Radiant (31 page)

He
looked at her. "He told you to call him
Josh
?"

She nodded.
"Why?"

Again, he didn't answer right away
. "It's…nothing."

"Are you sure?"
she asked.

"Yes," he said.

Mary stared at him for a moment. Then she turned back to the slice in her hand and picked off the sausage pieces to eat first. "I think I had a couple dreams in the hospital. In one of them, you were talking to Mayim. I didn't see anything. I just heard you two talking."

He was quiet.

"You're going to leave, aren't you?" Mary said. "You're going to give Carter back his body and leave."

Quiet again. Then he said, "Yes."

Mary felt like someone had shot her in the heart. "When?"

"Soon," he said. "Carter's fully recovered. I
can leave at any time. But I was waiting."

Mary kept picking things off her pizza, but she didn't eat them. "For what?"

"There was something I wanted to find," he said.

"What is it?" Mary asked.

"You'll know soon enough," he said.

Mary wasn't hungry anymore
, and she put her pizza down. In a way, she knew that this was going to have to happen eventually. The whole reason why Phos had possessed Carter was to keep Carter's body alive while his energy recovered.

She
clung to him. "I don't want you to go, Phos."

He wrapp
ed his arms around her, too. "I know."

They said nothing for a while
, letting their pizza get cold and the movie go unwatched.

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- 3
3 -

Martin

On Saturday, Phos said he was taking Mary to meet someone important.

"Are we translating?" she asked.

He shook his head. "We have to go during the day, so I'll drive. I'll pick you up from your apartment in the morning."

He arrived ear
ly in the Maxwells' Range Rover and helped her down the stairs from the apartment. Then they drove out of the city.

"W
here exactly are we going?" she asked. "And who are we meeting?"

"You'll see," he said.

She frowned. It was the same answer he'd given her for the past couple days. "We're not going to go do something crazy like skydiving, are we?"

He chuckled. "No. But I
didn't know you wanted to do that."

"I don't," she said. "I was just thinking of human activities you haven't done but might want to with the time you have left."

"I see," he said. Then he added, "Well, there is one thing I'd like to do with you before I leave."

"
What?" she asked.

"
Take you to the prom."

She wrinkled her brow.
"Huh?"

"
The prom," he said. "Human adolescents in the United States often attend this end-of-the-school-year event that was once called the 'promenade.' But the name somehow got shortened to—"

"
I know what the prom is," she said. "But why? At prom, people just stare at what everyone else is wearing. Except the ones making out in empty classrooms or smoking behind the school."

He laughed.
"I just want to know what it's like to go to this type of event. With you."

Mary stared at him
. He was serious about this. Of all the stupid human activities that he could request, he had to ask to go to the prom.

"
I'd rather go skydiving," she said.

He chuckled
. "I wouldn't advise it in your condition."

"
Will I have to dance?" she asked.

"
Naturally."

"
That's what I was afraid of."

He smiled. "If we go, it means I can stay longer. Ot
herwise, I have to leave sooner."

"
Okay let's go," she said quickly.

He
held her hand. "Thank you."

Phos
drove for nearly two hours before Mary saw a sign saying that they were approaching the small town of Huntsman. He turned off at the next exit.

"This is where the state prison is," Mary said.

"Yes," he said.

"You're taking me to the prison?" she asked.

"The person we are meeting is there," he said.

Mary stared at him. Then, she looked forward. "Stop the car."

"Is something wrong?" Phos asked.

"Just stop the car!"

Phos pulled off to the side of the road, and Mary opened her door and climbed out.

"Where are you going?" Phos asked as he got out of the car as well.

"Tell me what this is about," she demanded. "Why are we going to the prison? Who is it you want me to see?"

He hesitated.

"Is it the guy who shot me?" she asked. "I don't want to see him. If you want me to forgive him, then I will some day. But not right now."

"We're not seeing him," Phos said. "He's being held somewhere else."

"Then who?" she asked.

"We're going to see…your father," he said at last.

Mary stared at him. "My father?"

He nodded. "
I've been looking for him. Ever since we talked in the art room that first time."

Mary
struggled to form complete thoughts. Her father was in prison? "Why is he there?" she asked.

Phos leaned against the side of the Range Rover. "Several years ago,
there was a bank robbery in the city. There were supposed to be three people involved, but two of them abandoned the third. He panicked and took hostages. Eventually he was caught, but not before killing one of them."

Mary felt the blood from her face drain as she recalled this story. She remembered watching it on the news. "Anna. You're talking about the day Ben's wife…the man who killed her was my
father
?"

Phos
nodded.

Mary tried
to swallow. "Why are you doing this? Why did you go through all this trouble just to tell me that one of my parents is a murderer?"

"I wanted you to know the truth," he said. "I wanted you to hear it from him. He's waiting for you." He opened the passenger door again.

Mary didn't move, feeling like her legs might give out. Finally, she forced herself to get back into the car.

A little while later, after Mary and Phos were cleared and had
put their personal items in a locker, an officer showed them into the prison's visiting area. It looked sorta like a school cafeteria with tables and chairs, except there was no food and guards were everywhere. A few inmates in bright orange jumpers sat at some of the tables with family members or lawyers across from them, talking in hushed voices.

