unload the groceries, and get to Faith's one o'clock ballet cla.s.s. But today, due to circ.u.mstances beyond my control, I have entirely too much time on my hands."Well," my mother says, in that way of hers."It seems you're fated to come for a visit."Faith suddenly bounces in front of me."Is it Grandma? Did she get it?""Get what?" It is ten o'clock, and already I have a headache."Tell her yes," my mother says on the other end of the phone line.I glance around the house. The carpet needs to be vacuumed, but then what will I do on Thursday? A heavy August rain throbs against the windows. Faith spreads her soft, warm hand over my knee. "Okay," I tell my mother."We'll be right over."My mother lives two and a half miles away,in an old stone house that everyone in New Canaan calls the Gingerbread Cape. Faith sees her nearly every day; stays with her after school on days I am working. We could walk, if not for the weather. As it is, Faith and I have just gotten into the car when I remember my purse, sitting on the kitchen counter."Hang on," I tell her, getting out and cringing between raindrops, as if I might melt.The phone is ringing by the time I get inside.I grab the receiver. "h.e.l.lo?""Oh, you're home," Colin says. At the sound of my husband's voice, my heart jumps.Colin is the sales manager for a small company that manufactures LED exit signs, and he's been in Was.h.i.+ngton, D.c., for two days, training a new rep. He is calling me because it is like that with ustied as tight as the lacing on a high-top boot, we cannot stand being apart."Are you at the airport?""Yeah. Stuck at Dulles." I curl the telephone cord around my arm, reading between the round vowels of his words for all the other things he is too embarra.s.sed to say in a public venue:I love you. I miss you. You're mine. In the background a disembodied voice announces the arrival of a United flight. "Hasn't Faith got swimming today?""Ballet at one o'clock." I wait a moment,then add softly, "When will you be home?""As soon as I can." I close my eyes,thinking that there is nothing like an embrace after an absence, nothing like fitting my face into the curve of his shoulder and filling my lungs with the scent of him.He hangs up without saying good-bye, which makes me smile. That's Colin, in a nutsh.e.l.l: already rus.h.i.+ng to come back home to me.It stops raining on the way to my mother's. As we pa.s.s the long soccer field that edges the town,vehicles begin pulling onto the road's narrow shoulder. A perfect, arched rainbow graces the lush gra.s.s of the playing field. I keep driving. "You'd think they'd never seen one before,"I say, accelerating.Faith rolls down her window and stretches out her hand. Then she waggles her fingers in front of me. "Mommy!" she yells. "I touched it!"Out of habit I look down. Her fingers are spread and streaked with red and blue and lime green. For a moment, my breath catches. And then I remember her sitting on the floor of the living room just an hour before, her fists full of Magic Markers.My mother's living room is dominated by an unappealing Naugahyde sectional couch the color of skin. I tried to talk her into leather,a nice wing chair or two, but she laughed."Leather," she said, "is for goyim with Mayflower names." After that, I gave up. In the first place, I have a leather couch myself. In the second, I married a goy with a Mayflower name. At least she hasn't coated the Naugahyde with a protective plastic wrap,the way my grandmother f.a.n.n.y did when I was little.But today, walking into the living room, I do not even notice the couch. "Wow, Grandma,"whispers Faith, clearly awed. "Is someone in it?" She falls to her knees, knocking at the highly polished mahogany rectangle.If things had gone according to plan, I'd probably be choosing cantaloupes at that moment,holding them to my nose for softness and sweetness,or paying Mr. Li thirteen dollars and forty cents, and receiving in return seven Brooks Brothers s.h.i.+rts, so starched that they lay like the torsos of fallen men in the back of the station wagon. "Mother," I say, "why do you have a casket in your living room?""It's not a casket, Mariah. See the gla.s.s on the top? It's a coffin table.""A coffin table."My mother sets her coffee mug on the clear plate of gla.s.s to prove her point. "See?""You have a coffin in your living room." I am unable to get past that one sticking point.She sits on the couch and props her sandaled feet on the gla.s.s top. "Well, I know that,honey. I picked it out."I cradle my head in my hands. "You just went to Dr. Feldman for your checkup. You know what he said: If you take your blood pressure medication religiously, there's no reason to believe you won't outlive us all."She shrugs. "This is one less thing for you to do,when the time comes.""Oh, for G.o.d's sake. Is this about the new a.s.sisted-living community Colin mentioned? Because I swear, he only thought you'd""Sweetie, calm down. I don't plan to kick the bucket anytime soon; I just needed a table in here. I liked the color of the wood. And I saw a piece on Twentyst.Twenty about a man in Kentucky who was making these."Faith stretches out on her back beside the coffin. "You could sleep in it, Grandma," she suggests. "You could be like Dracula.""You've got to admit, the craftsmans.h.i.+p is to die for," my mother says.In more ways than one. The mahogany is exquisite, a smooth, glossy sea. The joints and bevels are neat and defined, the hinges bright as a beacon."It was a real bargain," my mother adds."Please don't tell me you got a used one."My mother sniffs and looks at Faith. "Your mommy needs to loosen up." For years now, my mother has been telling this in one form or another.But I cannot forget that the last time I loosened up,I nearly came apart.My mother gets down on the floor with Faith,and together they yank at the bra.s.s pallbearer's handles. Their blond headsMom's dyed, my daughter's fairy-whiteare bent so close I can't tell where one ends and the other begins. Their horseplay manages to jerk the coffin a few inches toward them. I stare at the flattened hollow left in its wake in the carpet, then try as best I can to fix it with the edge of my shoe.Colin and I are luckier than most. We married young, but we've stayed marriedin spite of some fairly intense b.u.mps in the road.But there's a chemistry involved, too. When Colin is looking at me, I know he's not seeing me with ten pounds left behind from pregnancy or the fine strands of gray in my hair. He pictures my skin creamy and tight, my hair hanging down my back, my body a college student's. He remembers me at my best, because as he says every now and thenI'm the best thing he can remember.When we go out to dinner occasionally with his colleaguesthe ones who have collected trophy wivesI realize how fortunate I am to have someone like Colin. He puts his hand on the small of my back, which is not as tanned or slender as those on some of the younger models. He proudly introduces me. "This is my wife,"he says, and I smile. It is all I've ever wanted to be."Mommy."It has started to rain again; the road is swimming in front of me, and I've never been a very confident driver. "Ssh. I have to concentrate.""But, Mommy," she presses. "This is really, really important.""What is really, really important is getting to your ballet lesson without getting us killed."For one blessed moment it is quiet. Then Faith begins kicking the back of my seat. "But I don't have my leotard," she whines.I swerve onto the side of the road and turn to look at her. "You don't?""No. I didn't know we were going there straight from Grandma's."I feel my neck redden. We are all of two miles from the dance studio. "For G.o.d's sake, Faith. Why didn't you say something before?"Her eyes fill with tears. "I didn't know we were on our way to ballet until now."I slam my hand against the steering wheel. I don't know if I am angry at Faith, at the weather, at my mother, or at the d.a.m.ned sprinklers in the grocery store, all of which have managed to screw up my day. "We go to ballet every