Free Keeping Faith: A Novel by Jodi Picoult Page A

believed that the Virgin Mary lived in the shell of her ear.
“All the better,” she told us, “to whisper prophecies.” From time to time she invited the nurses and the doctors and the other patients to look. When it was my turn, I got so close that for the slightest moment I noticed a pulsing in some inner pink membrane. “Did you see her?”
she demanded, and I nodded, not certain which of us this made seem more insane.
Faith has been out of school as much as she’s in, and I haven’t worked on one of my dollhouses in two weeks. We spend more time at the hospital than in our home. We know now, thanks to an MRI and a CT scan and a battery of blood work, that Faith does not have a brain tumor or a thyroid problem. Dr.
Keller has asked her colleagues about Faith’s behavior, too. “On the one hand,”
she said to me, “almost all adult psychotic hallucinations have to do with religion, the government,
or the devil. On the other hand, Faith is functioning in a totally normal way, with no other psychotic behavior.” She wanted to put Faith on Risperdal, an antipsychotic drug. If the imaginary friend went away, that would be that. And if she didn’t, well, I would cross that bridge if and when we came to it.
Faith can’t be talking to God; I know this. But in the next breath I wonder, Why not? Things have happened before without precedent. And a good mother would stick up for her child, no matter how bizarre the story. But then again, if I start saying that Faith is seeing God, that she isn’t crazy–well, everyone will think that I am.
Again.
To give Faith the Risperdal I have to mash the pill in a mortar and pestle and mix it with chocolate pudding to mask the taste. Dr.
Keller says that antipsychotics work fast; that unlike with Prozac and Zoloft, we don’t have to wait eight weeks to see if it’s taken hold. In the meantime, we just have to wait and see.
Faith is sleeping now, curled on her side beneath her Little Mermaid comforter. She looks like any other child. She must know I’m here, because she stretches and rolls over and opens her eyes.
They are glazed and distant with the Risperdal. She has always favored Colin in features, but with a start I realize that right now she looks like me.
For a moment I think back to the months I spent at Greenhaven–watching the door close behind me and lock, feeling the prick of the sedative in my arm, and wondering why Colin and an ER psychiatrist and even a judge were speaking for me,
when I had so much I wanted to say.
I honestly don’t know what would be worse to find out in this case: that Faith is mentally ill or that she isn’t.
“Sleep,” Faith parrots.
“So-Like-Every-Every-P.”
“Excellent.” Second grade has brought spelling words our way. “Keep.”
“Knowledge-Every-Every-P.”
I place the list on top of the kitchen table.
“You got them all right. Maybe you ought to be the teacher.”
“I could be,” she says confidently. “My guard says everyone has things to teach people.”
Just like that, I freeze. It has been two days since Faith’s mentioned her imaginary playmate, and I was beginning to believe the antipsychotic medicine deserved the credit.
“Oh?” I wonder if I can reach Dr.
Keller by pager. If she’ll discontinue the drug just on the strength of my own observations.
“Your friend is still hanging around?”
Faith’s eyes narrow, and I realize that she hasn’t been talking about her guard for a very important reason: She knows that it’s gotten her into trouble. “How come you want to know?”
I think about the answer Dr. Keller would offer: Because I want to help you. And then I think about the answer my mother would give: Because if she’s important to you, I want to get to know her. But to my surprise, the words that come from my mouth are entirely my own. “Because I love you.”
It seems to shock Faith as much as it’s shocked me. “Oh … okay.”
I reach for her hands. “Faith, there’s something I want to