o whom then will ye liken God?

or what likeness will ye compare unto him?

–Isaiah 4018 When I was Faith’s age, I learned that I was going to hell.

Ursula Padrewski sat behind me that year in school. She was tall for seven, with long braids that her mother coiled on top of her head like a sleeping rattlesnake. Her father was an assistant rector at the Episcopal church.

One day on the playground she took each girl’s Barbie and plunged it headfirst into a puddle of rainwater. She came up to me with her hands on her hips and said Malibu Barbie had to get baptized.

“What’s baptized?” I asked.

She gasped, as if this were a word I should have known. “You know. Where you get dunked underwater for God.”

“God didn’t dunk me underwater,” I told her.

“They do it in church when you’re a baby,” she said, but not before she took a step back.

“If you don’t get baptized,” Ursula confided, “you get thrown into a pit of fire and go to hell.”

I was old enough to understand that my family didn’t go to church, which meant I probably had not been baptized, after all. That left in my mind the image of the ground opening up and flames reaching as high as my throat.

I started screaming so loud that even after the playground monitor had wrestled me to the nurse’s office, no one could calm me enough to figure out what was wrong. My mother, summoned with a phone call, arrived ten minutes later.

She skidded to a stop on the worn linoleum,

laying her hands on my body to check for broken bones. “Mariah, what’s the matter?”

She motioned the nurse away. “Mommy,” I asked, breath hitching, “did I get baptized?”

“Jews don’t get baptized.”

I burst into tears again. “I’m going to hell!”

My mother wrapped her arms around me, and muttered something about prayer in public schools and Reverend Louis Padrewski. Then she tried to tell me about the Jews being the Chosen People, that I had absolutely nothing to worry about, and that there was no pit of fire.

But I knew that my family was nothing like Joshua Simkis’s, who were also Jewish but worked very hard at it. Joshua, in third grade,

couldn’t have milk whenever the cafeteria served hamburgers. And he wore a little crocheted yarmulke to school, tucked into his hair with a bobby pin. My family, well, we didn’t go to church–but we didn’t go to temple either. I hadn’t been baptized, but I didn’t think we were going to be Chosen.

Eventually I was ready to go home. But as we walked to the car, I was careful to leap over the cracks of the sidewalk, thinking that at any moment they would split to reveal Ursula’s pit of fire. And that night, when my parents had long been asleep, I filled the bathtub with water and dunked Malibu Barbie. Then I stuck my head in and repeated a bedtime prayer I’d heard Laura Ingalls say on the TV show Little House on the Prairie. Just in case.

October 30, 1999 In the morning, Joan calls me. “Just wanted to make sure you’re still alive,” she says, and although she is joking, neither of us laughs.

“I thought I might stop by this afternoon, talk about a defense strategy.”

The very concept makes me think of what Ian said the night before, about fighting back.

Self-defense, by definition, involves putting oneself on the line. “Joan, did you happen to see Hollywood Tonight!?”

“I’d rather do a bikini wax than sit through that show.”

Not for the first time, I wonder who is responsible for their huge number of viewers.

“Colin was on. With Malcolm Metz. They spoke outside the courthouse yesterday, and Colin talked about how Faith’s in danger and then started to cry.”

“Well, you don’t have to worry about the media distorting your case. Thank God, the only person who will be hearing it is the judge, and–“

“I think I ought to let Hollywood Tonight!

come into my house and film Faith.”

“You what?” It takes Joan a minute to get over her surprise, and I can fairly hear her stiffen. “As your legal counsel, I highly recommend against that particular course of action.”

“I know it has nothing to do with the hearing, Joan.

But the judge needs to see Faith as a normal little girl, playing with dolls and Legos and what have you. And for that matter, so do the other people who think she’s some saint. I don’t want to look like I’m hiding anything.”

“You should never mix the media with the courtroom,

Mariah.”

“I shouldn’t sit here and let Colin walk away with my daughter either. I don’t want him planting ideas in people’s heads about me and Faith,

when we’re perfectly capable of speaking for ourselves.” Hesitating, I add, “I’ve been at this point before, with Colin. And I’m not going to let him do it to me again.”

I can hear her tapping something–a finger? a pencil?–against the edge of the phone. “No interviews, with either you or Faith,” she says at last, starting to hammer out a list of conditions.

“Fifteen minutes of film footage, tops,

and only in rooms that have been contractually agreed upon beforehand. And you don’t sign a goddamned thing until I see it.”

