"Was there a clinical explanation for this?"
"Objection," Metz says. "When did she get her medical degree?"
"Overruled."
"The doctors said sometimes the presence of a family member acts as a catalyst for comatose patients," I answer. "But they also said they've only seen as dramatic a recovery as this once before."
"When was that?"
"When my mother came back to life."
Joan smiles. "Must run in the family. Did anyone else witness this remarkable recovery?"
"Yes. There were two doctors, six nurses. Also my mother and the guardian ad litem."
"All of whom are on my witness list, Your Honor, should Mr. Metz feel the need to speak with them." But Joan has explained to me why he won't. It won't do his case any good to have eight people announce that a miracle happened.
"Mariah, there have been some things said about you in this courtroom, some things the judge might want to hear your explanation for as well. Let's start with your hospitalization seven years ago. Can you tell us about that?"
Joan has coached me. We rehearsed these questions until the sun came up. I know what I am supposed to say, what she is trying to get across to the judge. In short, I am prepared for everything that is about to happen--except how I feel, telling my story in front of these people.
"I was very much in love with my husband," I start, just as we've practiced. "And I caught him in bed with another woman. It broke my heart, but Colin decided that it was my head that needed fixing."
I turn in the seat, so that I am looking at him. "It was clear that Colin didn't want me. I became very depressed, and I believed that I couldn't live without him. That I didn't want to." I draw a deep breath. "When you're depressed, you don't pay a lot of attention to the world around you. You don't want to see anyone. There are things you want to say--real things, honest things--but they're buried so deep inside it's an effort to drag them to the surface." My face softens. "I don't think Colin was a tyrant for having me committed. He was probably terrified. But I just wish he'd talked to me first. Maybe I still wouldn't have been able to tell him what I wanted, but it would have been nice to know he was trying to listen.
"Then all of a sudden I was at Greenhaven, and I was pregnant. I hadn't told Colin yet, and it became my secret." I look at the judge. "You probably don't know what it's like to be in a place where you belong to everybody else. People tell you what to eat and drink, when to get up and go to bed, they poke at you with needles and sit you in therapy sessions. They owned my body and my mind--but, for a little while, I owned this baby. Of course, eventually the pregnancy showed up on the blood tests, and the doctors told me that I still had to go on medication. They said a baby wouldn't be much good if I killed myself before giving birth. So I let them pump me full of drugs, until I didn't care about the risk to the baby. Until I didn't care about anything at all.
"After I left Greenhaven, I began to panic about what I'd done to this baby just by trying to save myself. I made this little deal: It was all right if I wasn't a perfect wife, just as long as I became a perfect mother."
Joan catches my gaze. "Have you been a perfect mother?"
I know what I am supposed to say: Yes, the best that I could be. It made us laugh, because it sounded like an old Army slogan, but neither Joan nor I could come up with a better response. However, now that I am here, I find that the words will not come. I reach down, and the only thing that leaps to hand is the truth.
"No," I whisper.
"What?"
I try to look away from Joan's angry expression. "I said no. After I had Faith, I used to go to playgrounds to watch other mothers. They could juggle the bottles and the stroller and the baby without breaking a sweat. But me, I'd forget her lunch when she went to school. Or I'd throw away a piece of paper with scribbles on it that was supposed to be a Valentine. Things every mother's probably done, but that still made me feel like I'd screwed up."
Joan interrupts me with a quiet question. "Why is it so important to you to be perfect?"
They say that there are moments that open up your life like a walnut cracked, that change your point of view so that you never look at things the same way again. As the answer forms in my mouth, I realize that this is something I've always known, but never before understood. "Because I know what it's like not to be good enough," I say softly. "That's why I lost Colin, and I don't ever want to go through it again." I twist my fingers together in my lap. "You see, if I'm the very best mother, Faith won't wish she had someone else instead."
