I made them breakfast and watched Angie scarf it down, watched Craig pick at it. I thought of Albert as I poured my coffee and dumped sugar into it. Was he going out of his mind with worry? Did he think Craig was just off at some friend's house, cooling down, and would return?

Angie went upstairs after breakfast. She'd color up there or play with her dolls, then she'd nag me to bring her to the park. And I would. And I'd watch her play on the swings and go down the slide and I'd miss Julia with this pang that wrenched at me. I didn't think this grief would ever end. I just rode it out now, like a surfer thrown from his board and with the mouthful of sea salt hopes the wave crashes him on the beach and not further out to sea. I rode it out like the craving for nicotine when you quit smoking.

Craig brought his dish to the sink, and it didn't look like he ate anything. I rinsed the dishes and stacked them in the dishwasher, sipped my coffee, trying to keep busy. Craig sat at the table, and he cleared his throat in that way that meant he was going to say something that was hard for him.

"My dad's gonna expect me to be home today," he said, a strangely vague statement.

"Yeah," I said, seeing those bruises on his rib cage and stomach, knowing that he couldn't go back there.

"Uh, I had to take off yesterday because I thought, I don't know,"

I turned around and looked at him, saw the anxiety in his eyes. I equated this whole thing to me and Angie. I would never hit her, never hurt her. I'd yell. I have yelled, and I didn't feel great about it. Kids couldn't just do whatever they wanted, I mean, discipline had its place. But this was different. With Craig and Albert, this was beyond discipline.

"You thought what?" I said, sitting at the table, cradling my coffee cup in my hands.

"I thought he was gonna kill me,"

I closed my eyes, wondering how it could come to this. I thought of that kid I knew back in junior high, the one who was getting beat by his father. I remembered going over there that one day, wanting that cool jean jacket he had because my mother wrecked mine. His dad, he was just so angry, it was this intensity I'd never seen before. My own parents were calm, laid back, not really given to that kind of anger. This kid's father, he bristled with it. It crackled around him. It was like gunpowder waiting to explode. Albert was like that.

"You thought what?" I said, wanting him to repeat it, wanting to get it, wanting to know because I had to know. If I was going to take him from Albert I had to know, "what happened?"

"Uh, he was chasing after me, he had this golf club, and I ran up the stairs and locked my bedroom door and he tapped on the door with the golf club. I was packing a bag and talking to Sean on the phone, trying to sound normal, you know?" He laughed then, and I guessed he never felt normal. Who did, though? There was no normal.

"So then I wouldn't let him in and he starts, he slammed the golf club into the door, and it went through, and if I stayed he would have slammed the golf club into me,"

Jesus. I stared at him, and the moment went on.

"Daddy!" Angie called from above our heads, and the spell was broken, but I knew now. I knew how bad it was. He couldn't go back there.

"Okay," I said quietly. Okay.

I went upstairs, kissed Angie and tousled her hair, took a shower, closing my eyes in the hot steam. I'd go to the park with my daughter and I'd try to have a normal day for her. And I'd call my dead wife's ex-husband and tell him that he's lost his son.