“All right.”

“You know this means I’m going to have to watch that damn show.”

“I’m sorry.”

Joan sighs wearily. “Yeah,” she says.

“So am I.”

Lacey Rodriguez believes in starting at the beginning. And as far as she can see, the furor surrounding Faith White blossomed after the incident with her grandmother’s resurrection. She takes a small notebook from her tote bag and smiles at Dr. Peter Weaver, the cardiologist in charge of Millie Epstein’s case.

For an attractive man, he’s a pill.

He flattens his hands on the surface of his desk and glares at Lacey. “I understand that you’re only doing your job, Ms. Rodriguez.

Which is why you must see that I can’t divulge any information about my patient.”

She turns up the wattage on her smile.

“And I wouldn’t ask you to. In fact, the attorney with whom I’m working is more interested in your knowledge of Faith and Mariah White.”

Dr. Weaver blinks. “I don’t know them at all. Except, of course, for the rumors that we’ve all heard about the child. But medically, I can’t substantiate any claims of healing. For me the issue was not how Mrs. Epstein was resuscitated, but simply that she was.”

“I see,” Lacey says, pretending to record every single word on a page of her notebook, when in fact the man’s said nothing at all of value.

“The only times I’ve even come in contact with Mrs. White were at her mother’s bedside and subsequent checkups.”

“Did she seem … fragile to you at the time? Emotional?”

“As much as anyone would have been, given the circumstances. I’d have to say that, overall, my impression of her was one of concern and protectiveness for her mother.” He shakes his head, his thoughts spooling backward. “And her daughter.”

“Could you give me an example?”

“Well,” Dr. Weaver says, “there was a moment during Mrs. Epstein’s stress test, when the cameraman must have gotten the little girl in his range and–“

“Pardon me–you filmed the stress test?”

“No, not me. Ian Fletcher. That television guy. Mrs. Epstein and the hospital had signed waivers to allow it. I’m sure it’s already been aired. But the point was, Mrs.

White clearly didn’t want her daughter filmed, and did everything in her power to stop it.

Went after the cameraman, even, screaming and pushing at him. The very picture of a fierce maternal instinct rearing its head.” He smiles apologetically. “So, you see, I don’t really have much to say that is going to help your case.”

Lacey smiles back at him. Don’t be so sure, she thinks.

November 2, 1999 Kenzie van der Hoven comes from a long line of legal-minded men.

Her great-grandfather had started van der Hoven and Weiss, one of the first law firms in Boston.

Her father, her mother, and her five older brothers were all currently partners there. When she was born,

the last of the lot, her parents were so sure she was another boy that they simply gave her the name they’d already picked out.

She grew up as Kenneth, confusing the hell out of schoolteachers and doing everything she could to shorten her name to a diminutive, although her parents never bowed to her wishes. Following in the deep treads of everyone else in her family, she went to Harvard Law and passed the bar and litigated exactly five trials before deciding that she was tired of being what other people wanted her to be. She legally changed her name to Kenzie, and she turned in her shingle to become a guardian ad litem, a court-appointed child’s advocate during custody cases.

She’s worked for Judge Rothbottam before, and considers him a fair man–if a little partial to Broadway musicals that have starred Shirley Jones. So when he called her yesterday with the White case, she accepted on the spot.

“I should warn you,” the judge said. “This one’s going to be a doozy.”

Now, as Kenzie walks wide-eyed around the White property, she understands what he meant.

At the time she had not connected the name with the religious revival occurring in New Canaan –most of the papers she read referred to Faith simply as “the child,” in some semblance of protecting a minor’s privacy. But this–well,

this is indescribable. There are small knots of people camped out under pup tents, heating lunch over Sternos. Dotting the crowd are the ill in their wheelchairs, some spiraled with MS, some trailing intravenous lines, some with their eyes wide and vacant. Black-habited nuns patter across the fallen leaves like a flock of penguins, praying or offering service to the sick.

And then there are the reporters, a breed apart with squat vans and cameramen, their chic suits as unlikely as blossoms against the frozen November ground.

Where on earth is she supposed to start?

She begins shoving through the crush of bodies,

determined to get to the front door so that she can see Mariah White. After five minutes of tripping over sleeping bags and extension cords,

she finally quits. Somewhere around here there must be a policeman; she saw the marked car at the edge of the property. It would not be the first time she’s had her guardian-ad-litem status enforced by an officer of the law, but crowd control has never before been the reason.