Sensing that this is a place I need to get away from, and fast, Joan throws me a lifeline. "Can you tell us what happened on the afternoon of August tenth?"
"I was at my mother's home with Faith," I recite, grateful to be bogged down in the details. "She was going to ballet practice, but realized she'd forgotten her leotard. So we detoured home and found Colin's car in the driveway. He'd been on a business trip, so we went in to say hello. Faith ran upstairs first, and found Colin in the bedroom, getting ready to take a shower. I came in to tell Faith to get her leotard quickly, and then the bathroom door opened and...Jessica stepped out in a towel."
"What did Colin say?"
"He ran after Faith. Later he told me he'd been seeing Jessica for a few months."
"Then what happened?"
"He left. I called my mother. I was miserable, I was sinking fast, but this time I wasn't alone. I knew she'd take care of Faith for me, while I tried to get sorted out."
"So although you were upset, you were functioning well enough to provide for Faith?"
"Yes." I smile fleetingly.
"What else did you do after Colin left?"
"Well, I talked to Dr. Johansen. About getting a refill of Prozac."
"I see," Joan says. "Has your medication continued to keep you in control of your emotions?"
"Yes, absolutely. It certainly helped me cope."
"How did Faith cope with this whole upheaval?"
"She was very distant. She wouldn't talk. And then all of a sudden she developed an imaginary friend. I started to take her to Dr. Keller."
"Did the imaginary friend concern you?"
"Yes. It wasn't just some playmate. Faith was suddenly saying things that made no sense. She was quoting Bible verses. She referred to a secret from my childhood that I've never spoken about. And then--crazy as it sounds--she brought her grandmother back to life."
At the plaintiff's table, Malcolm Metz coughs.
"And then?"
"A few local newspaper articles appeared," I say. "Ian Fletcher showed up, along with a cult, and about ten network-affiliate TV reporters. After Faith healed an AIDS baby, more press arrived, and more people who wanted to touch Faith, or pray with her."
"How did you feel about this?"
"Awful," I say immediately. "Faith's seven. She couldn't go out to play without being harassed. She was being teased at school, so I pulled her out and began doing lessons at home."
"Mariah, did you in any way encourage Faith to have hallucinations about God?"
"Me? Colin and I were a mixed-faith marriage. I don't even own a Bible. I couldn't have planted this idea in her mind; I don't know half the things she's come out with."
"Did you ever harm your daughter in a way that would cause her to bleed from her hands and her side?"
"No. I never would."
"What do you think would happen to Faith if she went to live with Colin?"
"Well," I say slowly, "he loves her. He hasn't always had her interests at heart, but he loves her. It isn't Colin I'm worried about...it's Faith. She'd have to deal with a new sibling, and a mother that isn't really hers, and right now I don't think it's fair to ask her to change her world again." Glancing at Colin, I frown. "Faith's performing miracles. Taking her away from me won't change that. And it won't change the fact that wherever she goes, people are going to follow her, or want a piece of her."
I can feel my daughter's eyes on me, like the sun that touches the
crown of your head when you step outside. "I can't tell you why Faith's like this," I say softly. "But she is. And I can't tell you why I deserve to have her. But I do."
Metz likes to call it his "snake in the jungle" approach. With a witness like Mariah White, he has two choices: He can go in there and batter away, preying on her confusion, or he can appear nice and question gently and then, when she least expects it, strike her fatally. The most important thing is to make Mariah doubt herself. By her own admission, it's her Achilles' Heel. "You must be tired of talking about this depression from seven years ago."
Mariah gives him a small, polite smile. "I guess."
"Was that the first time in your life that you were so ill?"
"Yes."
His voice is rich with pity. "You've had recurrent depression many times since then, haven't you?"
"No."
"But you have been on medication," Metz chides, as if she's given the wrong answer.
She looks puzzled for a moment, and inside, he smiles. "Well, yes. But that's what's kept me from getting depressed again."
"What medication are you on?"
