Read Online Keeping Faith: A Novel by Jodi Picoult - Free Book Online Page A

don’t believe me, how can you believe them?”
“You know, half the time I don’t even understand what he’s saying, and I still think he’s terrific,” Millie announces. “Look at that priest. He’s practically purple.”
Mariah laughs. “Can we turn this off, Ma?
Or is Jerry Springer coming on next?”
“Very funny. He’s a poet, Mariah. Just you listen to him.”
“He’s using someone else’s script,”
Mariah says, as Ian Fletcher lifts up a Bible and begins to read with heavy sarcasm.
“”But the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God hath said Ye shall not eat of it;
neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.”" Faith comes into the room and slips onto the couch. “I know that poem.”
The funny thing is, the biblical verse seems familiar to Mariah, too, although she can’t understand why. It has been years since Mariah has studied a Bible, and as far as she knows,
Faith’s never even seen one. She and Colin had put off their daughter’s religious instruction indefinitely, since neither of them could consider it without feeling like a hypocrite.
“”And the serpent said to the woman …”"
Faith mutters something beneath her breath.
Assuming the worst, Mariah crosses her arms.
“What was that, young lady?”
“”Ye shall not surely die.”"
As the words leave Faith’s mouth, Ian Fletcher repeats them on TV, and then plucks an apple from the McKinneys’ tree to take a large, provocative bite. That’s when Mariah recalls where she’s heard Fletcher’s verses before–just days ago, when Faith was playing on the swing set in the middle of the night, humming them softly. Just days ago, when Faith–who has never been to church or temple in her young life,
who has never attended Sunday or Hebrew school–was singing from the Book of Genesis as if it were any other jump-rope rhyme.
The men and women who work at Pagan Productions in L.a. keep a healthy distance from Ian Fletcher, frightened by his bursts of temper, his ability to turn their own words back on themselves, and their instinct for self-preservation–
in the event Mr. Fletcher is wrong about God,
they don’t want to be cast into the lake of fire along with him on Judgment Day. They are paid well to respect their employer’s privacy and to firmly deny requests for interviews. It is for this reason that no one outside Pagan Productions knows that Ian leaves every Tuesday morning, and that no one has any idea of where he goes.
Of course, people who work for Ian hypothesize like mad: He has a standing appointment with a mistress. He attends a witches’ coven.
He calls the pope, who is, unbeknownst to his followers, a silent partner in Pagan Productions. Several times, on dares, the bravest employees have tried to follow Ian when he disappears in his black Jeep. He manages to lose all of them by winding around the Los Angeles Freeway. One swears that he tracked Ian all the way to LAX, but nobody believes him. After all, where can you fly round-trip in time to be back for a tape-editing session that same night?
On the Tuesday morning of the week that Ian kicks off his grassroots antirevival at the Jesus Tree, a black stretch limousine pulls up alongside the Winnebago. Ian is discussing with James and several associate producers the reactions his recent comments have received in the press. “I’ve got to go,” Ian says, relieved to see the car approach. He’s had to juggle time and make concessions, since this week he is leaving from Maine rather than L.a.
“You’ve got to go?” James asks. “Where?”
Ian shrugs. “Places. Sorry, I thought I mentioned I’d be cutting out early today.”
“You didn’t.”
“Well, I’ll be back tonight. We can finish up then.” He grabs his briefcase and his leather jacket and slams out the door.
Exactly two and one half hours later he crosses the threshold of a small brick building. He navigates the hallways with the confidence of someone who has been there before. Some