single Tuesday after lunch!"I pull onto the road and make a U-turn, ignoring the p.r.i.c.k of guilt that tells me I'm being too hard on her, that she's only seven. Faith begins to shriek through her tears. "I don't want to go home! I want to go to ballet!""We're not going home," I say through clenched teeth. "We're just going to pick up your leotard, and then we'll go to ballet." We'll be twenty minutes late. I envision the eyes of the other mothers, watching me hustle Faith through the doors in the middle of a cla.s.s that has already started. Mothers who've managed to get their children to cla.s.s on time in the middle of this flash flood,mothers who do not have to work hard to make it look so easy.We live in a century-old farmhouse, which is bordered on one side by a forest and on the other side by a meticulous stone wall.Our seven acres are mostly woods, tucked behind the house; we're close enough to the road that at night the headlights of pa.s.sing cars sweep over the beds like lighthouse beacons. The farmhouse itself is full of opposites that still attract: a sagging porch backed by brand-new Pella windows,a claw-foot tub with a Shower Ma.s.sage,Colin and me. The driveway dips, rising at the end near the road and again near the house. As we turn down it, Faith gasps in delight."Daddy's home! I want to see him."So do I, but then I always do. No doubt he's taken an earlier flight and come home for lunch before returning to the office. I think about the other mothers already in the parking lot of the ballet studio, and then of seeing Colin, and suddenly being twenty minutes late seems entirely worthwhile. "We'll say hi to Daddy. Then you get your leotard, and we've got to go."Faith bursts through the door like a marathon runner at the ribbon finish. "Daddy!" she calls, but there is no one in the kitchen or the family room, nothing but Colin's briefcase neatly centered on the table to prove that he is here. I can hear water running through the old pipes. "He's taking a shower," I say, and Faith immediately heads upstairs."Hang on!" I shout after her, certain that the last thing Colin wants is to be surprised by Faith if he's strolling around the bedroom naked. I rush behind her, managing to get to the closed door of the master bedroom before Faith can turn the k.n.o.b. "Let me go in first."Colin stands beside the bed, wrapping a towel around his hips. When he sees me in the doorway, he freezes. "Hi." I smile, going into his arms. "Isn't this a nice surprise?"With my head tucked up beneath his chin and his hands loosely clasped around my waist, I nod to Faith. "Come on in. Daddy's dressed.""Daddy!" she cries, barreling straight for Colin at groin level, something that we've laughed about often and that has him moving into a protective crouch, even as he holds me."Hi, cupcake," he says, but he keeps looking over Faith's head, as if expecting to find another child waiting in the wings. Steam rolls from the seam of the closed bathroom door."We could put on a video for her," I whisper, leaning close to Colin. "That is,a.s.suming you're looking for someone to wash your back."But instead of answering, Colin awkwardly untangles Faith's arms from his waist."Honey, maybe you should""Should what?"We all turn toward the voice coming from the bathroom. The door swings open to reveal a damp, dripping woman, half wrapped in a towel, a woman who a.s.sumed that Colin's words were meant for her. "Oh, my G.o.d," she says,reddening, retreating and slamming the door.I am aware of Faith running from the bedroom,of Colin going after her, of the water in the shower being turned off. My knees give out, and suddenly I am sitting on the bed, on the wedding-ring quilt Colin bought me in Lancaster,Pennsylvania, after the Mennonite woman who crafted it told him that the symbol of a perfect marriage was an endless circle.I bury my face in my hands and think,Oh, G.o.d. It is happening again.BOOK I THE OLD TESTAMENT

ONE

Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth Unseen, both when we wake and when we sleep.John Milton,Paradise Lost There are certain things I do not talk about.Like when I was thirteen, and I had to take my dog and have her put to sleep. Or the time in high school that I got all dressed up for the prom and sat by the window, waiting for a boy who never came.Or the way I felt when I first met Colin.Well, I talk a little about that, but I don't admit that from the beginning I knew we were not meant to be together. Colin was a college football star; I'd been hired by his coach to tutor him to pa.s.s French. He kissed meshy, plain,scholarlyon a dare from his teammates, and even muddled by embarra.s.sment, it left me feeling gilded.It is perfectly clear to me why I fell in love with Colin. But I have never understood what made him fall for me.He told me that when he was with me, he became someone differenta person he liked better than the easygoing jock, the good ol' fraternity boy.He told me that I made him feel admired for what he was instead of what he'd done. I argued that I wasn't a match for him, not tall or stunning or sophisticated enough. And when he disagreed, I made myself believe him.I don't talk about what happened five years later, when I was proved right.I don't talk about the way he could not look me in the eye while he was arranging to have me locked away.Opening my eyes is a Herculean effort.Swollen and grainy, they seem resolved to stay sealed shut, preferring not to risk the sight of something else that might turn the world on end. But there is a hand on my arm, and for all I know it might be Colin, so I manage to slit them enough that the light, sharp as a splinter, comes into view."Mariah," my mother soothes, smoothing my hair back from my forehead. "You feeling better?""No." I am not feeling anything. Whatever Dr. Johansen prescribed over the phone makes it seem as if there's a foam cus.h.i.+on three inches thick around me, a barrier that moves with me and flexes and manages to keep the worst away."Well, it's time to get moving," my mother says, matter-of-fact. She leans forward and tries to haul me from the bed."I don't want to take a shower." I try to curl into a ball."Neither do I." My mother grunts. The last time she'd come into the room, it was to drag me into the bathroom and under a cold spray of water."You're going to sit up, d.a.m.n it, if it sends me to an early grave."That makes me think of her coffin table, and of the ballet lesson Faith and I never did manage to get to three days ago. I pull away from her grasp and cover my face, fresh tears running like wax. "What is the matter with me?""Absolutely nothing, in spite of what that cretin wants you to believe." My mother puts her hands on my burning cheeks. "This is not your fault, Mariah. This isn't something you could have stopped before it happened. Colin isn't worth the ground he walks on." She spits on the carpet, to prove it. "Now sit up so that I can bring Faith in here."That gets my attention. "She can't see me like this.""So, change.""It's not that easy""Yes, it is," my mother insists. "It's not just you this time, Mariah. You want to fall apart?Fine, thendo it after you've seen Faith. You know I'm right, or you wouldn't have called me to come over here and take care of her three days ago." Staring at me, she softens her voice. "She's got an idiot for a father, and she's got you. You make what you want of that."For a second I let hope sneak through the cracks in my armor. "Did she ask for me?"My mother hesitates. "No ... but that's neither here nor there."As she goes to get Faith, I adjust the pillows behind my back and wipe my face with a corner of the comforter. My daughter enters the room,propelled by my mother's hand. She stops two feet from the bed. "Hi," I say, bright as any actress.For a moment I just delight in seeing herthe crooked part of her hair, the s.p.a.ce where her front tooth used to be, the chipped pink Tinkerbell polish on her fingernails. She folds her arms and sets her colt's legs and mulishly presses her beautiful bow of a