"Prozac."
"Was that specifically prescribed to alleviate the wild mood swings?"
"I don't have wild mood swings. I suffer from depression."
"Do you remember the night you tried to kill yourself, Mrs. White?"
"Not really. I was told at Greenhaven that I'd probably block it out of my mind."
"Are you depressed right now?"
"No."
"If you weren't taking medication, you'd probably be very depressed."
"I don't know," Mariah hedges.
"You know, I've read about these cases where people on Prozac have flipped out. Gone crazy, tried to kill themselves. Don't you worry it might happen to you?"
"No," Mariah says, looking toward Joan a little nervously.
"Do you have any recollection of going crazy while on Prozac?"
"No."
"How about harming someone while on Prozac?"
"No."
"How about just having some violent reactions?"
"No."
Metz raises his brows. "No? You consider yourself an emotionally stable person, then?"
Mariah nods firmly. "Yes."
Metz walks toward the plaintiff's table and picks up a small videocasette. "I'd like to introduce the following tape into evidence."
Joan is out of her seat in an instant, approaching the bench. "You can't let him do this, Your Honor. He's springing this evidence on me. I have a right to discovery."
"Your Honor," Metz counters, "Ms. Standish was the one who opened up the line of questioning during her direct examination, with regard to how stable Mrs. White is under the influence of Prozac."
Judge Rothbottam takes the tape from Metz's hand. "I'll look at it in chambers and make my decision. Let's take a short recess."
The attorneys head back to their seats. On the witness stand, unsure of what is happening, Mariah remains frozen, until Joan realizes her predicament and quietly approaches to help her step down.
"What's on the tape, Mariah?" Joan asks as soon as we are sitting at the defense table.
"I don't know. Honestly." Although it is cold in the courtroom by anyone's standards, sweat trickles between my breasts and down my back.
The judge enters from a side door, settles into his chair, and asks me to return to the witness stand. From the corner of my eye I see a bailiff wheeling in a TV/VCR combination. "Shit," Joan mutters.
"I'm going to allow the tape to be entered into evidence," Rothbottam says. Metz goes through the legal process, then says, "Mrs. White, I'm going to play the following tape for you."
As he hits the play button, I bite my lip. The small screen fills with an image of me lunging toward the camera so that my features spread and blur. I'm shouting so loud that the words don't register, and after a moment my hand comes up, clearly aiming to strike whoever has been filming.
Then the camera swings wildly, panning in an arc of color to touch briefly upon Faith, cowered in a corner; on my mother in a hospital johnny; on Ian and his producer.
The tape from the stress test, the footage Ian said he would not use. He's lied to me again. I turn toward the gallery, my eyes scanning until I find him--sitting just as still and white-faced as I must be.
The only way this tape could have come into Metz's hands is, somehow, via Ian. And yet to look at him, one would believe that he is as surprised to see it surface in court as I am.
Before I can consider this, Metz begins to speak. "Mrs. White, do you remember this incident?"
"Yes."
"Can you tell us about the day the video was taken?"
"My mother was having a stress test done after her resuscitation. Mr. Fletcher was being allowed to film it."
"What happened?"
"He promised not to turn the camera on my daughter. When he did turn it on her, I just...reacted."
"You just...reacted. Hmm. Is that something you do often?"
"I was trying to protect Faith and--"
"A simple yes or no will do, Mrs. White.
"No." I swallow hard. "If anything, I usually think things through to death before I act on them."
Metz crosses the courtroom. "Would you say this tape shows you being 'an emotionally stable person'?"
I hesitate, choosing my words carefully. "It is not one of my finer moments, Mr. Metz. But on the whole I am emotionally stable."
"On the whole? What about during those other odd incidents of fury? Is that when you physically harm your daughter?"
"I do not harm Faith. I've never harmed Faith."
"Mrs. White, you yourself said you're an emotionally stable woman, and yet this videotape clearly disproves your claim. So you've lied to us under oath, haven't you?"
