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

of the people he passes nod as he makes his way to the recreation center, equipped with oak tables and televisions and chintz couches. Ian heads for a table in the far corner occupied by a man. Although it is warm in the room, Michael wears a crewneck sweater with a button-down oxford shirt. His hands flutter over a pack of cards,
which he turns over one at a time. “Queen of diamonds,” he murmurs. “Six of spades.”
Ian slips into the chair beside him. “Hey there,” he says softly.
“King of hearts. Two of spades. Seven of hearts.”
“How have you been, Michael?” Ian scoots closer.
The man’s shoulders rock from side to side.
“Six of clubs!” he says firmly.
Ian sighs, nods. “Six of clubs,
buddy.” He moves back a distance. He watches the cards flip in succession: red,
black, red, black. Michael turns over an ace. “Oh, no,” he says. “Ace–“
“In the hole,” Ian finishes.
For the first time, Michael makes fleeting eye contact with Ian. “Ace in the hole,” he echoes, then goes back to counting cards.
Ian sits quietly until exactly one hour has passed since his arrival–not because Michael has acknowledged his presence but because he knows that Michael would notice an absence even a few minutes shy of the routine. “See you in a week, buddy,” Ian murmurs.
“Queen of clubs. Eight of hearts.”
“All right, then,” Ian says,
swallowing hard. He walks out of the building and begins the journey back to Maine.
Something Faith has recently discovered is that if you squinch up your eyes really tight and rub them hard with the balls of your thumbs, you see things:
little stars and greeny-blue circles that she imagines are her irises, as if there’s some kind of mirror on the insides of her eyelids that makes this vision possible. She pulls at the edges of her lids and sees a flurry of red, the color she thinks that anger must be. She has been doing it a lot, although yesterday, when school started, it didn’t work that well. Willie Mercer said that only babies would carry a Little Mermaid lunchbox, and when she whispered to her guard, trying to ignore him, Willie laughed and said she was Looney Tunes. So she closed her eyes to shut him out, and one thing led to another, and before she knew it the school nurse was calling home to say that Faith wouldn’t stop rubbing her eyes; it must be conjunctivitis.
“Do your eyes hurt, Faith?” Dr.
Keller asks now.
“No, everyone just thinks they do.”
“Yes. Your mom told me about school yesterday.”
Faith blinks, squinting into the fluorescent lamps. “I wasn’t sick.”
“No.”
“I just like doing it. I see things.” She tips up her chin. “Try it,” she challenges.
To her surprise, Dr. Keller actually takes off her glasses and rubs her eyes the way Faith has been doing. “I can see something white. It looks like the moon.”
“It’s the inside of your eye.”
“Is it?” Dr. Keller puts her glasses back on. “Do you know this for sure?”
“Well, no,” Faith admits. “But don’t you think maybe your eyes are still looking around even when the lids are down?”
“I don’t see why not. Do you see your friend when your eyes are closed like that?”
Faith doesn’t like talking about her guard. But then again, Dr. Keller took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes, something Faith never imagined she would do. “Sometimes,” Faith says in the tiniest voice she can manage.
Dr. Keller looks at her carefully, which hardly anyone else ever bothers to do. Usually when Faith talks, her mother just says “Uh-huh” and “Really?” but she’s actually thinking of a gazillion other things while Faith is trying to tell her something. And Mrs.
Grenaldi, her teacher, doesn’t look anyone in the eye. She stares just over the top of the kids’
heads, as if they all have bugs crawling through the parts of their hair.
“Have you had your friend a long time?”
“Which friend?” Faith asks, although she knows she can’t fool Dr. Keller.
The