Jodi Picoult - Keeping Faith: A Novel

Keeping Faith

August 10, 1999 Under normal circumstances, 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 furnishings. 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 Colins shirts, go to the bank, and do the food shopping. It leaves just enough time to drive home, unload the groceries, and get to Faiths one oclock ballet class. But today, due to circumstances beyond my control, I have entirely too much time on my hands.

Well, my mother says, in that way of hers.

It seems youre 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 oclock, 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.

Well 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. Hello?

Oh, youre home, Colin says. At the sound of my husbands voice, my heart jumps.

Colin is the sales manager for a small company that manufactures LED exit signs, and hes been in Washington, 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 embarrassed to say in a public venue:

I love you. I miss you. Youre mine. In the background a disembodied voice announces the arrival of a United flight. Hasnt Faith got swimming today?

Ballet at one oclock. 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. Thats Colin, in a nutshell: already rushing to come back home to me.

It stops raining on the way to my mothers. As we pass the long soccer field that edges the town,

vehicles begin pulling onto the roads narrow shoulder. A perfect, arched rainbow graces the lush grass of the playing field. I keep driving. Youd think theyd 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 mothers 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 hasnt coated the Naugahyde with a protective plastic wrap,

the way my grandmother Fanny 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, Id 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 shirts, 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?

Its not a casket, Mariah. See the glass on the top? Its a coffin table.

A coffin table.

My mother sets her coffee mug on the clear plate of glass 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 glass 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, theres no reason to believe you wont outlive us all.

She shrugs. This is one less thing for you to do,

when the time comes.

Oh, for Gods sake. Is this about the new assisted-living community Colin mentioned? Because I swear, he only thought youd

Sweetie, calm down. I dont 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.

Youve got to admit, the craftsmanship 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 dont 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 brass pallbearers handles. Their blond headsMoms dyed, my daughters fairy-whiteare bent so close I cant 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 weve stayed marriedin spite of some fairly intense bumps in the road.

But theres a chemistry involved, too. When Colin is looking at me, I know hes 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 students. He remembers me at my best, because as he says every now and thenIm the best thing he can remember.