A Test of Faith by Karen Ball Read Free Book Online Page B

down the stairs, and out the back door, her new doll tucked under her arm like a football.
    Anne followed more slowly, shaking her head. “Mom, was I ever this much work?” She set the camera on the shelf and made her way to the kitchen. “If I was, I really wish you were still alive—” she lifted the teakettle and poured steaming water into the silver teapot—“so I could apologize.”
    She flicked the lid of the pot closed, the silvery
clang
ringing in her ears. She set the pot on the tray and added the creamer and a small silver bowl with tea bags. Lifting the tray, she carried it to the table, pausing a moment to take in the picture-perfect scene before her.
    Her mother’s Irish linen tablecloth flowed over the table in a wave of rose-embossed ivory. Delicate cloth napkins captured in rose napkin holders stood guard over the china plates and newly polished silver. A bouquet of fresh flowers sat in the middle of the table, a splash of playful color in the midst of elegance. A silver three-tiered tray held elegantly, decorated sugar cubes, tiny finger sandwiches, and an assortment of luscious cookies she’d bought from the gourmet shop. The mere sight of it all made Anne’s mouth water.
    Smiling, she set the tea tray in place, then stepped back. It was exactly how she remembered. Faith was going to have so much—
    “Yeeeooowwwll!!!”
    The piercing banshee screech sent Anne racing to the back door leading from the kitchen to the backyard. Something was clearly being tortured out there!
    She pulled the door open and found herself engulfed in utter chaos. The screeching came from the neighbor’s cat, Sweetums, an orange tabby the size of Pittsburgh. Sweetums was, without a doubt, the largest cat Anne had ever seen. “Filled out,” his owners called him. Anne called the animal fat.Sweetums usually lay like a blob in whatever spot of sunlight the owners put him in. Anne couldn’t recall ever seeing the cat walk. Her neighbors carried him outside, then came to heft and carry him back inside.
    Anne often wondered if Sweetums’s poor legs even worked anymore.
    Well, the answer was right in front of her. They not only worked, they worked well. All four of them. For they were whirling and clawing, doing their best to shred her daughter. Or they would be, if they could reach her. But Faith had the cat pinned to the ground under a fishing net, gripping the handle just out of reach of those claws, exerting just enough force to keep him from escaping.
    She wasn’t hurting the animal, of that Anne was certain. Faith adored animals, even to the point of weeping when she saw one dead at the side of the road. She’d never hurt an animal. Not physically, anyway. But the cat’s wounded pride was evident in the furious feline’s ever more ear-splitting shrieks.
    “Faith! Let that cat go!”
    Faith jumped at her mother’s bellowed command. Sweetums took advantage of the distraction, flipped out from under the suddenly slack net, and streaked across the yard as though his life depended on it.
    Anne stared after the creature, mouth agape. It was like watching Jell-O race through the grass. Amazing. Who knew that much bulk could move that fast?
    “Mommy!”
    Faith’s disconsolate wail drew Anne’s attention back to her daughter, and when she took in the sight before her—her little girl standing there, hands on her tiny hips—Anne almost swallowed her tongue. Faith was covered, head to toe, with dirt and mud. Her carefully arranged hair now looked like a ball of yarn had exploded on her head. Her arms and face were scratched, her dress torn, and the beautiful doll—the doll Anne had spent nearly two weeks tracking down—was on the ground, facedown in the mud, clearly a casualty of the battle with the cat.
    Anne’s breathing kicked into overdrive. “Faith! What on earth were you
doing
?”
    Faith blinked, eyes wide. Her bottom lip popped out. “But Mommy, I’m a tiger catcher.”
    “Faith!”
    Those little