mouth into a flat line."Want to sit down?" I pat the mattress beside me.She doesn't answer; she barely even breathes. With a sharp pain I realize that I know exactly what she's doing, because I've done it myself: You convince yourself that if you keep perfectly still, if you don't make any sudden moves, neither will anyone else. "Faith ..." I reach out my hand, but she turns and walks out of the room.Part of me wants to follow her, but a larger part of me can't muster the courage. "She's still not talking. Why?""You're her mother. You find out."But I can't. If I have learned anything, it is my own limits. I turn onto my side and close my eyes, hoping that my mother will get the hint that I just want her to go away."You'll see," she says quietly, laying her hand on top of my head. "Faith is going to get you through this."I make her think I am asleep. I do not let on when I hear her sigh. Or when I watch, through narrowed eyes, as she removes from my nightstand an X-acto knife, a nail file,and a pair of embroidery scissors.Years ago when I found Colin in bed with another woman, I waited three nights and then tried to kill myself. Colin found me and got me to the hospital. The ER doctors told him they had been able to save me, but that isn't true.Somehow that night, I got lost. I became another person, one I do not like to hear about, one I would certainly not recognize. I could not eat, I could not speak, I could not command enough energy to throw the covers off my body and get out of bed.My mind was frozen on a single thought: If Colin didn't want me anymore, why should I?When Colin told me that he was having me committed to Greenhaven, he cried. He apologized. Still, he never held my hand, never asked me what I wanted, never stared into my eyes. He said I needed to be hospitalized so that I would not be left alone.Contrary to what he thought, I wasn't alone.I was several weeks pregnant with Faith. I knew about her, knew she existed before the tests came back and the doctors altered the course of treatment to meet the needs of a pregnant,suicidal woman. I never told anyone there about the pregnancy, just let them figure it out themselvesand it took me years to admit that was because I was hoping to miscarry. I had convinced myself that it was Faith, a small ball of cells inside me, who made Colin turn to another woman.Yet when my own mother says that Faith is going to keep me from getting so deeply depressed that I can't claw my way out, she may not be far off the mark. After all, Faith has done it before.Somehow, during those months at Greenhaven, being pregnant became an a.s.set instead of a liability. People who would not listen to what I had to say when I was first committed stopped to remark on my swelling belly, my glowing cheeks. Colin found out about the baby and came back to me.I named her Faith, a real goyishe name according to my mother, because I so badly needed something to believe in.I am sitting with my hand on the bridge of the phone. Any minute now, I tell myself,Colin is going to call and tell me it was a run of dementia. He will beg not to be held responsible for this small bit of insanity. If I do not understand something like that, who will?But the phone does not ring, and sometime after two in the morning I hear a noise outside. It is Colin, I think. He's come.I run to the bathroom and try to untangle my hair, my arms stiff and aching from disuse. I swallow a capful of mouthwash. Then I rush into the hall with my heart pounding.It's dark. There's no one moving about; nothing.I creep down the staircase and peer out the sidelight that frames the front door.Carefully I ease the door openit creaksand step onto the old farmer's porch.The noise that I thought was my husband coming home to me is a pair of racc.o.o.ns, thieving around the trash can. "Go!" I hiss at them, waving my hands. Colin used to snare them in a Hav-A-Heart trap, a rectangular cage with a levered door that didn't cause harm to the animal. He'd hear one screaming after being shut in and would carry it off to the woods behind the house.Then he'd walk back, the cage empty and neat, with no sign of the racc.o.o.n's having been there. "Abracadabra," he'd say. "Now you see it, now you don't."I retreat inside, but instead of heading upstairs I see the moon reflecting off the polished dining-room table. In the center of the oval is a miniature replica of this farmhouse. I made it; it is what I do for a living. I build dream housesnot out of concrete and drywall and I-beams, but with spindles no bigger than a toothpick, squares of satin that fit in the palm of my hand, mortar based with Elmer's glue. Although some people ask for an exact replica of their house, I have also created antebellum mansions, Arabian mosques,marble palaces.I built my first dollhouse seven years ago at Greenhaven, out of popsicle craft sticks and construction paper, when other patients were making G.o.d's-eyes and origami.Even in that first attempt there was a spot for every bit of furniture, a room to suit each personality. Since then I have built nearly fifty others. I became famous after Hillary Rodham Clinton asked me to make the White House for Chelsea's sixteenth birthdaycomplete with an Oval Room, china in the display cabinets, and a hand-sewn United States flag in the Executive Office. Customers have asked, but I do not make dolls to go with the houses.A piano, however tiny, is still a piano. But a doll with a beautifully painted face and finely turned limbs is always, at its heart, made of wood.I pull out a chair and sit down, gently touching my fingers to the sloping roof of the miniature farmhouse, the pillars that hold up its porch, the small silk begonias in its terra-cotta planters. Inside it is a cherry table like the one this dollhouse sits upon. And on that miniature cherry dining-room table is an even smaller replica of this dollhouse.With the flick of a fingertip I shut the front door of the dollhouse. I brush my thumb along the stamp-sized windows, sliding them down. I secure the shutters with their infinitesimal latches; I shelter the begonias beneath the Lilliputian porch swing. I close up the house tightly, as if it might need to stand through a storm.Colin phones four days after leaving. "This wasn't the way it was supposed to happen."Presumably, by this he means that Faith and I weren't supposed to interrupt. Presumably,we had forced his hand. But of course I do not say so."It's not going to work with us, Mariah. You know that."I hang up the phone while he is still talking, and pull the covers over my head.Five days after Colin has left, Faith is still not speaking. She moves around the house like a silent cat, playing with toys and picking out videos and all the time watching me suspiciously.My mother is the one who manages to plumb through the muteness to figure out that Faith wants oatmeal for breakfast, or that she can't reach the Playmobil village on the top shelf, or that she needs a drink of water before going to bed. I wonder if they have a secret language. I don't understand her; she refuses to communicate,and all in all it reminds me of Colin."You have to do something," my mother repeats. "She's your daughter."Biologically, yes. But Faith and I have little in common. In fact, she might as well have skipped a generation and come straight from her grandmother,so close are those two. They have the same grounding in whimsy, the same rubber resilience, which is why it is so strange to see Faith moping around."What am I supposed to do?"My mother shakes her head. "Play a game with her. Go for a walk. At the very least, you could tell her you love her."I turn to my mother, wis.h.i.