What I Loved

through clenched teeth, "and hand it over. I swear if you don't, I'll beat you bloody."
    Mark continued to look at me with an expression of blank amazement. "I don't have it."
    I shook my fist in his face. "This is your last chance."
    Mark reached for his back pocket, and I let go of him. He pulled out a wallet, opened it, and slipped out my blue card. "I was tempted to take your money, Uncle Leo, but I swear I didn't use it. I didn't take a penny."
    I backed away from him. The boy is mad, I thought. A sensation of awe passed through me, old awe, the awe of childhood fears, of monsters and witches and ogres in the dark. "You've been stealing from me for months, Mark. You've taken almost seven thousand dollars of my money."
    Mark blinked. He looked uncomfortable.
    "It's all recorded. Every withdrawal is on paper. You stole my card on Saturday after I had gone to the bank and then returned it Sunday morning. Sit down!" I yelled.
    "I can't sit. I told Mom I would come home early today."
    "No," I said. "You're not going anywhere. You've committed a crime. I can call the police and have you arrested."
    Mark sat down. "The police?" he said in a small puzzled voice.
    "You must have known that, stupid and absentminded as I am, eventually I would find out. I mean, this isn't a few quarters."
    Mark turned to stone before my eyes. Only his mouth moved. "No," he said. "I didn't think you'd find out."
    "You knew that money was for my trip to Madrid. What did you think would happen when I went to take it out to pay for my airline tickets and the hotel?"
    "I didn't think about that."
    I couldn't believe it. I refused to believe it. I badgered, pushed, and interrogated him, but he only gave me the same dead answers. He was "embarrassed" that I had discovered the theft. When I asked him if he had used the money for drugs, he told me with apparent candor that he could get drugs for free. He bought things, he said. He went to restaurants. Money goes fast, he explained to me. His answers struck me as outlandish, but I now believe that the frozen person sitting on that chair was telling me the truth. Mark knew that he had stolen money from me, and he knew that it had been wrong to do it, but I am also convinced that he felt no guilt and no shame. He could offer no rational explanation for the stealing. He was not a drug addict. He wasn't in debt to anyone. After an hour, he looked at me and said flatly, "I took the money because I like having money."
    "I like having money, too," I screamed at him. "But I don't rob my friends' bank accounts to get it."
    Mark had nothing more to say on the subject. He didn't stop looking at me, however. He kept his eyes on mine, and I looked into them. Their clear blue irises and shining black pupils made me suddenly think of glass, as if there were nothing behind those eyes and Mark were blind. For the second time that afternoon, my anger changed to awe. What is he? I asked myself—not who, but what? I looked at him and he looked at me until I turned away from those dead eyes, walked to the telephone, and called Bill.
    The next morning Bill offered me a check for seven thousand dollars, but I refused it. I told him it wasn't his debt. I said that Mark could pay me back over the years. Bill tried to push the check into my hand. "Leo," he said, "please." His skin looked gray in the light from my window, and he smelled strongly of cigarettes and sweat. He was wearing the same clothes he had had on the night before when he came downstairs with Violet and they listened to the story. I shook my head. Bill started to pace. "What have I done, Leo? I talk to him and talk to him, but it's like he doesn't get it." Bill paced. "We've called Dr. Monk. We're all going to see her again. She wants Lucille there, too. She also asked to see you alone, if you wouldn't mind. We're cracking down on him. He can't go out. No telephone calls. We're going to escort him everywhere—pick him up at the train, walk him home, take him to the doctor. When school's over, he'll live here, get a job, and start paying you back." Bill stopped walking. "We think he's been stealing from Violet, too, from her purse. She doesn't keep track of her money. It took her a long time to catch on, but..." He stopped. "Leo, I'm so sorry." He shook his head and held out his hands. "Your trip to Spain." He closed his eyes.
    I stood up and put my hands on both his shoulders. "You didn't do it, Bill. It wasn't you. Mark stole from me."
    Bill dropped his