Free Keeping Faith: A Novel by Jodi Picoult

psychiatrist leans forward. “Do you have other friends, Faith?”
“Sure. I play with Elsa and Sarah and with Gary, when my mother makes me, but Gary wipes his snot on my clothes when he thinks I’m not looking.”
“I mean other friends like your guard.”
“No.” Faith considers. “I don’t know anyone else like her.”
“Is she here with us now?”
Faith glances around, uncomfortable. “No.”
“Does your guard talk to you?”
“Yes.”
“Does she ever say scary things to you?”
Faith shakes her head. “She makes me feel better.”
“Does she touch you?”
“Sometimes.” Faith closes her eyes and jams her thumbs into them. “She shakes me at night to wake me up. And she hugs me a lot.”
“That sounds nice,” Dr. Keller says.
“I bet you like that.”
Embarrassed, Faith nods. “She says she loves me best.”
“Then she’s only your friend? Not anyone else’s?”
“Oh, no,” Faith says. “She has other friends. She just doesn’t see them so much right now.
It’s like how I used to go over to Brianna’s house all the time, but now she goes to a different school so I don’t get to play with her a lot.”
“Does your guard tell you about her other friends?”
Faith repeats several names. “She played with them a long time ago, not anymore.”
Dr. Keller has become very quiet.
This is strange; usually she asks Faith questions,
questions, questions until Faith is ready to cover her ears. Faith watches the doctor’s hands, which are shaking just a little bit, like the way her mother’s did when she was taking pills.
“Faith,” Dr. Keller says finally,
“does it … do you like–” She takes a deep breath and continues. “Did you ever pray to have a friend like this?”
Faith wrinkles her nose. “What’s praying?”
From the light in her eyes Mariah knows that Dr. Keller is on the verge of a breakthrough.
Or maybe it has already happened; it is difficult to tell, since Faith is playing so nicely on the other side of the observation window.
Dr. Keller sits down at her desk and gestures for Mariah to do the same. “Faith mentioned some names to me today: Herman Joseph, from Steinfeld. Elizabeth, from Schonau.
Juliana Falconieri.” Dr. Keller glances up.
Mariah shrugs. “I don’t think we know any Hermans. And is Schonau close to here?”
“No, Mrs. White,” Dr. Keller says softly. “It’s not.”
Mariah laughs nervously. “Well, maybe she’s making those names up. I mean, if she managed to create an imaginary friend …?” She lets her voice trail off, and she feels her palms begin to sweat, although she does not know why she’s nervous.
Dr. Keller rubs her temples. “Those are very complicated names for a seven-year-old to spontaneously invent. And they aren’t fabricated. They are, or were, people who existed.”
More confused, Mariah nods. “Maybe it’s something they’re learning in class. Last year Faith was an expert on the rain forest.”
“Does she attend parochial school?”
“Oh, no. We’re not Catholic.” Mariah smiles hesitantly. “Why?”
Dr. Keller sits on the edge of the desk,
across from Mariah. “Before I married and became a psychiatrist, I was Mary Margaret O’Sullivan from Evanston, Illinois. I received communion every Sunday and had a big party for my confirmation and went to parochial school until I was accepted at Yale. In my school, I did learn about Herman Joseph.
And Elizabeth, and Juliana. They’re Catholic saints, Mrs. White.”
Mariah is speechless. “Well,” she says,
because she does not know what is expected.
Dr. Keller begins pacing. “I don’t think we’ve been hearing Faith just right. Her guard … the words … they sound alike.”
“What do you mean?”
“Your daughter,” Dr. Keller says flatly. “I think she’s seeing God.”

Keeping Faith
THREE
The mind is its own place, and in itself Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.
John Milton,
Paradise Lost September 20, 1999 At Greenhaven there was a woman who