+ng it were that simple.I've loved Faith since she was born, but not the way you'd think. She was a relief. After first wanting to miscarry and then months on Prozac,I'd been certain she'd appear with three eyes or a harelip. But the easy, normal birth gave way to the reality of a baby I could not make happy, as if my punishment for thinking the worst of her were to be disconnected before we ever had a chance to bond. Faith was colicky; she kept me up all night and nursed with such a vengeance my belly cramped at each feeding.Sleep-deprived and unsettled, I would lay her on the bed at times, stare at her wise, round face and think, What on earth do I do with you?I figured that motherhood would be something that descended naturally, the same way my milk came ina little painful, a little awe-inspiring,but part of me now for better or for worse. I waited patiently. So what if I didn't know how to use a rectal thermometer on my child? So what if I tried to swaddle her and the blanket never tucked tight? Any day now, I told myself, I am going to wake up and know what I am doing.It was sometime after Faith's third birthday that I stopped hoping. For whatever reason, being a mother will never come easily to me. I watch women with multiple children effortlessly settle everyone in place in their vans, while I have to check Faith's safety belt three times, just to make sure it's really snapped tight. I hear mothers lean down to speak to their children, and I try to memorize the things they say.The thought of trying to get to the bottom of Faith's stubborn silence makes my stomach flip. What if I can't do it? What kind of mother does that make me? "I'm not ready," I hedge."For G.o.d's sake, Mariah, get over yourself. Get dressed, brush your hair, act like a normal woman, and before you know it, you won't be acting anymore." My mother shakes her head."Colin told you you were a shrinking violet for ten years, and you were stupid enough to believe him. What does he know from nervous breakdowns?"She sets a cup of coffee in front of me;I know that she considers it a triumph to have me sitting at the kitchen table, instead of holed up in bed. When I was committed, she was living in Scottsdale, Arizonawhere she'd moved after my father died. She flew in after my suicide attempt and went home when she felt a.s.sured that the danger was over. Of course, she hadn't counted on Colin's having me inst.i.tutionalized. When she discovered what he had done, she sold the condo, returned here, and spent four months overturning the legal writ so that I could be released of my own volition. She never believed Colin was right to have me sent to Greenhaven, and she's never forgiven him. As for me, well, I don't know. Sometimes, like my mother, I think that he shouldn't have been deciding how I felt, no matter how unresponsive I was at the time. And sometimes I remember that Greenhaven was the one place I felt comfortable, because there n.o.body was expected to be perfect."Colin," my mother says succinctly, "is a schmuck. Thank G.o.d Faith takes after you."She pats my shoulder. "Do you remember the time you came home in fifth grade, with a B-minus on your math test? And you cried like you thought we were going to put you on the rackbut we couldn't have cared less? You did your best; that's what was important. You tried. Which is more than I can say for you today." She looks through the open doorway, to the living-room floor, where Faith is coloring with crayons. "Don't you know by now that raising a child is always a work in progress?"Faith picks up the orange crayon and scribbles violently over the construction paper.I remember how last year, when she was learning letters, she'd scrawl a long stream of consonants and ask me what she'd spelled."Frzwwlkg," I'd say, and to my surprise I made her laugh."So go already." My mother pushes me toward the living room.The first thing I do is trip over the box of crayons. "I'm sorry." I gather fistfuls in my hands, set them back in the holiday Oreo tin we use to store them. When I'm finished, I rock back on my heels, to find Faith staring coldly at me."I'm sorry," I say again, but I am not speaking of the crayons.When Faith doesn't respond, I look down at the paper she's been drawing on. A bat and a witch, dancing beside a fire. "Wowthis is really neat." Inspiration strikes; I pick up the drawing and hold it close. "Can I keep it? Hang it downstairs in my workshop?"Faith tips her head, reaches for the picture,and rips it down the middle. Then she runs up the stairs and slams her bedroom door.My mother comes in, wiping her hands on a dish towel. "That went well," I say dryly.She shrugs. "You can't change the world overnight."Reaching for one half of Faith's artwork, I run my fingers over the waxy resistance of the witch. "I think she was drawing me."My mother tosses the dish towel at me; it lands unexpectedly cool against my neck. "You think too much," she says.That night while I am brus.h.i.+ng my teeth I catch sight of myself in the mirror. I am not unattractive, or so I learned at Greenhaven. Orderlies and nurses and psychiatrists look through you when you are disheveled and complaining; on the other hand, a pretty face gets noticed, and spoken to, and answered. At Greenhaven I cut my hair short,into honey-colored waves; I wore makeup to play up the green of my eyes. I spent more time on my appearance during those few months than I ever had in my life.Sighing, I lean toward the mirror and wipe a spot of toothpaste from the corner of my mouth.When Colin and I moved into this farmhouse, we replaced this bathroom mirror. The old one had been cracked at the cornerbad luck,I said. The new mirror, we didn't know where to hang. At five-foot-four, eye level for me was not eye level for Colin. A foot taller and lanky, he laughed when I'd first held up the mirror. "Rye," he said, "I can barely see my chest."So instead we put the mirror where Colin could see it. I would stand on tiptoe to see the whole of my face. I never quite measured up.In the middle of the night I feel the blankets rustle. A drift of air, a soft solidness pressed against me. Rolling over, I wrap my arms around Faith."This is what it would be like," I whisper to myself,and I let my throat swell up before I can even finish my thought. Her arms come around me like a vine. Her hair, tucked beneath my chin, smells of childhood.My mother used to tell me that when push comes to shove, you always know who to turn to. That being a family isn't a social construct, but an instinct.The flannel of our nightgowns hooks and catches. I rub Faith's back in silence,afraid to say anything that might ruin this good fortune, and I wait for her breathing to level before I let myself fall asleep. This one thing, this I can do.The town where we live, New Canaan, is large enough to have its own mountain, small enough to hold rumors in the nooks and crannies of the weathered clapboard storefronts. It is a town of farms and open land, of simple people rubbing shoulders with professionals from Hanover and New London who want their money to go a little bit further in real estate. We have a gas station, an old playground, and a bluegra.s.s band. We also have one attorney, J. Evers Standish, whose s.h.i.+ngle I've pa.s.sed a million times driving up and down Route 4.Six days after Colin has left, I answer the front door to find a sheriff's deputy on the porch, asking me if I am indeed Mrs.Mariah White. My first thought is for Colinhas he been in a car accident? The sheriff reaches into his pocket and pulls out an envelope. "I'm sorry, ma'am," he says, and he is gone before I can ask him what he's brought me.The first concrete act of divorce is called a libel. It's a little piece of paper that,held in your hand, has the power to change your whole life. I will not know until months later that New Hamps.h.i.