Radiant - By Christina Daley Page 0,5

deposit. A guy with a gun came in and tried robbing it. He didn't get out before the cops got there, and he took everyone inside as hostages. Mary remembered watching the standoff on the news with Ba. The police brought in a negotiator and everything. Then Mom got home from work, and she turned off the TV and said no one could turn it back on until the next day. Mom had just started working in the ER at the time, so she must've wanted it quiet so that she could rest. But Mary heard at school what happened the next day. The stand off lasted for hours, but eventually the bank robber shot two people before trying to shoot himself. The police got to him first, though, and he lived. One of the people he shot survived, but the other didn't. The one who died was Anna.

Ben, still wearing his wedding band after seven years, opened the cardboard box and pulled out little tin boxes of mints. He put them on a wire display rack that was sitting on the counter next to the register. "Help you find anything?"

"Just getting a sketchbook and a tube of primary red," Mary said as she made her way through the narrow aisles to get what she needed. "What's new with you?"

"Not much," he said. "Same old, same old. Got some cool projects going on in the back."

"Really? Can I see?" she asked. Ben rented out studio space in the back of his shop to other local artists, and Mary always liked to see the works-in-progress of professionals.

"Sure," Ben said. "Come on."

She followed him through a back door to the studio. It was a little messy, but the hand tools were properly stowed in the tool cage and the table saw was clear and unplugged. A sign that read, "The most dangerous tool in this shop is the one you're using," hung over the large shipping door in the back.

At the center of the room stood a magnificent sculpture made of metal and colored glass. It looked like a cluster of flames with a stunning bird rising from the center.

"Wow," she said breathlessly.

"Like it?" he asked.

"Yeah," she said. "Whose is it?"

Ben smiled.

Mary looked at him. "This is yours? You're making art again!" After Anna died, Ben hadn't made anything new. Until now, at least.

Ben chuckled. "I figured it was time. Try walking around it."

Mary did so and saw he had arranged the flames to make them look like they were moving. The bird also looked like it was flapping its wings.

"This is awesome," she said.

"Glad you like it," he said. "It's in an art show coming soon."

"When is it?" Mary asked. Then she added, "Do you have to pay to get in?"

"If you want to come, I'll get you tickets," he said. "You can bring your grandmother and maybe your mom, too."

"That would be awesome." She looked at the sculpture again. "I would love to do something big like this."

"What would you make?" he asked.

Mary thought for a moment. "Maybe a mobile of the planets. Kinda like this sketch I did for a painting that never got made." She pulled out her old sketchbook and showed him the page.

"That would be awesome," Ben said. "It would make a much better mobile than a painting. You should do it."

"You think so?" she asked. "Well, I can't at home. There's no room. And my art teacher doesn't have power tools and stuff like that."

"You can use my workspace and tools at no charge," he offered. "And I can get you the same discount I use on my own supplies."

"Really?" she said. "You would do that?"

He chuckled. "Sure. I know things are tight when you're reusing sketch paper." He flipped through a couple pages of her old book with the telltale eraser marks.

She smiled. "Thanks. I'll ask my mom."

Mary paid for the new sketchbook and red paint before going to catch the next bus. She got off a couple blocks later and walked to a pleasant building with a sign that said "Agape Retirement Home."

A tiny Filipino woman behind the front desk smiled when she came in. "Hi, Mary."

"Hi, Ms. Nancy," she said as she signed the visitor's log. "Do you know where my grandmother is?"

"She's in the courtyard painting and waiting for you."

Mary thanked her. In a sunny corner of the courtyard, Ba sat before a canvas propped up on a tabletop easel. Her black and gray hair was pinned into a bun behind