M A R K  OF  I N T E G R I T Y    (1,957 words)

   ‘I know how you got that scar on your forehead,’ said the man in the white tee shirt, tapping his own forehead. ‘Whacked your head on a stone. Cried – boy, did you cry! Fit to beat the band.’

   Mark stared at the man. He’d been about to try and fish the newspaper out of the hedge when this stranger came out of nowhere and started talking to him. You weren’t supposed to talk to strangers, Mark knew that. But this man seemed different. He knew stuff.

   ‘Where’d I fall?’ he asked, pretending to be curious. He already knew the answer.

   ‘Fish pond,’ said the stranger immediately. ‘The stones were slippery. I was supposed to be watching you – well, fact is I was watching you. I just didn’t get there fast enough. You were only – what – two years old? Two and a half maybe, come to think about it.’

   Mark was silent. No one knew that fish pond story – no one but him, his Mom and his grandma, that is. But the stranger was talking again.

   ‘You still got that half dollar stuck in the cement? Out behind the garage, near the honeysuckle?’

   Mark nodded faintly, beginning to feel uneasy. There had been a 50-cent piece stuck in the cement behind the garage for as long as he could remember. He and his friends had tried to get it out countless times, but it was stuck in there hard. He’d asked his Mom and his grandma how it got there, but neither one of them knew.

   ‘I put that there when I laid the cement,’ said the man proudly. ‘Wrote ‘M’ in the cement too. ‘M’ for Mark. I don’t suppose you remember that?’

   All Mark could do was shake his head. Funny about that ‘M,’ though. He’d always thought it was a ‘W.’

   The man seemed kind of nervous. Kind of sad, too.

   ‘No reason you should. You were just a wee little thing. Not even two years old. It was before you fell and bashed your head at the fish pond, for sure.’

   Mark nodded again. There was a swallow’s nest in the eaves of the garage next door; he could see it from here. It was so low down you wouldn’t imagine that birds would pick such a spot for a nest, but they must have thought it was safe. The mother and father took turns feeding their babies, busy all day long. One of them flew out of the nest now, fast as greased lightening. Just as it had flown out, its partner flew back in with a beak full of worm.

   ‘So you really don’t remember me?’ the man was asking again. This had been his first question to Mark, just as he’d stepped out of the house to bring in the newspaper:  Remember me?

   Mark didn’t. But he was beginning to think he knew who this man was all the same.

   ‘I’m your Dad,’ said the man suddenly, confirming Mark’s suspicions. He looked at Mark hopefully, then shook his head. ‘Okay, so you don’t remember me. But I would’ve thought maybe they’d shown you a picture, at the very least?’ He raised his eyebrows and looked expectant.

   Mark shook his head, embarrassed. ‘Mom said we don’t have any. I think grandma went and  –’  Now, how could he finish that sentence? I think grandma went and burned ‘em all. That didn’t sound very polite, did it?

   ‘Oh, there’s no love lost between your grandma and me,’ said the man. ‘No love lost at all. That day you fell down at the fish pond – whew. She liked to’ve bitten my head off. Hey, I was watching you, you know. No matter what she says, I was watching you, just you remember that. You wanted to go all the way around the pond on those rocks, wouldn’t let me stop you. So finally I just backed away and watched you – and hey, you were gonna do it yourself. No way were you going to let me hold your hand or anything like that, no sir. And you were doing fine, you’d made it almost all the way around and then – whoosh! You stepped on a mossy spot and just went right over. Not into the water, but on the rocks. Banged your head – blood everywhere – and boy oh boy, you hollered your head off. Eight stitches you needed afterwards for that gash on your forehead.’

   Mark stared at the man. He had a sudden flash, a memory, long buried. Moss-covered stones, the cool lip-lap of water slapping their slippery grey-green sides, a smell of dead things, stale water. And shoes. White shoes.  A man’s legs, the hems of his grey trousers brushing the tops of those shoes.

   ‘Did you have white shoes?’ he suddenly asked.  The minute he’d asked it he realized it was a foolish question, but it was too late. The man hooted, wildly amused. ‘White shoes?’ he crowed – then he stopped and looked thoughtfully at Mark.

   ‘You know,’ he said, ‘I do believe I did. Yes – yes, I did. White shoes!’ He looked at Mark like he’d just started speaking Chinese. ‘You remember that?’

   Mark nodded.

   ‘But you don’t remember my face?’

   Marked stared at him. What could he say? He didn’t remember this man’s face, not at all. He wanted to say yes, but he couldn’t. ‘No,’ he answered simply. Then he added ‘I’m sorry.’ Because he was.

   The man stared down at him. ‘I’m sorry, too,’ he said. ‘I’m real sorry, Mark. For lots of things.’

   Mark nodded. He had a hundred questions for this man – his father – a thousand, even. But he couldn’t think of a single one right now.