+re is the only state that still calls it a libel, instead of a complaint or a pet.i.tion, as if part of the process, however amicable, involves a slight to one's character.Attached to the note is the piece of paper that says a divorce is being served against me.Thirty minutes later I am sitting in the waiting room of J. Evers Standish's office,Faith curled in the corner with a battered Brio train set. I would not have brought her, but my mother has been gone all morningoff, she said, to get us both a surprise. A door behind the receptionist opens, and a tall, polished brunette walks out, hand extended. "I'm Joan Standish."My jaw drops open. "You are?" For years,in pa.s.sing the building, I've pictured J.Evers Standish as an older man with muttonchops.The attorney laughs. "The last time I checked, I was." She glances at Faith,absorbed in creating a tunnel for the train."Nan," she asks her receptionist, "could you keep an eye on Mrs. White's daughter?"And as if I am pulled by a thread, I follow the lawyer into her office.The funny thing is, I'm not upset. Not nearly as upset as I was the afternoon Colin left.Something about this libel seems completely over the top, like a joke with the punch line forthcoming.Something Colin and I will laugh about when the lights are out and we're holding each other a few months from now.Joan Standish explains the libel to me. She asks me if I want to see a therapist or hear about referral programs. She asks what happened. She talks about divorce decrees and financial affidavits and custody, while I let the room whirl around me. It seems impossible that a wedding can take a year to plan but a divorce is final in six weeksas if all the time in between, the feelings have been dwindling to the point where they can be scattered with one angry breath."Do you think Colin will want joint custody of your daughter?"I stare at the attorney. "I don't know."I cannot imagine Colin living without Faith. But then again I cannot imagine myself living without Colin.Joan Standish narrows her eyes and sits down on her desk, across from me. "If you don't mind my saying so, Mrs. White," she begins, "you seem a little ... removed from all this. It's a very common reaction, you know, to just deny what's been legally set into motion, and therefore to just let the whole thing steamroll over you. But I can a.s.sure you that your husband has, in fact, started the judicial wheels turning to dissolve your marriage."I open my mouth, then snap it shut again."What?" she asks. "If I'm going to represent you, you'll have to confide in me."I look into my lap. "It's just that ...well. We went through this, sort of, once before.What happens to all ... this ... if he decides to come back?"The attorney leans forward, her elbows resting on her knees. "Mrs. White, you truly see no difference between then and now? Did he hurt you last time?" I nod. "Did he promise you he'd change? Did he come back to you?" She smiles gently. "Did he sue for divorce last time?""No," I murmur."The difference between then and now," Joan Standish says, "is that this time he's done you a favor."Our seats for the circus are in the very first row."Ma," I ask, "how did you get tickets this close?"My mother shrugs. "I slept with the ringmaster,"she whispers, and then laughs at her own joke.Her surprise from yesterday involved a trip to the Concord TicketMaster, to get us all seats at the Ringling Brothers Circus, playing in Boston. She reasoned that Faith needed something that might get her excited enough to chatter again. And once she heard about the libel, she said that I should consider the trip to Boston a celebration.My mother hails a man selling Sno-Cones and buys one for Faith. The clowns are working the stands. I see some that I recognizecould they be the same after all these years? One with a white head and a blue smile leans over the low divider in front of us. He points to his suspenders,polka-dotted, then to Faith's spotted s.h.i.+rt, and claps his hands. When Faith blushes,he mutely mouths the word "h.e.l.lo." Faith's eyes go wide, then she answers him, just as silently.The clown reaches into his back pocket and pulls out a greasepaint crayon. He cups Faith's chin in one hand, andwiththe other draws a wide, splitting smile over her lips. He colors musical notes on her throat and winks.He hops away from the divider, ready to entertain some other child, and then turns back at the last minute. Before I can manage to duck away,he reaches for my face. His hand is cool on my cheek as he paints a tear beneath my left eye, dark blue and swollen with sorrow.Although it is not something I remember, when I was little I tried to join the circus.My parents took me to the Boston Garden every year when Ringling Brothers came to town, and to say I loved it would be an understatement. In the weeks leading up to the show I'd wake in the middle of the night, my chest tight with flips and my eyes blind with sequins, my sheets smelling of tigers and ponies and bears. When I was actually at the circus, I'd school my eyes not to blink,aware that it would be gone as quickly as the cotton candy that melted away to nothing in the heat of my mouth.The year I was seven I was mesmerized by the Elephant Girl. The daughter of the ringmaster,glittering and sure, she stepped on the trunk of an enormous elephant and s.h.i.+mmied up it, the way I sometimes walked up the playground slide. She sat with her thighs clamped around the thick, bristly neck of the elephant and stared at me the whole time she circled the center ring.Don't you wish, she said silently, that you were like me?That year, like all the other years, my mother made me get up ten minutes before the intermission, so that we could beat the bathroom lines. She towed me to the ladies' room, both of us crowding into the tiny stall, and she loomed like a djinn with her arms crossed over me as I squatted to pee. When I was done, she said, "Now wait till I'm finished."My mother tells me that I had never crossed the street without reaching for her hand, never reached toward a hot stove; even as an infant, I'd never put small objects in my mouth. But that day, while she was in the toilet, I ducked beneath the door of the stall and disappeared.I do not remember this. I also do not remember how I made my way past the green-coated security guards, out the door, and into the huge lot where the circus had set up its trailers.Of course, I do not remember how the ringmaster himself announced my name in hopes of finding me,how the murmurs of a lost little girl ran like fire, how my parents spent the show searching the halls. I can't recall the chalky face of the circus hand who found me, who p.r.o.nounced it a wonder that I hadn't been trampled or gored.And I can't imagine what my parents thought,to discover me nestled between the lethal tusks of a sleeping elephant, my hair matted with straw and spit, his trunk curled over my shoulders like the arm of an old love.I don't know why I'm telling you this,except to make you see that maybe, like eye color and bone structure, miracles are pa.s.sed down through the bloodlines.The Elephant Girl has grown up. Of course, I cannot be sure they are one and the same,but here is a woman in a spangly costume with the same red-gold hair and wise eyes as the girl I remember. She leads a baby elephant around the center ring and tosses it a purple ball; she bows grandly to the audience and lets the elephant wave over her shoulder. Then from the side curtains comes a child, a little girl so like the one in my past that I wonder if time stands completely still beneath a big top. But then I watch the Elephant Woman help the girl ride the baby elephant around the ring, and I see that they are mother and daughter.A look pa.s.ses between them, one that makes me glance at Faith. Her eyes are so bright I can see the Elephant Girl's sequins reflected in them. Suddenly the clown who was here before is leaning over the divider, motioning wildly to Faith, who nods and falls over the railing into his arms. She waves back at us, her face mobile as she marches off to be part of the pre-intermission extravaganza. My mother scoots into Faith's seat. "Did you see that?Oh, I knew we should have brought the camera."And then in a buffet of light and booming voice, the circus performers and animals parade around the trio of rings. I look around, trying to find Faith. "Over there!" my mother calls."Yoo-hoo! Faith!" She points past the ringmaster and the caged tigers to my daughter, who is riding in front of the Elephant Lady on a tremendous tusked beast.I wonder if other mothers feel a tug at their