Keeping Faith: A Novel Read Free Page B

dollhouse.
With the flick of a fingertip I shut the front door of the dollhouse. I brush my thumb along the stamp-sized windows, sliding them down. I secure the shutters with their infinitesimal latches; I shelter the begonias beneath the Lilliputian porch swing. I close up the house tightly, as if it might need to stand through a storm.
Colin phones four days after leaving. “This wasn’t the way it was supposed to happen.”
Presumably, by this he means that Faith and I weren’t supposed to interrupt. Presumably,
we had forced his hand. But of course I do not say so.
“It’s not going to work with us, Mariah. You know that.”
I hang up the phone while he is still talking, and pull the covers over my head.
Five days after Colin has left, Faith is still not speaking. She moves around the house like a silent cat, playing with toys and picking out videos and all the time watching me suspiciously.
My mother is the one who manages to plumb through the muteness to figure out that Faith wants oatmeal for breakfast, or that she can’t reach the Playmobil village on the top shelf, or that she needs a drink of water before going to bed. I wonder if they have a secret language. I don’t understand her; she refuses to communicate,
and all in all it reminds me of Colin.
“You have to do something,” my mother repeats. “She’s your daughter.”
Biologically, yes. But Faith and I have little in common. In fact, she might as well have skipped a generation and come straight from her grandmother,
so close are those two. They have the same grounding in whimsy, the same rubber resilience, which is why it is so strange to see Faith moping around.
“What am I supposed to do?”
My mother shakes her head. “Play a game with her. Go for a walk. At the very least, you could tell her you love her.”
I turn to my mother, wishing it were that simple.
I’ve loved Faith since she was born, but not the way you’d think. She was a relief. After first wanting to miscarry and then months on Prozac,
I’d been certain she’d appear with three eyes or a harelip. But the easy, normal birth gave way to the reality of a baby I could not make happy, as if my punishment for thinking the worst of her were to be disconnected before we ever had a chance to bond. Faith was colicky; she kept me up all night and nursed with such a vengeance my belly cramped at each feeding.
Sleep-deprived and unsettled, I would lay her on the bed at times, stare at her wise, round face and think, What on earth do I do with you?
I figured that motherhood would be something that descended naturally, the same way my milk came in–a little painful, a little awe-inspiring,
but part of me now for better or for worse. I waited patiently. So what if I didn’t know how to use a rectal thermometer on my child? So what if I tried to swaddle her and the blanket never tucked tight? Any day now, I told myself, I am going to wake up and know what I am doing.
It was sometime after Faith’s third birthday that I stopped hoping. For whatever reason, being a mother will never come easily to me. I watch women with multiple children effortlessly settle everyone in place in their vans, while I have to check Faith’s safety belt three times, just to make sure it’s really snapped tight. I hear mothers lean down to speak to their children, and I try to memorize the things they say.
The thought of trying to get to the bottom of Faith’s stubborn silence makes my stomach flip. What if I can’t do it? What kind of mother does that make me? “I’m not ready,” I hedge.
“For God’s sake, Mariah, get over yourself. Get dressed, brush your hair, act like a normal woman, and before you know it, you won’t be acting anymore.” My mother shakes her head.
“Colin told you you were a shrinking violet for ten years, and you were stupid enough to believe him. What does he know from nervous breakdowns?”
She sets a cup of coffee in front of me;
I know that she considers it a triumph to have