Turning to a woman beside her, Kenzie laughs breathlessly. “This is something, isn’t it? You must have been here a pretty long time to get such a plum spot. Are you waiting for Faith?”

The woman’s thin lips stretch back. “No Eng-lish,” she says. “Sprechen Sie Deutsch?”

Great, Kenzie thinks, hundreds of people and I pick the one who doesn’t understand me. She closes her eyes for a moment, remembering the judge’s schedule. The custody hearing will be in five weeks. In that time, she has to interview everyone who’s had contact with Faith since August and possibly earlier, she has to get to the bottom of the grandmother’s resurrection, and she has to win Faith over and convince her that she is an ally.

Basically, she needs a miracle.

As I am sticking Faith’s shoes in the closet, I realize someone is taking photographs through the sidelight of the front door. “Excuse me,” I say,

yanking it open. “Do you mind?”

The man lifts his Leica and takes a picture of me. “Thanks,” he says, and scurries away.

“God,” I mutter to myself, standing in the open doorway. My mother’s car inches along the driveway, finally parking halfway down when people begin milling too close for her to continue safely. She’s gone home to pack a valise and return, deciding to move in for a while. It’s easier than trying to shake off the reporters who trail her on the short drive to her home. The man with the Leica is right in her face, too, when she leaves the car. Groupies chant Faith’s name. For some reason, today they are all much closer to my house than they ought to be.

My mother stumbles up the porch steps with her suitcase and turns around. “Go,” she says,

waving her hands at the masses. “Shoo!” She stalks past me, shuts and bolts the door.

“What is with these people? Haven’t they got something better to do?”

I peek out the sidelight. “How come they’re all the way up to the porch?”

“Accident in town. I passed it coming in. A lumber truck jackknifed on the highway exit ramp, so there’s no policeman at the end of the driveway.”

“Great,” I murmur. “I guess I ought to be thankful they’re not rushing the door.”

My mother snorts. “It’s early yet.”

Prophetically, the doorbell rings. Standing on the threshold, with more chutzpah than I’ve imagined possible, is Petra Saganoff. She has a cameraman behind her. Before I can shut the door in her face, she manages to wedge a red pump inside. “Mrs. White,” she says, the cameraman recording her words, “do you have any response to your ex-husband’s claims that Faith is in danger living here with you?”

I think about Ian’s idea to invite this bitch into my home, about my own reluctant agreement,

and I almost choke. This is not the time to grant her access–it must be on my terms, Joan’s made that clear. I turn to my mother, whom I can always count on to put someone in their place, but she has disappeared. “You’re on private property.”

“Mrs. White,” Saganoff repeats, but before she can finish, my mother returns, carrying the antique Revolutionary War rifle that hangs over the living-room fireplace.

“Mariah,” she says, carelessly waving the muzzle at Petra Saganoff, “who’s here?”

I have the satisfaction of watching the cameraman blanch and Saganoff step back. “Oh,” my mother says sourly. “It’s her. What were you telling Ms. Saganoff about private property?”

I close the door and lock it again. “God,

Ma,” I moan. “What on earth did you do that for? She’ll probably take her videotape to the judge and tell him Faith’s crazy mother waved a gun in her face.”

“Faith’s crazy mother didn’t do it, her crazy grandmother did. And if she takes it to the judge, I bet he’ll ask why she’s violating a police-enforced restraining order.”

She pats my shoulder. “I just wanted to give the big-city girl a little scare.”

I grimace. “It’s a black-powder rifle that hasn’t worked in a couple hundred years.”

“Yes, but she didn’t know that.”

The doorbell rings again. My mother looks at me. “Don’t answer it.”

But whoever is there is insistent; the bell rings over and over. “Mom!” Faith yells, running into the foyer. “Someone’s doing that thing to the doorbell that you told me not to do–“

“Christ!” I tell my mother to call the police station and demand an officer at the end of the driveway. I tell Faith to play in her room, where she cannot be seen. Then I throw open the door with so much force it slams into the wall.

The woman is dressed in a conservative suit and is carrying a pad and a microcassette recorder. I have no idea what newspaper or magazine she’s from, but I’ve seen enough like her to recognize the breed. “You people have absolutely no respect. How would you like it if I showed up at your house uninvited when you … when you were in the middle of taking a bath? Or celebrating your child’s birthday? Or– God, why am I even speaking to you?” I slam the door.

The bell rings again.