insides, watching their children grow up into the people they themselves wanted so badly to be. The searchlights wing over the crowd, and in spite of the cheers and the fanfare I can still hear my mother surrept.i.tiously unwrapping a Brach's b.u.t.terscotch candy in the belly of her purse.A trained dog, spooked by something, leaps out of the arms of a clown in a hoopskirt. The dog streaks between the ringmaster's legs, over the satin train of a trapeze artist, and just in front of Faith's elephant, causing it to trumpet and rear up on its legs.If I live to be a hundred, I will never forget how long it took to watch Faith tumble to the sawdust, how panic swelled into my eardrums and blocked out all other sound, how the clown who'd befriended her rushed over, only to b.u.mp against the juggler and knock the spinning knives out of his hands, so that the three bright blades fell and sliced across my daughter's back.Faith lies unconscious on her belly in a hospital bed at Ma.s.s General, so small she barely takes up half the length of the mattress. An IV drips into her arm to ward off infection, the doctor says, although he is confident because the lacerations were not deep. Still, they were deep enough to require twenty st.i.tches. My jaw is so tight from being clenched that a shudder runs down my spine, and my mother must know how close I am to falling apart, because she has a quiet word with a nurse, touches Faith's hair, and pulls me out of the room.We don't speak until we reach a small supply closet, which my mother appropriates for our use. Pus.h.i.+ng me against the wall of sheets and towels, she forces me to look her in the eye."Mariah, Faith is all right. Faith is going to be just fine."Just like that, I dissolve. "It's my fault," I sob. "I couldn't stop it." I do not say what I'm sure my mother is thinking, too that I am not crying just for the knives that scored Faith, but for retreating into depression after Colin left, maybe even for choosing Colin as a husband in the first place."If it's anyone's fault, it's mineI bought the tickets." She hugs me hard. "This isn't some kind of punishment. It's not like an eye for an eye, Mariah. You're going to get through this. Both of you." Then she holds me at arm's length. "Did I ever tell you about the time I almost killed you? We went skiing, and you were all of about seven, and you slipped off the chairlift when I was adjusting my poles. You were dangling there, twenty feet above the ground, while I grabbed onto the sleeve of your little coat.All because I wasn't paying attention.""It's not the same. That was an accident.""So was this," my mother insists.We walk out of the supply closet and into Faith's room again. Words the psychiatrists had used at Greenhaven to describe me circle in my head: compulsive and idealistic, rejection-sensitive, poor self-confidence, a tendency to overcompensate and to catastrophize. "She should have gotten someone else as a mother. Someone who was good at this sort of thing."My mother laughs. "She got you for a reason,honey. You wait and see." Announcing that she's off to get us coffee, she heads for the door. "Just because other parents roll with the punches doesn't mean it's right. The ones who are most nervous about s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up, Mariah, are the same ones who care enough to want things to be perfect."The door shuts behind her with a sigh. I sit down on Faith's bed and trace the edge of her blanket. If I can't have Colin, I think, please let me have her.I don't realize I've spoken aloud until my mother comes in with the coffee. "Who are you talking to?" I flush, embarra.s.sed to be caught bargaining with a higher power. It is not as if I believe in G.o.d. When I was a child, my family wasn't very religious; as an adult,all I have is a healthy dose of skepticism and, apparently, the urge to beg in spite of this when I really, really need help. "No one. Just Faith."My mother presses the coffee into my hand. The cup is so hot it burns my palm, and even after I set it on the nightstand my skin still smarts.At that moment, Faith blinks up at me."Mommy," she croaks, and my heart turns over: Her first word in weeks is all mine.

TWO

"Sure, lots of people believe in G.o.d.Lots of people used to believe the world was flat,too."Ian Fletcher in The New York Times, June 14, 1998 August 17, 1999 Ian Fletcher is standing in the middle of h.e.l.l. He paces around the new backdrop of the set, running his hand over the gas pipes that will produce flame, and the jagged peaks of rock.He sc.r.a.pes off a bit with his thumb, thinking that brimstone isn't all it's cracked up to be."It's too d.a.m.n yellow. Looks like some New Age druid circle."His set decorator glances at the a.s.sociate producer. "I think, Mr.Fletcher, that the fire-and-brimstone thing was smell-related.""Smell?" Ian scowls. "What's that supposed to mean?""It's sulfur, sir. You know, you burn it,and it stinks."Ian glares at the set decorator."Tell me," he says softly, threateningly,"what's the point of a smell-related special effect in a visual medium like television?"The man quails. "I don't know, Mr.Fletcher, but you""But I what?""You wanted fire and brimstone, Ian." The voice comes from the tangle of cameras and microphones just off to the left. "Don't blame the fellow for your own mistakes."At the sound of the executive producer's voice, Ian sighs and runs a hand through his thick, black hair. "You know, James, the only thing that makes me think there might be a higher power after all is the way you always manage to drop in at the absolute worst moment.""That's not G.o.d, Ian, that's Murphy's Law." James Wilton steps into the circle of sulfur and glances around. "Of course, if you rediscover religion, that would be one way to boost ratings." He hands Ian a fax with the latest Nielsen numbers."Shoot," Ian mutters. "I told you CBS wasn't the way to go. We ought to reopen negotiations with HBO.""HBO isn't going to come within ten feet of you if you keep ranking in the bottom third."James breaks off a piece of sulfur and holds it to his nose. "So this is brimstone,eh? Guess I always kind of pictured it as a big black fireplace."Ian absentmindedly glances at the new set."Yeah, well. We'll design a new one.""Oh?" James says dryly. "Should we pay for it with the huge bonus from your pending Nike endors.e.m.e.nt? Or with the incoming grant from the Christian Coalition?"Ian narrows his eyes. "You don't have to be so cynical. You know that six months ago, when we did the specials, we got an incredible Nielsen share for the time slot."James walks from the set, leaving Ian to follow. "They were specials. Maybe that was the appeal. Maybe a weekly show loses its novelty." He turns to Ian, his face grave. "I love what you do, Ian. But network executives have notoriously short attention spans. And I've got to bring them a winner." Taking the fax from Ian's hand, James crumples it into a ball. "I know it goes against your nature ... but now would be a good time to start praying."Although he'd been asked by countless journalists,Ian Fletcher refused to isolate the incidents in his life that made him stop believing in G.o.d.In fact, not only did he admit to being born a nonbeliever, he made a living out of trying to convince the world that everyone was born a nonbeliever and that faith was something one was subtly schooled to acceptlike cow's milk, or potty trainingbecause it was socially acceptable.Religion, he argued, made a wonderful panacea. Ian's offhand comparison of devout Catholics to toddlers who believed that a Band-Aid itself cures the wound was hotly debated in the op-ed pages of The New York Times, in Newsweek, and on Meet the Press. He asked why Jews were the Chosen People yet continued to be targeted for persecution.He asked why Catholics were the only ones who ever saw the Virgin Mary in fountains and morning mists. He asked how there could be a G.o.d when innocent children got raped and maimed and killed. The more outspoken he became, the more people wanted to