    His father cleared his throat. ‘I’ve got a letter for your mama here,’ he said. ‘You’ll make sure she gets it?’

   Mark nodded again. Out of the corner of his eye he could see one of the swallows sweep down and disappear under the eaves of the next-door neighbor’s garage. How was it they always knew which nest to come back to?

   ‘She ever show any of my letters to you?’ his father asked.

   Mark shook his head. What letters?

   ‘Thing is,’ said the man, ‘she’s never answered a one. I’ve sent her, oh, at least a dozen by now. More, probably. Sent her two from Jamaica, one from Miami, Florida, one from Newfoundland – that’s way up north in Canada – and another couple from Rio de Janeiro, way down in Brazil…’.

   Mark had a sudden vision of his grandma riffling through the mail in the morning. She always made sure she was the first one to get the mail every day, so she was always the first one to open it. Some things she’d just take a look at and dump straight into the trash. Things like hearing aid advertisements and books of coupons for stuff they never bought anyway. But sometimes she threw out things that looked pretty interesting. Big fat letters in airmail envelopes with interesting foreign stamps on them. She’d rip them open, look at the contents, maybe take something out, maybe not, then rip up the envelope and the letter without even reading it. ‘What’s that?’ he’d asked a couple of times, and she’d said it was nothing anyone wanted or needed – trust her, she could tell.

   ‘I guess she never showed ‘em to you,’ his father said. ‘Or any of the pictures? Or the stamps I sent you?’

   Mark shrugged.

   ‘I know she gets the checks  –’ his father began, but then he stopped and shook his

head. ‘She out just now, your mama?’

   Mark started to nod, then froze. He wasn’t supposed to say. Even if this man was his father, he wasn’t supposed to say. ‘Ummm…’ he began.

   ‘How about your grandma. ‘She around?’

   ‘She’s in Las Vegas,’ answered Mark, glad to be able to tell the truth about something.

   ‘Huh,’ said his father, ‘some things don’t change.’ Mark squirmed uncomfortably.

   ‘I met her first, your grandma,’ said his father. ‘Met her in Las Vegas. Back when she lived there. She’s the one introduced me to your mama.’ He smiled and took a deep breath before going on. ‘I’m going to tell you this ‘cause I reckon you’re old enough to hear it, Mark. I had a gambling habit when you were real little, just like –’ he stopped and shook his head. ‘Well, like a lot of people do. And a gambling habit is a bad thing, and I’m not proud of it. But I haven’t gambled for a long time and I’m not planning to gamble again. Now, I’ve said that before any number of times before, but this time I’m sticking to it. You don’t have to tell your mama that, I just wanted you to know, to set the record straight. I don’t know what all they told you about

me –’ He looked at Mark questioningly.

   They told me you were in jail, as good as dead Mark wanted to say. They told me don’t ask. But instead he shrugged. Looked down at the front porch, scuffed at a crack in the cement with the toe of his sneaker.

   ‘Well,’ his father went on, ‘I won’t ask you to invite me in. ‘Cause you’ve just met me and all, and – well, I know I’m a stranger. But your mama – can you tell me where she is?’  He looked at Mark hopefully.

   Mark stared down at his feet again. He wasn’t supposed to say. His mother had told him a hundred times. He’d promised. She had to go to work early in the morning and grandma was in Las Vegas for a couple of weeks and they couldn’t afford a babysitter for him. It was okay, really, because Mark knew how to get himself ready for school. He’d been getting himself ready for school and making his own lunch since he was five. But he wasn’t supposed to tell anyone about this, and he’d given his word that he wouldn’t.

   His father stood there, waiting. Mark looked up at him. ‘She’s only gone out for a little,’ he lied. ‘I’ll make sure to give her the letter when she comes back.’

   For a minute or two, his father didn’t say a thing. Then he reached into his jacket and pulled out a letter. The writing on it looked exactly like the writing on the ones his grandma always tossed in the trash. Mark took it from him.

   ‘Pleased to make your acquaintance, Mark,’ said his father, in a jokey sort of way. Mark nodded. His father cleared his throat and smiled again. ‘You know what, Mark? You’ve got integrity. You know what that is?’

   Mark nodded, embarrassed. He didn’t, but he’d already lied about his Mom only being gone for a little while, so he guessed he could lie again, especially when it was just a little lie this time. He’d look the word up in the dictionary the minute his father had left, he told himself. Anyway, somehow he thought integrity was probably a good thing. The way his father had said it, it didn’t sound like it was something bad.

   ‘Yeah,’ said his father, ‘well, you’ve got it, Mark.’ There was an awkward silence. Mark tried desperately to think of something to say. Anything. But his mind was a complete blank. His father smiled at him again and reached into his pocket for his car keys. ‘Well, guess I’ll better get  –’ he began, but Mark suddenly interrupted him.

   ‘I know where there’s a bird’s nest with five baby birds in it,’ he said, all in a rush. ‘Want to see it?’