"I guess it is," he said, slipping his hands into his pockets. "My apologies."
Mary stared at him for a moment. Then, she reached for one of his hands, pulling it out of its pocket and lacing her fingers into his. "You didn't let me finish answering the question."
Carter looked at her surprised. Then, he smiled.
Mary smiled as well. She then realized how warm his hand was. "Wow, you're hot."
"Hot?" he asked.
"I mean, temperature hot," she said. "Are you all right?"
He nodded. "Why?"
"You're just really warm," she said. "Like you have a fever."
Carter looked like he was concentrating on something. Then, he said, "My body runs hot sometimes. It's nothing to be concerned about."
They walked by a closed store that had high-end furniture displayed in the window, along with a large clock showing that it was about half past nine. Mary remembered her promise to Mom. "Hey, I know this is kinda last minute. But can we swing by the hospital and see my mom? She wants to meet you."
She expected him to get nervous. However, Carter nodded and said, "Certainly. I want to meet your mother, too."
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- 17 -
Truth
Mary wiggled her knees back and forth during the elevator ride in the hospital.
"You're nervous," Carter commented.
"We had an argument," she admitted. "About you."
"I see," he said.
The doors opened, and they headed down the hall. Mary was so nervous that she found herself wanting to hold Carter's hand at that moment, to have some sense of security. But Mom might not take kindly to that, so she just clutched the bag of Indian food that Raj had given them. If Mom hadn't eaten dinner yet, which was most likely the case, then hopefully the food would put her in a better mood.
Mom sat at the nurses' station. She saw them coming down the hall and stood. "You must be Carter," she said politely enough.
"Ms. Phan," he said, shaking her hand. "It's a pleasure to meet you."
"Yes, right," she said. "Lisa, I'm taking my dinner break now."
"M'kay," the other nurse said.
"Did you eat?" Mary asked, holding up the bulging carryout bag.
"Why don't we step into the break room where we can talk?" Mom said. She didn't answer the eating question, so that meant she hadn't.
Great, Mary thought. Mom was irked and hungry. Not a good combination.
Mom ushered them into a small room with taupe walls, green tile, and gray tables and chairs. Those were supposedly calming colors, but Mary was still on edge as she and Carter sat down across from Mom.
"How was your evening?" Mom asked.
"Great," Mary answered cautiously.
"Great," Carter said cheerfully.
"Great," Mom repeated unenthusiastically. "Where'd you go?"
Mary told her about Spice. "It was really good." She pushed the peace offering carryout towards Mom again.
Mom looked at Carter. "I've gotta be honest. I'm not one to really beat around the bush. But you seem to have taken a sudden interest in my daughter and I can't understand why."
He looked down for a moment. "I know that I have a poor reputation. I made some bad choices. Choices I deeply regret." He looked up at Mom. "Do you know what that's like, Ms. Phan?"
Mom swallowed uneasily. "We all do, I'm sure."
"Then you know what I mean when I say that there comes a point when you are tired of making bad decisions," he said. "After the accident, I came to that point. I wanted to stop disappointing my parents. I consider the Romeros parents, too. I wanted to stop being a poor friend who only used people. Humans are…extraordinary. It's a shame that we often forget that, and that we treat each other as anything less than the masterpieces we are."
Mary stared at him, speechless. Mom didn't say anything either.
"I suppose I wanted to start being a better human," Carter continued. "It meant making some difficult choices. Most of the people I was friends with ignore me now. They don't understand what I'm trying to accomplish, so we parted ways. I wish them the best, but I had to start being around people who inspire me to be better. And one of those people is your daughter."
Still, Mary and Mom said nothing.
"I suppose that is a selfish thing to say," he said. "I know it isn't easy for you to trust me. I'm sure Mary doesn't in many ways. But I believe that you trust her, don't you?"
Mom crossed her arms. "Yes."
Mary felt the weight of responsibility on her shoulder grow a little heavier just then.