listen.In 1997 his book, G.o.d Who?, spent twenty weeks at number one on The New York Times nonfiction bestseller list. He became a guest at Steven Spielberg's home and was invited to sit in on White House round-table discussions and focus groups concerning a variety of cultural issues. That July a People magazine featuring Ian Fletcher on the cover sold out in twenty-four hours. A speech in Central Park drew more than a hundred thousand spectators. And in September 1998,Ian Fletcher met with TV executives and became the world's first teleatheist.He formed a companyPagan Productionsborrowed cues from the Reverends Billy Graham and Jerry Falwell, and then put on a show.Huge TV screens behind him played images of ma.s.s destructionbombs, land mines, civil warswhile Ian's stirring, unmistakable Southern drawl challenged the concept of a supreme, loving being who would allow things to come this far. He developed a large following and cultivated a reputation as Spokesman of the Millennium Generationthose cynical Americans who had neither the time nor the inclination to trust in G.o.d for their future. He was opinionated, brash, and bullheaded, which won him the appeal of the eighteen-to-twenty-four-year-old sector. He was highly educateda Ph.d.in theology from Harvardwhich made the baby boomers take note. But clearly Ian Fletcher's greatest attributethe one that endeared him to women of all ages and made him a natural for the small screenwas the fact that he was handsome as sin.Two hours later Ian bursts into the office of his executive producer. "I've got it!"he crows, oblivious to the way that James is motioning to him to be quiet, as he's on the phone. "It's perfect. It's going to make you one very rich man."At that, James turns toward Ian."I'll get back to you," he says into the receiver and hangs up. "Okay, you've got my attention. What's the grand plan?"Ian's vivid blue eyes are s.h.i.+ning, and his hands are busy diagramming and punctuating his enthusiasm. He looks exactly like the kind of angry, spirited orator who drew James to him in the first place, as the voice of a spiritually lost country. "What do you do if you're a Bible Belt televangelist and your ratings take a dive?"James considers this. "You sleep with your secretary, or extort money."Ian rolls his eyes. "Wrong. You take your show on the road.""Like in a Winnebago?""Why not?" Ian says. "Think about it,James. Preachers at the turn of the last century built congregations with gra.s.sroots revival meetings. They pitched a tent in the middle of nowhere and made miracles happen."James narrows his eyes. "I can't quite imagine you in a tent, Ian. Your idea of "roughing it" is settling for The Four Seasons instead of The Plaza."Ian shrugs. "Desperate times call for desperate measures. We're going to go slumming with the ma.s.ses, my friend. We'll hold the world's first antirevival.""If viewers don't tune in to you at home,Ian, why should they tune into you in f.u.c.k-all,Kansas?""Don't y'all get it? That's the whole catch. Instead of making cripples throw down their crutches and having blind people see, I'm going to uncover hoaxes. I'm going to rip apart all these so-called miracles. You knowgo to Lourdes with scientists and prove that the statue's not crying tears, it's condensation. Or find the medical reason why a guy who's in a coma for nineteen years suddenly wakes up good as new." He leans forward, grinning from ear to ear. "People believe in G.o.d because they don't have any other explanation for things that happen. I can change that."Slowly, James smiles. "You know," he admits, "this actually isn't a bad idea."Ian reaches for the newspaper on the corner of James's desk. He tosses one section to his producer and then takes his own and spreads the pages wide, like the wings of a great bird. "Call your secretary and have her run on out to the newsstand. We need the Globe, the Post, the L.a. Times," Ian orders."Someone saw Jesus' face on his pizza at dinner last night. Now we've just got to find him."August 30, 1999 Colin White sits in his business suit on a bench at the playground, watching mothers and nannies chase toddlers beneath the jungle gym.His egg-salad sandwich remains in its plastic wrapper, untouched. Without even taking a bite,he b.a.l.l.s it up and stuffs it back into the brown paper bag from the deli.That little girl, the one on the monkey bars,looks something like Faith. Same curl to her hair, even if it's a shade too dark. She keeps making it to the third rung, then slipping free and falling to the ground. Colin remembers Faith doing the same thing: practicing and practicing until she could make it across. He wants to move closer, but he knows better. In this day and age it will only make him look like a pedophile, not a man who simply misses his child.He runs his hands through his hair. What the h.e.l.l was he thinking? The answer was, he hadn't been thinking at all when he'd brought Jessica back to his house that afternoon. A ballet cla.s.s is not a sure thing; he should have known that Faith and Mariah might come home unexpectedly. In the three weeks that have pa.s.sed, he can still remember every nuance of the looks on Faith's and Mariah's faces when Jessica walked out of the bathroom. He can still remember how Faith stared right through him when he finally caught up to her in her bedroom, as if she was old enough to know that the excuses he was making were transparent.He had hurt Mariah, too, but then again,living with a woman who refused to accept that there was any problem with their marriage would take its toll on a saint. Every time he tried to force Mariah to face facts, he left shaking, afraid that he'd come home and find her trying to kill herself.Initially he'd gone out with Jessica just to have someone to confide in.And now he loves her.Colin closes his eyes. It's one h.e.l.l of a mess.The little girl on the monkey bars finishes swinging over the last rung and lands a few feet away from Colin, kicking up a cloud of dust."Oh," she says, grinning up at him."Sorry.""No problem.""Can you tie my shoe?"He smiles. One thing he has learned about young children: To them, adults are interchangeable.Anyone of similar fatherlike age might be asked to take care of these things. He bends down over the laces of her sneaker, realizing at close range that this girl is younger than Faith,heavier, unmistakably different.The girl climbs the short ladder on one end of the monkey bars. "You watch me," she calls out, artlessly proud. "This time I'm going to get it right."Colin finds himself holding his breath as the child swings out with her left arm, then her right, reaching for the metal rungs and curling her knuckles over them, even though it is an unlikely stretch,even though it is sure to leave her aching. He continues to watch, until he sees her safely across to the other side.For seven, she knows a lot of things. She knows that monarch caterpillars live in the folds of milkweed leaves, that tights are never as tight as leggings, that "We'll see" always means "No."She has learned enough of the world to realize that it is a place of grown-ups, and that the only way to leave her mark is to speak at the ends of their sentences and act so much like them that they sit up and take notice. She knows that the minute she falls asleep, her teddy bear's sewed-shut eyes snap open. She knows that truth can cause a sharp pain behind your eyes and that love sometimes feels like a fist around your throat.She also knows, although everyone is careful to keep it from her, that they are all still talking. Faith has been home from the hospital for three days now,although she isn't comfortable wearing a s.h.i.