Keeping Faith: A Novel (26 page)

She will have to call the police, but that seems like an easy sacrifice if it means Faith’s safe return. With her heart pounding, Mariah races outside, so distraught that she does not even notice the car still sitting in front of the cabin. She runs toward the manager’s office,

the nearest phone, cursing herself for putting Faith within reach of Ian Fletcher. When she rounds the corner, two figures are silhouetted against the lake, one tall, one tiny. With intense relief, Mariah stops short, her knees buckling. She cups her hands around her mouth to call out to them, but then before her very eyes, Faith falls into the lake.

Oh, shit! That’s all Ian has time to think before the water swallows Faith, and Mariah’s scream echoes. It’s freezing in there, and he has no idea if the kid can swim,

and the very worst part of it is that he can’t just jump in and grab her because there’s every chance that he’ll land on top of her, push her farther down. He is distantly aware of Mariah scrabbling down the slope, yelling, but with intense focus he stares at the murky water until a pale streak of silver unfurls beneath the surface. He leaps in a few feet to the left of where he’s seen Faith’s hair, opens his eyes to the gritty underworld, and tangles his fingers in a silky skein.

He can see her, her eyes wide and terrified, her mouth open, her hands pushing at the underside of the dock that she’s trapped beneath. Dragging her by her ponytail, he yanks Faith free and pulls her up. She crawls onto the wood, choking and sputtering, her cheek pressed against the planks as she spits up water.

Ian hauls himself onto the dock as well, just as Mariah reaches them and folds Faith into her arms, soothing and cuddling. Only now does he let himself breathe, let himself think of what might have happened. He notices that he’s soaked and shaking; his clothes must weigh fifty pounds wet,

and they’re freezing to boot. With a glance in Faith’s direction to make sure she is all right, he stands and slowly sets out toward the cabin to change.

“Don’t you move!”

Mariah’s voice, vibrating with anger, stops him. Ian turns and clears his throat to speak.

“She’ll be fine,” he manages. “She wasn’t under for more than a few seconds.”

But Mariah isn’t ready to give up. “How dare you take her out here without my permission?”

“Well, I–“

“Were you waiting for me to fall asleep so that you could sneak her out with a … a candy bar and ask her questions up one side and down the other? Did you get your precious tape? Or did you forget to take it out of your pocket when you jumped in?”

Ian feels his lips draw away from his teeth, an involuntary snarl. “For your information,

the only thing I asked your daughter was if her daddy ever taught her how to cast a fishing line.

I didn’t tape a frigging word of our conversation.

She fell into the lake by accident and got stuck under the dock. All I did was go in after her.”

“She would never have gotten stuck under the dock if she hadn’t been standing on it in the first place!

For all I know, you might have pushed her.”

Ian’s eyes glitter with rage. This is what he gets for saving the child’s life? He takes a step back, breathing hard. “For all I know,”

he sneers, “she might have walked on water.”

Long after Mariah has fed Faith hot soup,

bathed her, and tucked her into bed for the night, Ian still has not returned to the cabin. She finds herself pacing, staring blindly at the static on the television. She wants to apologize.

Surely now that they’ve both had time to cool down he realizes that it was the fear talking, not really her, but she’d like to tell him so herself. After all, if Faith had wandered down to the dock by herself, she could have just as easily fallen in–and drowned.

She waits until her daughter is sleeping deeply, then goes to sit on the edge of the bed.

Mariah touches the curve of Faith’s cheek,

warm as a ripe peach. How do other mothers go about keeping watch? How do they shut their eyes with the certainty that in that moment, something won’t go wrong?

Being in water that cold could have had far more serious effects, yet Faith seems absolutely fine.

For whatever it is worth, Faith’s God wasn’t the one to haul her out of the water; that was done by Ian himself. For this at least, Mariah owes him her gratitude.

She sees the swinging beam of headlights cut across the small room. Walking out of the bedroom to the front door of the cabin, she waits for Ian to come inside. But a minute passes, and then another, and finally it is five minutes later.

She peeks through the window–yes, the car is there–

and then opens the door.

Ian is sitting at her feet. He’s been leaning against the door. “I’m sorry,” Mariah says, coloring.

“Nah. It’s a stupid place to sit.”

They look at the night sky, the rotting porch, the chipped paint on the door–anywhere but at each other. “I mean that I’m really sorry.”

“Well, so am I. This isn’t the first time I’ve done something involving Faith without getting your permission first.” Ian rubs the back of his neck. “She liked fishing, though. Right up till the end there.”

They each imagine a picture of Faith with that bass, and it forms a bridge between them. Then Mariah sits down beside Ian, drawing a circle absently on the dirt of the porch floor. “I’m not used to letting her out of my sight,” she admits. “It’s hard for me.”

“You’re a fine mother.”

Mariah shakes her head. “You might be the only one who thinks so.”

“I doubt that. I bet there’s a little girl inside that thinks so.” He leans against the side of the cabin. “I figure I owe you an apology, too. You got me riled up, or else I wouldn’t have said all that about Faith walking on water.”

Mariah considers his words. “You know,” she says finally, “I don’t want her to be some … Messiah figure … any more than you do.”

“What do you want?”

She takes a deep breath. “I want her to be safe. I want her to be mine.”

Neither of them speaks the thought that crosses their minds: that these two wishes might not both be able to come true. “She sleeping now?”

“Yes.” Mariah glances at the cabin door.