Carter nodded. "Then I hope that you trust her enough with how she deals with me. I would never take advantage of her, Ms. Phan. I would never want to. I know my word is worth little to you now. But hopefully with some time, it will be worth more. And perhaps we can even be friends as well."
Mary's jaw dangled earthward. She couldn't believe the stuff that had just come from his mouth. Who talked like that?
Mom didn't say anything right away. Then, she uncrossed her arms and placed her hands in her lap. "Well, I must say that I wasn't expecting that. You made some good points. But I want you to know I will watch how you treat Mary. I will watch very closely. I also have some rules that I would like you both to stick to. Dates are in public places only. I don't want Mary to go over to your house, and I don't want you in our apartment."
He nodded. "I understand. And I agree."
Mom nodded as well. "All right then. Now, it's pretty late, so I think you two should—"
"Colette?" Lisa poked her head into the break room. "Sorry, but we have a situation."
Mom rose quickly from the table. "I'll be back," she said and left with the other nurse in a hurry.
Mary and Carter waited for a few minutes. Then, he looked away and wrinkled his brow.
"What is it?" Mary asked.
"I hear something," he said.
Mary listened. She couldn't hear anything but the soft hum of the refrigerator and the coffeemaker in the corner.
Carter stood and left the break room. Curious, Mary followed him down the hall until they came to a closed door. Carter reached for the handle.
"What are you doing?" Mary hissed. "We can't just walk into someone's room without at least knocking."
But he opened the door anyway. There was only one person in the dimly lit room. A boy, completely hairless from cancer treatments, lay on the hospital bed crying softly. Even in the room, Mary could barely hear his whimpers. But somehow Carter had heard him from all the way down the hall. With the door closed.
The boy looked at them. In a weak voice, he asked, "You…heard me?"
Carter nodded.
"Then you're…here to take me…to Heaven?" the boy asked.
Mary's heart cracked straight down the middle. He was so tiny from the disease ravaging his body. She looked over at the clipboard hanging by the door. "Scotty," it said on the patient name line. "Seven," it said for his age.
Carter shook his head. "No."
"But…you're an…angel. Aren't you?" Scotty asked.
"It's not my job," Carter said.
A tear spilled from the boy's eyes. "But I'm hurting."
Carter didn't say anything for a moment. Then, he walked over to the boy's bedside and asked, "Where are you hurting?"
Scotty raised a weak hand and pointed at his tiny belly. "Here."
Gently, Carter placed his own hand over the area.
"Carter?" Mary whispered. "What are you doing?"
"This may hurt more," he said to the boy. "But just for a little while. Are you ready?"
The boy nodded.
Suddenly, Carter's hand began to glow. It was like a fire had ignited underneath his palm.
Scotty gritted his teeth as the glowing intensified. He began to wriggle and arch his back with a sudden burst of strength that he hadn't shown before. The monitors attached to him beeped like mad.
"Carter!" Mary cried. "Stop!" She grabbed his arm to pull him
back, but touching him at that moment was like touching a hot oven. She jumped back in surprise.
Carter kept his hand on the boy, his face set with hard concentration. Whatever he was doing, it only lasted a few seconds. But it might as well have been an eternity. As quickly as it had appeared, the fiery glow was gone. Carter took back his hand and Scotty collapsed onto the bed. His monitors returned to normal.
Scotty looked at Carter with an expression entirely different from the one a moment ago. Peaceful. "Thank you," he said.
"You were brave," Carter said. "Rest now."
The boy gave one small nod before closing his eyes.
Just then, a young woman with a tired face came into the room with a drink cup from the hospital cafeteria in her hand. She dropped it and spilled the contents on the floor when she saw Mary and Carter in the room.
"Who are you? What are you doing in my son's room?" she demanded. But rather than wait for them to answer, she began shouting down the hall, "Nurse! Nurse!"
"Ma'am please!" Mary tried. "We didn't mean anything."
Another nurse arrived then, trying to calm the woman down. "Please, Mrs. Carmichael. Lower your voice. I'm here, so tell me what you need."
