Keeping Faith: A Novel Read Online Free Page A

would stand on tiptoe to see the whole of my face. I never quite measured up.
In the middle of the night I feel the blankets rustle. A drift of air, a soft solidness pressed against me. Rolling over, I wrap my arms around Faith.
“This is what it would be like,” I whisper to myself,
and I let my throat swell up before I can even finish my thought. Her arms come around me like a vine. Her hair, tucked beneath my chin, smells of childhood.
My mother used to tell me that when push comes to shove, you always know who to turn to. That being a family isn’t a social construct, but an instinct.
The flannel of our nightgowns hooks and catches. I rub Faith’s back in silence,
afraid to say anything that might ruin this good fortune, and I wait for her breathing to level before I let myself fall asleep. This one thing, this I can do.
The town where we live, New Canaan, is large enough to have its own mountain, small enough to hold rumors in the nooks and crannies of the weathered clapboard storefronts. It is a town of farms and open land, of simple people rubbing shoulders with professionals from Hanover and New London who want their money to go a little bit further in real estate. We have a gas station, an old playground, and a bluegrass band. We also have one attorney, J. Evers Standish, whose shingle I’ve passed a million times driving up and down Route 4.
Six days after Colin has left, I answer the front door to find a sheriff’s deputy on the porch, asking me if I am indeed Mrs.
Mariah White. My first thought is for Colin–
has he been in a car accident? The sheriff reaches into his pocket and pulls out an envelope. “I’m sorry, ma’am,” he says, and he is gone before I can ask him what he’s brought me.
The first concrete act of divorce is called a libel. It’s a little piece of paper that,
held in your hand, has the power to change your whole life. I will not know until months later that New Hampshire is the only state that still calls it a libel, instead of a complaint or a petition, as if part of the process, however amicable, involves a slight to one’s character.
Attached to the note is the piece of paper that says a divorce is being served against me.
Thirty minutes later I am sitting in the waiting room of J. Evers Standish’s office,
Faith curled in the corner with a battered Brio train set. I would not have brought her, but my mother has been gone all morning–off, she said, to get us both a surprise. A door behind the receptionist opens, and a tall, polished brunette walks out, hand extended. “I’m Joan Standish.”
My jaw drops open. “You are?” For years,
in passing the building, I’ve pictured J.
Evers Standish as an older man with muttonchops.
The attorney laughs. “The last time I checked, I was.” She glances at Faith,
absorbed in creating a tunnel for the train.
“Nan,” she asks her receptionist, “could you keep an eye on Mrs. White’s daughter?”
And as if I am pulled by a thread, I follow the lawyer into her office.
The funny thing is, I’m not upset. Not nearly as upset as I was the afternoon Colin left.
Something about this libel seems completely over the top, like a joke with the punch line forthcoming.
Something Colin and I will laugh about when the lights are out and we’re holding each other a few months from now.
Joan Standish explains the libel to me. She asks me if I want to see a therapist or hear about referral programs. She asks what happened. She talks about divorce decrees and financial affidavits and custody, while I let the room whirl around me. It seems impossible that a wedding can take a year to plan but a divorce is final in six weeks–as if all the time in between, the feelings have been dwindling to the point where they can be scattered with one angry breath.
“Do you think Colin will want joint custody of your daughter?”
I stare at the attorney. “I don’t know.”
I cannot imagine Colin living without Faith. But then again I cannot imagine