Crack it open, destroy this. She's dead, just bones beneath this ground. Craig stood on the grave, aware that her body was below him at least. Where was her spirit? Heaven? A different plane of existence? He didn't know but he wished he could join her, the tears threatening and he blinked them away. He could still feel the ache from the kicks.

Everything trembling, his finger stretched toward the letters on the stone. He was leaving. Or at least not going back. He was done with his father and he didn't care if he starved or froze on the streets. Anything to be away from his control.

He wanted to lay down on top of this grave and go to sleep. He needed his mother, needed her. Not memories. Not thoughts and imagination, he needed her. In the cold air and the darkness, the stone gleaming in the moonlight, he felt that he was denied this.

"Craig?" He whipped around at the sound of his name, his first thought that it was his father. Well, he wouldn't go with him. He'd run until he couldn't run anymore. He wouldn't get beaten again. He wouldn't.

"Craig?" It wasn't his father, it was Joey. Joey had yelled at him, told him to leave Angela alone. Fine.

Joey didn't understand, and he couldn't understand.

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Albert sat in the house, the sky darkening, no lights on and the gloom gathering around him. He'd been shaken by what he had done, standing in his son's empty bedroom with the golf club in his hand. He'd slammed it into the walls and against the floor, his anger a vicious dog that had slipped the leash. But another part of him thanked God that Craig wasn't there.

Now he sat at the kitchen table, nervous habits reasserting themselves. He bit his manicured nails. He drummed them on the table top, the staccato rhythm increasing the worry like jungle drums. He had no recourse. What could he do? Call the police?

The police were out of the question. If they found him, if, might Craig tell them about being hurt and scared and beaten? He might.

Albert sat, the night winding itself up, peering into the darkness and not seeing anything. What dangers lurked? He knew. Craig was young, a target for all kinds of unsavory people. Drug addicts and thieves and perverts and all of that, the horror he saw come through the emergency room.

He waited, praying in the vague, agnostic fashion. His hands together and pointing toward the sky. Please let him be okay.

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"I'm fine!" Craig said, jumping up from his crouch, walking away as Joey walked toward him. He was fine, and it was true. He was fine now. He'd escaped his father's house. He'd been pulled from the train tracks as the train rushed toward him.

Joey looked at him with a deep sadness that Craig didn't like. He didn't like to feel like the worm swinging on the end of that pity hook. Everything was fine, perfectly fine.

"Oh yeah, look at you. What's this I hear about a train?"

Over Joey's shoulder Craig could see Sean, his head down, hands shoved deep into his pockets.

"Did Sean tell you that?" he said, "well he's a liar,"

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When the phone rang Albert grabbed it, and he was surprised at the calm tone in his voice.

"Hello?"

"Albert, it's Joey," His old bitter feelings toward Joey rose up like bile in his mouth. He swallowed them back because he knew Joey was calling about Craig.