"These kids were in my son's room!" the woman said, not bothering to lower her voice at all. "What kind of place is this? Just letting anyone in?"
Mom arrived then. She grabbed Mary's hand and pulled her out of the room. "I'm sorry, ma'am. This is my daughter and her friend. They were just visiting me. Come on, Mary. You, too, Carter."
Mary let Mom drag her down the hall as Carter followed, leaving the other nurse to try and quiet Scotty's mom. When they had gotten far enough away, Mom let go of Mary's hand and glared at them both. "What were you both doing in there? Mary, you know the rules around here!"
"I-I'm sorry," Mary stuttered. But she couldn't really answer the question. What were they doing in that boy's room?
"It's my fault, Ms. Phan," Carter explained. "I apologize. I thought I heard him crying. I didn't think anyone else did, so we went to see what was wrong. But we saw that he was just asleep, and then his mother came. We didn't mean any harm."
Mom stared at both of them. Finally, she sighed. "All right. But I think you two really need to leave now."
No one argued with that. Mary walked with Carter to the parking garage, where the Aston waited for them. Carter opened the passenger door.
But Mary didn't get in.
"What is it?" he asked.
"That's what I should be asking you," she said. "What happened up there?"
"What do you mean?"
"Don't play dumb with me!" Mary snapped. "What did you do to that boy?"
He didn't answer right away. Then, he said, "He said he was hurting. I helped him."
"Light was coming out of your hand," she said. "Tell me the truth now. Are you Jesus?"
He shook his head. "No."
"Then what are you?" she snapped.
"Mary, please lower your voice. People will hear."
"Then let them hear!"
He said nothing for a while. At last, he asked, "Do you really want the truth?"
She nodded.
Another moment of silence. He was probably trying to decide what to tell her. Mary hoped everything.
"All right," he said finally. "You'll have the truth. But not tonight."
She frowned. "When?"
"On a night that you can be out very late. Even into the morning."
Well, tomorrow was out. Sundays were Mom's days off. And school nights were out as well.
"Next Friday night, then," she said.
"All right," he said. "I'll meet you at your home at nine o'clock."
They didn't speak during the drive back home. When the Aston rolled up in front of the apartment building, Carter got out first and opened Mary's door.
She climbed out. "I'll see you at school," she said.
"I…don't think so," he said hesitantly.
"What do you mean?" she asked.
"There's something I have to do," he said. "But I will meet you here on Friday."
"Is something wrong?" she asked. Was he still having health problems from the crash?
"There's nothing you need to be concerned with," he said reassuringly.
Mary stared at him for a moment. She wouldn't see Carter again for almost a whole week?
"Okay," she said finally.
"Good night, Mary." He walked to the driver's side of the car.
Mary reached into her purse to take out her key. Instead, her hand found the blood test. Cripes! She had forgotten about it again, and the evening was already over. Plus, Friday was a long time away. Mary thought quickly.
"Wait, Carter?" she asked.
He opened the car door but stopped and looked back at her.
Mary walked to him. Then, before she could talk herself out of it, she threw her arms around him and hugged him tightly. At the same time, she jabbed the needle end of the blood test through his sleeve and into the back part of his arm. Not daring to keep it in long enough for him to feel it, she pulled it out and shoved it in her purse behind his back.
That should have been it. But when Mary began to pull away, she realized Carter had already wrapped his arms around her. It felt good being in his arms. He felt warm. And safe.
Mary rested her head on his shoulder. "I had a good time."
"Me, too," he said.
They didn't move for a minute. Then, rather reluctantly, Mary pulled away. "I'll see you on Friday."
He nodded. Finally, he climbed into the Aston and started the ignition. The engine growled. Mary watched him drive away. Even after the car was out of sight, she stood in the empty street for a while.
Mary turned and headed for the front door. As she looked for her key again, she couldn't help but feel that there was something else she was forgetting. She had managed to get his blood. What else was there?
"Crap!" she cried. "I still have his jacket!"