I count to ten. I take three deep breaths.

Then I open the door just a crack. “In sixty seconds,” I bluff, “a cop is going to be here to haul you off to jail for trespassing.”

“I don’t think so,” she says coolly, shifting her recorder and notepad so that she can extend a hand. “I’m Kenzie van der Hoven. The court-appointed guardian ad litem.”

I close my eyes, hoping that when I open them this will not have happened, that Kenzie van der Hoven will not still be standing just outside my front door bristling with all the insults I’ve just hurled at her. “I’d like to speak to you, Mrs.

White.”

I smile weakly. “Why don’t you call me Mariah?” I suggest and, as graciously as I can, let her into the house.

“Faith’s in here,” I say, directing the guardian ad litem toward the living room, where my daughter is watching TV, a reward for having finished the math worksheets I made up for her. My mother sits beside her on the couch, idly smoothing Faith’s hair. “Faith,” I say brightly, “this is Ms. van der Hoven. She’s going to spend some time with us.” My mother’s eyes meet mine. “Ms. van der Hoven, this is my mother, Millie Epstein.”

“Nice to meet you. Please call me Kenzie.”

“And this,” I add, “is Faith.”

Kenzie van der Hoven rises leagues in my estimation as she squats down beside Faith and stares at the television. “I love Arthur.

D.w.’s my absolute favorite.”

Faith cautiously edges her bandaged hands beneath her thighs. “I like D.w., too.”

“Did you ever see the one where she goes to the beach?”

“Yeah,” Faith says, suddenly animated.

“And she thinks there’s a shark in the water!”

They both laugh, and then Kenzie stands again.

“It’s nice to meet you, Faith. Maybe you and I could talk a little bit later.”

“Maybe,” Faith says.

I lead Kenzie into the kitchen, where she declines a cup of coffee. “Faith doesn’t usually watch TV. Two hours a day, that’s it. Disney Channel or PBS.”

“Mariah, I want to make something perfectly clear. I’m not the enemy. I’m just here to make sure Faith winds up in the best possible place.”

“I know. And I’m not usually … the way I was when I opened the door. It’s just that there’s supposed to be a policeman around to keep everyone away, and–“

“You were being careful. I can certainly understand that.” She looks at me for a moment, holds up her tape recorder. “Do you mind? I have to write up a report, and it helps to replay the conversations I have with people.”

“Go right ahead.” I slip into the seat across from hers at the kitchen table.

“What do you think the judge should know?”

For a moment I’m silent, remembering years ago when there was so much I had to say and no one willing to hear me out. “Will he listen?”

Kenzie seems a little startled by this. “I’d like to think so, Mariah. I’ve known Judge Rothbottam for a while, and he’s been very fair.”

I pick at a cuticle on my hand. “It’s just that I haven’t been very lucky in the court system before,” I say carefully. “It’s hard for me to tell you this, because you’re in the court system,

and it’s probably going to sound like sour grapes.

But it feels the same: Colin’s word against mine.

Colin’s quick; he’s better at thinking on his feet. Seven years ago he managed to convince everyone he knew what was best for me. Now he says he knows what’s best for Faith.”

“But you think that you do?”

“No,” I correct. “Faith does.”

Kenzie makes a note on her pad. “So you let Faith make her own decisions?”

Immediately I can tell that I’ve said the wrong thing. “Well, no. She’s seven. She’s not getting MandMore’s for breakfast, no matter what she says, and she can’t wear a tutu to school when it’s snowing out. She isn’t old enough to know everything,

but she’s old enough to have a gut feeling.” I look down at my lap. “I’m worried that Colin is so sure he knows Faith better than she knows herself, he’ll convince her he’s right before anyone can stop him.”

“That’s why I’m here,” Kenzie says crisply.

“Oh–I didn’t mean to tell you how to do your job …”

“Relax, Mariah. Everything you say isn’t going to be used against you.”

I lower my gaze and nod. But I don’t quite believe her either.

“What do you want to happen?”

After all these years, someone is finally asking.

And after all these years, the answer is still the same. What I want is a second chance. But this time, I want it with Faith.

Out of the blue comes the memory of something Rabbi Weissman said the day I took Faith to see him: You can be an agnostic Jew, a nonpracticing Jew … but you’re still a Jew.

Just as you can be an unsure parent, a self-absorbed parent … but you are still a parent.