+rt yet. Every time she does, she feels the cuts open up and bleed, and she worries that in the winter she will either freeze to death or else leak bone dry.During the day Grandma comes over and plays spit and go fish, and she doesn't care at all that Faith is wearing only her shorts. Her mother sits on the couch and stares at Faith's back when she thinks no one is looking, as if Faith couldn't feel the weight of her eyes anyway.When Grandma leaves after dinner, sometimes there are conversations with big, fat, white s.p.a.ces, so that it seems like whole hours pa.s.s between the sentences Faith and her mother speak.Tonight Faith is picking at the peas on her dinner plate when the doorbell rings. Grandma raises her eyebrows, and her mother shrugs. They are like that, can speak without saying a thing, because they know each other so well. With Faith and her mom,though, it's a different type of quiet, one brought on by not knowing each other at all. Faith watches her mother go to the front door, and as soon as she's out of sight, Faith takes a forkful of peas and hides them under her thigh."Oh!" Her mother's voice is full of air and light. "You're just in time for dinner.""I can't stay," Faith hears her father answer. She stiffens, feels the peas pop beneath her leg. She has seen her father once since That Day. He came to the hospital with a big stuffed teddy bear that was the ugliest one she'd ever seen,and the whole time he held her hand and talked to her she was picturing that lady that came out of the bathroom as if she lived there. She does not know why the woman was taking a shower in the middle of the afternoon, or why that made her mother cry. She knows only that the whole event had a color about it, like the scribbles of a crayon gone crazy off the pagethe same blue-black she sometimes imagined when she was lying in bed and could hear, through the walls, her parents fighting.Her father walks into the kitchen and kisses her on the forehead. "Hey, cookie!" He pretends not to look at her back the same way her mother does. "How's my pumpkin pie?"Faith stares at him, and she wonders why he calls her only by the names of food."For G.o.d's sake, Mariah!" Her grandma gets to her feet. "How could you let him in?""For FaithI had to."Grandma snorts. "For Faith. Right." She comes closer to Faith's father, and for a moment Faith wonders if Grandma is going to sock him one right then and there. But she only pokes him in the side with her finger. "Good-bye, Colin. You're not needed.""Lay off, Millie, will you?"Her mother reappears with a plate. "Here," she sings. "No trouble at all.""Mariah, I can't stay. I told you that.""It's only dinner""I have other plans.""You could cancel them. It would be nice for Fai""Jessica's waiting in the car," her father says tightly. "All right?"Faith scurries away from her father's voice,taking shelter beneath her grandmother's arm. Her mother wilts into a chair, the plate clattering so that peas spill across the table like polka dots. Her father's jaw is working funny, no words coming out.Finally he says, "I just wanted to see my daughter. I'm sorry." Then he touches Faith's shoulder and walks out."G.o.d, Ma! Did you have to say that?""Yes! Since you wouldn't!""I don't need your help." Faith's mother presses her hands to her head. "Just leave."Faith begins to panic. She did not want her father there either, but that was only because she knew that it would all come down to a scene like this. Once in school her teacher had filled a bowl with water and sprinkled pepper on top. Then she dripped dishwas.h.i.+ng soap down the side, and the pepper went flying away. For some reason, when Faith thinks of her mother and father, that always comes to mind, too."Faith," her grandmother says, "maybe you should sleep at my house tonight."Her mother shakes her head. "No way. She's staying here.""Wonderful!"Faith tries to figure out what is so wonderful about it. She wants to go to her grandmother's. Her mother will just mope around and stick a video in the VCR for her. At her grandma's,she gets to sleep in the guest room, with the beastly black sewing machine in the corner and the box of b.u.t.tons and the small bowl of sugar cubes on the nightstand.But then her grandmother is saying good-bye and her mother is muttering about reverse psychology and it is just the two of them, with all the dishes on the table. For a long time Faith watches her mother.She sits with her head in her hands, so still that Faith thinks she's fallen asleep.Unsure of what to say or do, Faith pokes her. "Want to play a game?"When her mother looks up, Faith thinks that she has never in her life seen anything so sad.Except maybe the tortoise at the San Diego Zoo two summers ago, which had lifted its great head and stared right at Faith, willing her to help him go back to where he once had been.Her mother's voice is thin and creaky. "I can't." She walks out of the room, leaving Faith behind to wonder, once again, what magic words might keep her mother close by.Mariah has always believed there ought to be a network for the lovelorn, patterned after Alcoholics Anonymous, devoted to helping those who are crippled by broken hearts.Surely there are enough of us, she thinks, people who would benefit from a buddy system for the moments when you catch your sweetheart with his arm around another woman, or when he calls but does not want to speak to you, or when you see in his eyes that he has already started to forget you. She imagines having the name of a Good Samaritan who will talk on the phone like a seventh-grade girlfriend, draw you a dartboard with his face on it, take the ache away.But instead she stares at the small business card with her psychiatrist's beeper number. She is not supposed to call unless it is an emergency, which in her case would probably mean the profound desire to cut open her wrists or hang herself from the closet rack. She wants to talk to someone, but she does not know whom. Her mother is her closest friend, but she's just sent Millie away. Other women she knows have husbands who work with Colin; they are couples who are probably going out to dinner with him and Jessica. She feels something bitter rise in the back of her throat. It does not seem right that this woman should get her husband, her friends, and her old life.There is much Mariah has to do. She ought to check on Faith, give her her antibiotics, change the dressing on her st.i.tches before she goes to bed. She ought to call her mother and apologize. At the very least she ought to clean up the dinner table.Instead she finds herself staring at the bed.All night she imagines that she is falling into dips and runnels of the mattress, as if Colin and Jessica have literally left their marks. She tugs the comforter off and makes herself a nest on the floor. She piles the sheets on top and lies down, picturing Colin's face the way she once did in her narrow bed in a college dormitory. She stays perfectly still, oblivious to the tears that come without warning, a geyser, a hot spring with the power to heal.Her mother is crying, Faith knows, hard enough that she can't catch her breath. It's a quiet sound,but all the same as hard to block out with a pillow as her parents' fights used to be. It makes her feel like crying, too. Faith thinks about calling her grandmother but remembers that her grandmother takes the phone off the hook at 7:00 P.m. to foil telemarketers. So she curls up on top of her bed, s.h.i.+rtless, holding the old bear that smells like Johnson's Baby Shampoo.She stays that way for a long time, and then dreams about a person wearing a long white nightgown who is sitting across from her. Immediatelyshe's been warned of strangersshe shrinks away."Faith," the person says. "You don't have to be afraid."Long dark hair, sad dark eyes. "Do I know you?""Do you want to?""I don't know." Faith wants so badly to touch the nightgown of this stranger. She's never seen anything like it. It seems so soft you might fall into it and never find your way out. "Are you a friend of my mom's?""I'm your guard."She thinks about that for a moment, puzzling out whether or not a person you've never seen before can slip unannounced into your life."Who are you talking to?" Suddenly Faith's mother stands in the doorway, her eyes red and swollen and her hands holding a tube of Bacitracin.Startled, Faith glances around the room, but the strangerand the dreamis gone. "n.o.body,