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- 18 -
Ghost
As Carter had said he would, he missed the whole week of school. Everything seemed to move in slow motion. Classes dragged for ages. Even Art. Mary thought often about Carter. Actually, she thought about him all the time.
On Monday before Art class, Mary sat next to Sienna. David was on an overnight trip with his hockey team, so it was just the two of them at their table.
"Hey," Sienna said as she doodled in her sketchbook.
"Hey," Mary said. She watched Sienna for a moment. "I'm sorry I called you a moron."
Sienna stopped drawing and looked at her. "What?"
"It was a while back," Mary said. "I don't think that at all, and I shouldn't have said it. I'm sorry."
Sienna stared at her. Then she shrugged. "It's okay. I forgive you."
Carter was right. Being forgiven really does feel good. "Can I ask you something?" Mary said.
"Sure," Sienna said.
"Am I…intimidating?" Mary asked. "Do I, you know, scare people?"
Sienna said nothing for a moment. Then she put her pencil down. "A little, I guess. But not like freaky scary. You just…you don't take crap from anyone. But not in the fake, rebellious way that most kids do it, like they got something to prove. You're real, and people respect you a lot for that."
Mary wrinkled her brow. "Really?"
Sienna nodded. "I do. I know I'm such a gossip freak. I can't help it sometimes. But I don't want to be. I'm working on it. You kinda inspired me. And David helps keep me accountable."
Mary stared at her for a moment. She was starting to see that Sienna was actually a pretty cool person.
"I need accountability, too," Mary said. "If I start being scary, will you let me know? I don't want to be."
Sienna smiled. "Sure."
After school one day, Mary changed into regular clothes again and took the bus to the university. But rather than go back to the jack ugly Sci-Tech building, Drew had emailed her to meet him at
a coffee shop near campus. He sat at a table in the corner, wearing a t-shirt this time that said, "I'm an Astronomer. Not an Astrologer. Learn the Difference."
He looked up when he saw her coming. "Hey."
"Hey," she said as she sat across from him. "You got those blood test results back quick. I wasn't expecting to hear from you for a couple weeks."
"I have a friend who works at a lab, and she owed me a favor." He pulled out a stack of papers from his backpack. "Well, your friend's really healthy. I don't think he's gonna die of heart disease any time soon."
"What else? Did you find anything unusual?" She lowered her voice. "Anything alien?"
"Not from just the blood test. Which is why I also asked my friend to do a DNA test," he said as he flipped to the middle of the paper stack. "He sorta has an extra pair of chromosomes."
"What do you mean sorta?" Mary asked.
"I mean just that." He turned the papers around and showed her what looked like an X-ray of a bunch of little bones. "Humans have twenty-three pairs of chromosomes. Twenty-two autosomes and one pair of sex chromosomes. So, forty-six in all."
Mary stared at him blankly.
"Just hang with me for a moment," he said. "Forty-six for humans. That's the magic number, got it?"
"Got it," she said.
"Your friend sorta has two more," he continued. "Here, the analysis picked up something, but it's not conclusive. They're like shadows or ghosts of chromosomes."
"Okay," she said. "What's wrong with having more chromosomes?"
"Remember the magic number?" he asked. "Humans have forty-six. Not forty-four. Not forty-eight. People with one extra chromosome, depending on where it is, have things like Down Syndrome. But this is a full pair. Having more or fewer chromosome pairs means you're not human. You're wheat. Or an earthworm. Or a goldfish. Got it? But these are only sorta there. And here's the really weird part. All the other chromosomes seem to be responding to these ghosts at some subatomic frequency."
Blank stares from Mary again. She actually made good grades in science, but this was a little over her head.
Drew tapped his hand on the papers, obviously thinking of how to dumb down the explanation for her. "It's like…it's like music. You hear bad music, you get irritated. You hear good music, you listen in. These ghosts are giving out music that the other chromosomes like. Whatever mutations or genetic anomalies that he has are getting in line. He's like an optimal human being."
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