What I Loved

the idea that he had arrived in the middle of the night without my permission irritated me. I glanced around the room. Mark's backpack and coat lay in a pile on the floor beside one of his sneakers. When I turned toward Matt's picture, I saw that pasted onto the glass were pictures of five pale, thin girls in short skirts and platform shoes. Over their heads were the words THE GIRLS OF CLUB USA. My irritation turned to anger. I walked to the bed, grabbed Mark by the shoulders, and began to shake him. He moaned and then opened his eyes. He looked at me without recognition. "Go away," he said.
    "What are you doing here?" I demanded.
    He blinked. "Uncle Leo." He smiled weakly, pushed himself up on his elbows, and looked around. His mouth hung open. His face looked flaccid, moronic. "Wow,' he said. "I didn't think you'd be so upset."
    "Mark, this is my apartment. You have a room here to do your artwork or listen to music, but you have to ask me if it's all right to sleep here. Bill and Violet must be worried sick."
    Mark's eyes were slowly gaining focus. "Yeah," he said. "But I couldn't get in upstairs. I didn't know what to do, so I came here. I didn't want to wake you up, because it was late. Besides," he said, and cocked his head to one side, "I know you sometimes have trouble sleeping."
    I lowered my voice. "Did you lose your key?"
    "I don't know how it happened. It must have fallen off my ring somehow. I didn't want to wake up Dad and Violet either, and I still had your key, so I used it." Mark's eyes widened as he spoke to me. "I probably made the wrong decision." He sighed.
    "You'd better go upstairs right now and tell your father and Violet that you're all right."
    "I'm on my way," he said.
    Before he left, Mark put his hand on my arm and looked me directly in the eyes. "I just want you to know that you're a real friend to me, Uncle Leo, a real friend."
    After Mark left, I returned to my cold coffee. Within minutes, I regretted my anger. Mark's offense had been caused by poor judgment— nothing more. Had I ever actually said that he couldn't spend the night? The problem wasn't Mark but Matthew. The sight of Mark's mature body on my son's bed had shaken me. Was it that the six-foot boy-man had violated the invisible but sacred outlines of the eleven-year-old child whom I still imagined sleeping in that bed? Maybe, but I wasn't really angry until I saw the stickers. I had told him that the watercolor was the single object in the room that mustn't be touched. Mark had agreed with me: "That's cool. Matt was a great artist." Mark hadn't been thinking, I said to myself. He might be thoughtless, but he isn't malicious. Remorse shriveled my righteous anger to nothing, and I decided to walk upstairs and apologize to him immediately.
    Violet opened the door. She was wearing only a long white T-shirt, probably Bill's, and I could see her nipples through the material. Her cheeks were flushed. Several sweaty strands of hair hung down in her forehead. She smiled and said my name. Bill was standing a few feet behind her, wearing a white bathrobe and smoking a cigarette. Not knowing where to look, I glanced down at the floor and said, "I actually came up to see Mark. I wanted to tell him something. "
    Bill answered. "Sorry, Leo. He was going to come this weekend, but he decided at the last minute to stay with his mother. She's taking him and Oliver riding at some stables near there."
    I looked at Bill and then at Violet, who smiled and said, "We're having a dissipated weekend." She let her head fall back and stretched. The T-shirt rose up her thighs.
    I excused myself. I hadn't been prepared for Violet's breasts under her shirt. I hadn't been prepared to see the faint darkness of her pubic hair under the thin white cloth or her face looking a little soft and silly after sex. Without pausing, I walked downstairs, found a razor blade, and scraped off the stickers that were covering up Matt's painting.
    When I confronted Mark about lying to me the following weekend, he looked surprised. "I didn't lie, Uncle Leo. I changed my plans with Mom. I called Dad, but they were out. I came up to New York anyway to see some friends, and then I had the key problem.''
    "But why didn't you tell Bill and Violet that you were here?"
    "I was going to, but it seemed kind of complicated, and I remembered that I had to get a bus back to Mom's, because I promised her that I'd take care of Ollie in the afternoon."
    I accepted the story for two reasons.