I stare at Kenzie van der Hoven. I could make myself out to be the Mother of the Year. I could tell her what I know she wants to hear. Or I could tell her the truth.

“I tried to kill myself seven years ago, after I found my husband in bed with another woman.

All I could think was that I wasn’t a good enough wife, I wasn’t a beautiful enough woman, I just … wasn’t. Colin had me committed to Greenhaven by telling a judge it was the only way to keep me from trying to kill myself again.

“But, see, he didn’t know I was pregnant when he had me sent away. He took away four months of my life, and my home, and my confidence, but I still had Faith.” I take a deep breath. “I’m not suicidal anymore.

I’m not Colin’s wife. And I’m certainly not the woman who was so under his spell that I let him lock me up in an institution. What I am is Faith’s mother. It’s what I’ve been for seven years. But you can’t be a mother, can you, if your child is taken away?”

Kenzie has not written down a single word that I’ve said, and I do not know if this is good or bad. She closes her notebook, her face revealing nothing. “Thank you, Mariah. I wonder if now would be a good time to speak to Faith.”

As the guardian ad litem walks into the living room, my mother comes to join me in the kitchen. I try not to watch them through the doorway, even when Kenzie sits down on the couch beside Faith and says something that makes her laugh. “So?”

“S.” I shrug. “What do I know?”

“Well, what you said to the woman, for example. You must have formed some impression of what she thinks of you.”

I have, of course, but I am not going to tell my mother. Even if I hadn’t told the guardian ad litem about Greenhaven, it would have come out at the hearing. By then, though, maybe the woman would have found something to admire about me,

something to balance the fact that I was sent to an institution. The truth doesn’t always set you free; people prefer to believe prettier, neatly wrapped lies. Kenzie van der Hoven might feel pity for me, but that’s not going to make her let me keep Faith.

“I’m going to lose her, Ma,” I say,

burying my face in my hands. I feel her touch my back. And then I am in her arms, where I have always fit, listening to that incredible heart of hers beat beneath my cheek. Suddenly I can feel her strength, as if resilience were something one can gift to another. “Says who?” my mother murmurs, and kisses the crown of my head.

Kenzie has only one firm rule as a guardian ad litem: Do not expect anything.

That way, she cannot be disappointed. It is a rare child who warms during the first meeting; she has had numerous cases where days go by before her charge even mutters hello. Until a child has seen and poked at Kenzie’s good intentions, he rarely believes she is a friend.

Then again, a child who can believe God is paying her a visit ought to be able to accept that Kenzie’s on the up-and-up.

Kenzie is practical enough to realize that chances are rather slim Faith is the mystic others think she is. Children Faith’s age love dinosaurs and whales because they’re so big and powerful, when seven-year-olds are not. Playing God has the same psychological roots.

Faith sits beside her like a lamb that’s been led to the slaughter, her head bowed and her hands carefully hidden in the shadow of her lap.

Clearly the child has been dragged out before to be observed, questioned, or studied. “Faith, do you know why I’m here?”

“Uh-huh. Don’t you?”

Kenzie grins. “Actually, yes. Someone explained it to me.”

With resignation, Faith faces her. “I guess you want to ask me some questions.”

“You know … I bet you’ve got some things you’d rather ask me.”

Faith’s eyes widen. “For real?”

Kenzie nods. “Well, am I going to keep living here?”

“Do you want to?”

“You said I could ask the questions.”

“You’re right, I’m sorry. I don’t know the answer, Faith. It’s going to depend on a lot of things, including what you want to happen.”

“I don’t want to hurt my mother,” Faith whispers, so softly that Kenzie has to lean closer. “And I don’t want to hurt my father.”

She turns away. “I want …”

Kenzie takes a deep breath, waiting. But instead of speaking, Faith curls her hands into fists and tucks them beneath her armpits. Kenzie stares at her fine-boned wrists, wondering if the girl’s hands hurt, if she ought to call Mariah, if she just ought to come back another time.

Kenzie knows nothing about stigmata–alleged or real. But the one thing she understands inside out is what it feels like to be a little girl who doesn’t fit in.

“You know,” Kenzie says casually, “I don’t want to talk anymore.”

Faith pops to her feet. “Does that mean I can go?”

“I guess so. Unless you’d like to come outside.”

“Out … side?” Faith’s voice breaks with delight.

“It’s beautiful out. Just cold enough that your throat tickles when you breathe in deep.” She cocks her head. “I’ll tell your mom where we’re going. What do you say?”

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.