"No--"
"Come on, now, Mrs. White..."
"Objection!" Joan calls out.
"Sustained. You've made your point, Counselor."
Metz smiles at me. "You say you'd never harm your daughter physically?"
"Absolutely not."
"You'd never harm her psychologically either, right?"
"Right."
"And you're an intelligent woman. You've followed the testimony in this courtroom."
"Yes, I have."
"So if you had Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy, and I accused you of harming your daughter, what would you probably say?"
I stare at him, bile burning the back of my throat. "That I didn't do it."
"And you'd be lying--just like you lied about being emotionally stable. Just like you've lied about protecting Faith."
"I don't lie, Mr. Metz," I say, fighting for control. "I don't. And I have protected Faith. That's what you saw me doing on the video--primitively, maybe, but protecting her all the same. It's why I took her out of school when other children began to tease her. It's why I took her away, in secret, before this hearing started."
"Ah, yes. Going into hiding. Let's talk about that. You disappeared the night after your husband informed you that he'd be filing for a change of custody, correct?"
"Yes, but--"
"Then you had the misfortune of discovering that your great escape wasn't that great, after all. Ian Fletcher had managed to follow you. We've already proven Mr. Fletcher to have been less than honest up on the witness stand, and now we've seen evidence of your own falsehoods. Maybe you'd like to tell us--truthfully, for a change--what happened in Kansas City?"
What happened in Kansas City?
This, Ian knows, is the moment that Mariah will be able to exact revenge. First the McManus incident, then the video--regardless of the fact that he personally had nothing to do with the latter, it's not going to soften Mariah's heart toward him just now. Plus, the simplest way for her to regain her credibility is to offer up as proof the evidence that Faith is truly a healer. The evidence that's all tangled up in the story of Ian's own brother.
An eye for an eye. At that, Ian almost laughs.
It is downright ironic for him to be brought down by biblical justice. But just as he exploited Mariah's privacy, she now has the opportunity to uncover his own.
Ian braces his hands on the wooden seat and prepares himself for Judgment Day.
What happened in Kansas City?
Malcolm Metz is standing right in front of me. To his right, I know that Joan is desperately trying to catch my attention so I will not say anything stupid. But the only person I can see is Ian, buried in the middle of the courtroom gallery.
I think of Dr. Fitzgerald and his testimony. Of Joan walking into her office to find Ian waiting for her, ready to play paralegal. Of the look on Ian's face when Allen McManus walked up to the witness stand, when that horrible videocassette began to play.
He isn't perfect. But then again, neither am I.
I look at Ian, wondering if he can tell what I am thinking. Then I turn to Malcolm Metz. "Absolutely nothing," I say.
The bitch is lying. It's written on her face. Metz would bet his life savings that, somehow, Fletcher's arrival in Kansas City led to direct proof that all the mumbo jumbo surrounding Faith is just that, and that, consequently, the miraculous hallucinations and physical trauma are actually being caused by Mariah. Fletcher's been close-mouthed because he doesn't want to give away his big story; Mariah's keeping quiet because it only ruins her credibility. But short of accusing her of fabricating testimony again, there's very little he can do.
He takes a moment to compose himself. "You love your daughter, don't you?"
"Yes."
"You'd do anything for your daughter?"
"Yes."
"Would you give up your life for her?"
He can practically see her imagining Faith in that pitiful hospital bed. "I would."
"Would you give up custody of her?"
Mariah falters. "I don't understand."
"What I mean is this, Mrs. White: If it was proven to you by a series of experts that Colin was the better parent for Faith, would you want her to go?"
Mariah frowns, then looks at Colin. After a moment she faces the attorney again. "Yes."
"Nothing further."
Furious, Joan asks to redirect. "Mariah," she says, "first I want to address that clip of videotape. Can you tell us what happened prior to the outburst on that tape?"