"Wait here," the officer said.

Mary and Phos sat down. There was a heavy red line painted across the table. Other than that, there wasn't any color in the room.

Mary began shivering
. "It's cold here," she said, although some of her shaking was from nerves. Phos wrapped his arms around her and her shivering subsided some, but not all the way.

A buzzer sounded, and a
n officer told one of the other families that their visit was over. The man kissed the woman and hugged the two little kids. Then, he disappeared behind the heavy door.

A few minutes later, the buzzer sounded again. The same door opened and out walked a different man. He looked like he didn't normally groom, but his face was shaved and his salt and pepper hair was combed.
His eyes became as large as car wheels when he saw Mary.

The officer directed him to the chair across from Mary and Phos. "You have thirty minutes," he said.
Then, he stood next to the table like a statue.

The
man sat down. "Hi again, Carter." He turned his eyes back to Mary.

"
Mary," Phos said, "this is Martin Lee. Martin, this is Mary Phan."

Martin nodded. "Nice to meet you. Mary." He started to extend a hand across the table.

"No reaching across the red line until the end of the visit," the officer said.

"Sorry. It's been a while since I had visitors. I forgot." Martin folded his hands in front of him. "So, Mary? You're…sixteen? Seventeen now?"

"Seventeen," she said.

"Right," he said. "Seventeen. Wow. Time flies."

"Yeah," she said. "I guess it does."

A couple seconds of awkward silence passed.

"Um, you like school?" he asked.

She shrugged. "It's all right
."

"I see," he said. "
School was hard for me. Reading was always tough."

Mary nodded. "I
t's hard for me too. I'm not good with words."

"Me neither," he said. "N
ever good with words. You got a favorite class?"

"I like Art," she said.

"Really?" His face brightened. "Like, pictures and stuff?"

"Yeah," she said. "Pain
ting. We do other things, like sculpting and mix media and stuff like that. But I like painting the best."

"That's neat," Martin said. "That's real neat."

More awkward silence.

"Um, so I guess I don
't need to ask you if you have a boyfriend," Martin said, nodding at Phos. "You two been dating long?"

Mary looked at Phos and smiled
a little. "Not really. Just this semester."

"She agreed to go to the prom with me," Phos added.

Martin chuckled. "That should be fun. You both gonna get dressed up and everything?"

"Probably," Mary said.

"That's neat," he said. He seemed to like that word.

"Twenty minutes left," the officer said.

The smile on Martin's face faded. "Well, I guess you got some questions for me, don't you?"

Mary looked at Phos. Then, she looked back at Martin. "Why'd you do it?"

Martin began shaking his knee uneasily. "I didn't know your mama was pregnant. She was just gone, and I didn't know where or why. I don't blame her, now that I think about it. I wasn't good to her. I didn't know about you until a lawyer came with papers saying that I'd give up all my rights to you. I was an idiot. And I was drunk. So I signed them.

"
Some time later, I broke my wrist and had to go to the hospital. And there was Collie. She was doing her nurse training stuff. I asked her how you were, and she said fine. Then I asked if I could see you sometime, but she said no. I guess she was still mad at me. I told her I was cleaning up and that I had a steady job at this place packing and shipping books. But she said I couldn't see you and that she'd call the police if I came and asked again.

"I guess that got me real down. Because, you know, I'd never seen you. And I was just wondering what you looked like
. I thought about you a lot, Mary. The more I thought, the more I wished I didn't sign those damn papers."

"Ten minutes left," the officer said.

"You still haven't said why you did it," Mary said.

Martin nodded. "
I was getting there. Anyway, when you were turning ten, I wanted to get you something. You know, since I missed all your other birthdays. I wanted to get you something nice. I didn't know what you liked, but when I was a kid, I had always wanted a telescope. I thought they were neat, so I got you one. It was really nice. I didn't have enough cash to buy it at the time, so I got it on store credit and had it sent to you. I really hoped your mama would let you have it, because it was real neat.

"But
then I got laid off. I was in a bad place. I just…well, I guess I was desperate. I was worried about the telescope. Silly, huh? Weird things you worry about sometimes. I was also gonna be thrown out of my apartment, but that wasn't new. But when I had bought the telescope, the store said that if I couldn't pay it off, they'd take it back. And I didn't want them to do that, because I wanted you to have it. Anyway, I was talking with a couple of drinking buddies of mine one night, and we got this idea that we'd rob a bank. I figured I could pay for the telescope then. I know, it sounds stupid now. I don't know what we were thinking." He paused. "But things didn't go how we planned. And, well, you know what happened."

Mary wrinkled her brow. All of this was just over a telescope?
Her
telescope? Anna was gone, Ben was broken, and Martin was imprisoned all for a kid's toy?

"Why didn't you write to me?" Mary asked.

"I did," he said. "You never answered. I figured your mama got my letters or you didn't want to talk to me."

Mary tried swallowing the lump in her throat. "I never got them."