“Went to bed without a problem.” She watches Ian draw up one knee and hook a wrist over it, and lets herself wonder what this moment might be like if she hadn’t met Ian over a war of religious convictions, but when she dropped her purse in the grocery store, or when he gave up his seat for her on the bus. Her mind scrambles over territory she’s deliberately left untraveled, marking the raven’s wing of his hair and the brilliant blue of his eyes,

remembering the night in the hospital when he kissed her on the cheek.

“You know,” he says quietly. “Even during the world wars they had a cease-fire on Christmas.”

“What?”

“A truce, Mariah,” Ian says, his voice running over her name like a waterfall.

“I’m saying that, just for here, just for now, maybe we could give each other the benefit of the doubt.” He grins at her. “I’m probably only half the monster you think I am.”

She smiles back. “Don’t sell yourself short.”

He laughs out loud, and in that moment Mariah realizes that if Ian Fletcher is intimidating when he’s scowling, he’s positively threatening when he lets down his guard.

In the middle of the night, when Faith and Mariah are long asleep, Ian sneaks into their room. He stands at the edge of the bed with all the gravity of a man on the edge of a precipice.

Mariah holds Faith in her arms, like an ingredient that’s been folded into a batter. Their hair is woven together on the pillow. From where he’s standing, it looks almost as if they are not two people, but different incarnations of one.

Tonight had gone better than he’d expected,

considering his outburst at the lake. The truce is going to buy him some time, make Mariah predisposed to trust him. And, of course,

he’ll have to act as if he trusts her. Which, in a way, comes almost too goddamned easy. Sometimes she looks like any other mother, and Faith looks like any other little girl. Until you add God to the mix.

Lake Perry, Kansas–October 23,

Faith sits down next to Mr. Fletcher at the breakfast table and watches her mother at the counter. “We’ve got a selection this morning of Cheerios, or Cheerios … or, if you’d rather have them, Cheerios,” her mother says brightly.

“I’ll have Cheerios, then.” Mr. Fletcher smiles at her mom, and right away Faith can tell there’s something different. Like the air is easier to take into your lungs.

“How are you feeling?” Mr. Fletcher asks her.

“Okay.” But then she sneezes.

“Wouldn’t surprise me if she caught a cold,” her mother says to Mr. Fletcher, who nods. She sets a bowl of cereal in front of Faith.

“Give her vitamin C. You can ward off a cold if you take enough of it.”

“That’s an old wives’ tale. Like wearing garlic on a string around your neck.”

Faith looks from one to the other and wonders how she managed to go to sleep last night and wake up this morning and somehow, in that short time, miss the entire world’s turning upside down. The last time she’d seen Mr. Fletcher and her mom together, they were shouting so loud it made her head pound.

They’re still talking about medicines and getting sick, as if Faith isn’t even in the room.

Quietly, she stands up and crosses the small kitchen, dragging a stepstool to the counter. She reaches for the bowls on the middle shelf of the cabinet and takes down a second one. This she fills with Cheerios and places in front of an empty seat at the table.

“Well,” Mr. Fletcher says. “At least you’re still hungry.”

Faith stares at him, challenging.

“It’s not for me. It’s for God.”

Her mother’s spoon clanks against her cereal bowl. Faith watches the two grown-ups look at each other for a long time, a staring contest to see who’ll fold first. Her mother, especially, seems to be hanging on the edge of the table, waiting for Mr. Fletcher to speak.

After a moment he reaches for the jug of milk and passes it down the table. “Here,” he says,

calmly taking another spoonful of his own Cheerios. “Just in case She doesn’t like it dry.”

October 24, 1999 The next night Ian is sprawled on the couch, writing on a pad, while Mariah sits at the kitchen table. The heady scent of rubber-cement fumes wafts across the room, and although he cannot see her hands, he knows she’s busy gluing something together. Thankless job, he thinks.

Everything in this damn cabin is falling apart.

Suddenly she stretches, her breasts rounding out against one of the shapeless flannel shirts. She turns to him and smiles hesitantly. “What are you working on?”

“General notes for a broadcast.”

“Oh. I didn’t know you were still doing them.”

She blushes at her own words, the subtext loud and clear: I didn’t know that you could be kind, and cross us at the same time.

“Gotta make a living.”

At the mention of employment, Mariah groans. “I’ve probably lost all my clients.”

Surprised to discover she is more than a stay-at-home mom, Ian raises his brows.

“Clients? What do you do?”

She seems flustered for a moment, then gestures toward the table. “I do this.”

He walks over and stands behind her chair.

Spread across a paper towel is a fan of toothpicks, glued side by side. Beside it is a tiny structure, and as he watches, Mariah curls the fan into a thatched roof for the top of a tiny hut. But rather than looking silly, like a child’s camp craft, it is remarkably realistic.

Strategically breaking bits of wood here and there,

she’s created a door, a window, the feel of an aboriginal home. “That’s amazing,” Ian says, surprised by the extent of her talent. “You’re a sculptor?”

“No, I make dollhouses.” She rolls a bead of rubber cement between her fingers.

“What is the hut for?”

“Me.” Mariah laughs. “I was bored. The toothpicks were the first thing I could find.”

Ian grins. “Remind me to hide the wooden spoons from you.”

She leans back in her chair and looks up at him. “Your broadcasts–who’s doing them?”

“Me. In living color. We’re doing reruns while I’m here.”

“The ones you’re writing …?”

“For when I get back,” Ian says softly. “Whenever that is.”

“Are they about Faith?”

“Some parts.” Even as he says the words, he wonders why the hell he’s told her the truth.