Radiant - By Christina Daley Page 0,32

time in a while. "Mary? What happened tonight at the café?"

"Ba had a lapse in her memory," she explained. "It's confusing for her, you know? She takes medicine for it, but the lapses still happen once in a while. This was a small one, so it wasn't too bad."

"I see." He was quiet for a moment, but then he asked, "What does a 'big' one look like?"

Mary thought about what to say next. "She hasn't been at Agape for very long. She used to live at home with us. But between Mom's crazy schedule and my school, it was hard to keep up with her medicine. And it was harder to keep an eye on her all the time." She shifted her weight. "It was just small things at first. Like forgetting keys or leaving clothes down in the laundry room for days. But then it got more serious. Leaving the stove on. Forgetting to lock the door. Heading downstairs to get the mail but along the way forgetting where she was going or what she was doing."

"What was the final straw?" he asked.

Again, Mary chose her words carefully. "I came home from school one day. Just like normal. She was in the kitchen chopping up some vegetables for dinner. I came behind her to kiss her on the cheek like I normally do. But I scared her. And when she saw me, she didn't recognize me. She started screaming, asking me how I broke into the apartment and stuff. She still had the knife she was chopping with." She paused.

Carter asked quietly, "What happened?"

Rather than answer with words, Mary reached up and pulled the collar of her shirt down a little, revealing a thin pink line just under her collarbone.

His eyes grew wide.

Mary replaced her collar. "She didn't cut anything important. A neighbor had heard the screaming and came to see what was going on. When he saw the blood and the knife, he got me out of the apartment and went next door to call 911. We had forgotten to make sure she had taken her medication that day. Mom took some time off of work to take care of her, but she was running out of vacation time. Then Ba said that she wanted to live at Agape so that we wouldn't have to look after her. Mom and I tried to talk her out of it, but she had made up her mind. A couple months later, she moved there, and we moved into the apartment where we're at now for the cheaper rent."

Carter stared at her for a moment. He looked off to the side, as if he was trying to remember something. "You never said anything to anyone at school."

She shrugged. "No one needed to know."

"But you were hurt."

"I don't like other people in my business."

He was quiet for a moment. "I understand now why you don't like instability. You have enough of it with the people you care about. You don't need more from others."

Neither of them spoke for the rest of the trip. A little while later, they came to the stop near Mary's apartment and got off.

"Well, thanks for coming along," Mary said. "And sorry about the thing at the café."

"No need to apologize," he said. "Thank you for inviting me."

"Have big plans for the weekend?" she asked.

He looked skyward. "There will be a meteor shower tonight."

"Really?" she asked. "Will it be early? The roof is a really great place to watch…uh, that is, if you want to watch it from there."

He kept looking up for a moment. Then he turned his eyes back to her. "I think I had better pass. But thank you."

"No problem," she said. "Well, I guess I'll see you at school."

"Mary?"

"Yes?"

"Was this evening…a date?"

She thought for a moment. "Um, I don't think so."

"Why not?"

She laughed. "People don't generally bring their grandmothers on dates."

"Oh," he said. "So it's a date if it were just you and me?"

"I guess."

"Then, can we go on a date?"

She wrinkled her brow. "Huh?"

"Can we go on a date?" he repeated.

"You mean…just you and me?"

He nodded.

A myriad of excuses suddenly shot through Mary's head. She had homework. But what if he didn't ask on a school night? She had a lot of homework. She had chores. She had to shave the cat. Did people even shave cats? She'd never had one, so she didn't know.

"When?" she finally managed.

"How about Saturday night?"

Wow, that soon.

"Uh…"

"You don't have to if you don't want to," he said.

"No!