The way the sun came in so strong into his bedroom in the morning, it made the bruises on his ribs and chest and stomach look terrible. Craig sucked in his breath and just stared at them. It hurt, too. Every time he breathed in it hurt. He reached out one finger to touch the worst one, a red raw scrape from the worst kick. He put his shirt on over it, wincing as the light material touched his skin. At least now he looked okay, not like some war refugee or some poor frightened kid who ran afoul of the gangs in L.A. He was the son of a well to do, rich surgeon in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He shouldn't be staring at bruises from a beating in the morning before school in his room with all the toys and shiny gadgets and all the thick carpeting and solid oak furniture the rich son of a rich doctor could expect.

Going downstairs, feeling the dread gather in his stomach at the thought of facing his father, his hand trailing lightly on the banister down the stairs. He could see the sun from the kitchen windows in the hall, and he could hear the hiss and gurgle of the coffee pot, the soft rattle of the newspaper. He held his breath for a moment, touching his ribs through the shirt and feeling the sharp pain, and with it sharp anger. How could his father do that to him? How? You couldn't just, you couldn't just kick someone and punch them and strap them. He remembered the feeling of the cool cement cellar floor on his cheek as his father's kicks landed squarely against his rib cage.

"Craig," his father said, and his tone was cautious, and contrite, and sorry, and there was a hint of denial. There was a hint of blame. Because these beatings were Craig's fault, his father believed, to some degree, they were always his fault.

"Hey, dad," he said, trying not to wince in front of him, despite feeling the pain with every breath he took, and even feeling it when he spoke. He wondered, not for the first time, if something was broken. Something like a rib, the sharp shard of it ready to puncture his lung.

He sat down gingerly, and felt relief when he was sitting and not in too much pain. One time, he remembered, he couldn't sit for almost a week without feeling an excruciating sharp pain, and it made him think of those old shows from the fifties where some kid gets in trouble and their dad whips them or straps them or whatever and the kid can't sit and the canned laughter plays out over the ending credits. He saw that story line once on an old episode of "Growing Pains" and that show was from the eighties. Ben had blamed the neighbor kid for making 900 number calls to some sex hot line when in fact Ben had done it himself, but before the truth came out the neighbor kid's father had beat him. He remembered watching it with a strange feeling.

He wondered what would happen if he marched into the nurses' office this morning, lifted up his shirt and said, "look, my dad did this," What would happen then? He closed his eyes and thought about Emma's mom, and Mr. Simpson, and Joey. When he'd been at Emma's, playing with Angie, he'd watched the adults from the corner of his eye. They were drinking, wine coolers mostly, some beers. They seemed laid back, easy going, respectful of Emma and also of him and Manny. He knew the worst punishment Emma probably ever got was grounding, being sent to her room, crying into her pillow. She wasn't rich like he was, or his dad was. Their town house was run down, shabby, the rugs were old and it all needed updating, not like his own sleek modern stainless steel home, with accent walls and knotty oak beams stretching across cathedral ceilings. Emma never stared at bruised ribs in the morning, she never wondered about broken bones and internal bleeding and doubling over with the sharp pain that could come, without warning in the days after the beatings. She never knew the bone zero fear of the change in a parent's tone of voice, the bone zero fear of a certain narrowing of the eyes. His envy of her was sharp. The comfort he had felt at her house was shot through with the sadness that it wasn't his life.

Being driven to school by his father, and he was quiet. Looking down. He didn't know what to say. He was breathing in this shallow way so as not to cause that pull on his ribs that caused the shooting pain. With every movement he could feel the material of his shirt rubbing up against the bruises, the raw scrapes from the kicks. He wished he'd remembered to take some Tylenol in the morning but he forgot, and he'd go to the nurse and claim he had a headache. He did. His head thumped dully.

"Here," his father said as his hand was on the door handle, ready to leave. Craig paused and looked at the wad of money in his father's hand, neatly held together by one of his fancy money clips. Craig took the money, knowing what it was. He closed his eyes, fighting feeling sick. This money was his father's apology, his bribe, his insurance that things were okay. Craig didn't know if things were okay anymore. That last beating in the cellar, the kicks coming fast and furious after he'd been thrown to the floor, the wind knocked out of him, he knew that things would continue this way. No matter what he did, or didn't do, he'd come home to a beating sooner or later. He knew it now. All the money in the world wouldn't change it.

"No hard feelings?" his father said, and Craig looked at him for the first time that whole morning. All he saw in his father's eyes was sorrow. Sorrow wasn't enough to make him stop, and Craig felt himself choking on the hard feelings. He could feel it all backing up on him, the times he'd watched the black leather belt arc in the air over his head, coming down sure and swift on his back, his shoulders, his butt. The leather belt made this snapping sound in the air, some crack of all the air molecules around it. That sound was pain to him. He remembered all the times his wrists had been squeezed in his father's fists and he was brought forward, up and off his feet to stare across the two or three inches into his father's face, and whatever tears and pleas he might have meant nothing.

"No hard feelings," he echoed, looking down and away, the money thick in his hand. He got out of the car and didn't look back.

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Emma had listened to what Joey had said to Craig at her mom's party. She took it all in. Joey's chagrinned look and tone, his way of saying, 'hey, this isn't my idea but…' and Craig's dark look, almost shutting down as Joey explained that his dad had said he couldn't see him or Angie, his own little sister. Emma had looked and listened, and she read the fear in Craig's tone and his face when he asked, or accused, Joey of having talked to his father.

"Wait, you talked to him?" She knew fear when she saw it, and she was seeing it then. It played over his features like some actor's expressions in an Oscar winning role.

"He came down to the dealership," Joey had said, and that was when Craig shut down. Emma had looked, listened, tried to figure it out. What kind of father would keep his son from seeing his own sister? He obviously adored her. She'd watched him playing with her, paying far more attention to her than to herself or Manny.

Both herself and Manny had a crush on this new boy, with his tallness, his slender frame, his dark curly hair, and his dark hazel eyes. He was nice, and charming, looking into their eyes when he spoke to them, but he did have a tragic aspect that was hopelessly romantic to them. Emma had assumed it came from the death of his mother a few years earlier. But maybe it came from something else.

In the way of eighth graders Emma and Manny delighted in their crush, and thought if anything came of it they could somehow share him, both of them basking in his tragic sphere of attention. Emma was mad at Sean, and happy to have someone new to be interested in. Manny was falling into real love for the first time, but she couldn't yet differentiate it from the other harmless crushes she'd experienced before.

She watched Craig walk off, waving, saying a careless thanks and calling her mom Ms. Nelson. She saw the slump of his shoulders, the slowness of his walk, and she read the dread in all those details. He didn't want to go home. She imagined why. His father would yell at him, hit him. It only added to his allure. Now she had someone to save. She'd always been drawn to helpless things, kittens in soggy boxes, lost dogs trailing a leash, the tree that would soon be cut down. There was a warrior inside the skinny blond knobby kneed package of Emma Nelson.

"What was that about?" she demanded of Joey as Craig became a speck in the distance.

"Nothing,"

She narrowed her eyes at him, so mad at him for having made Craig leave. She liked being near him, listening to his sexy, scratchy voice. She liked seeing the way he ducked his head. She hadn't wanted him to leave.

"C'mon, Joey," she said, folding her arms.

"Okay, his dad doesn't want him to be around me or Ang. I don't know why. But he's his dad, and I don't have any rights to Craig, not anymore,"

"Yeah, but Joey, Angie is his sister-"

"It doesn't matter. Albert, his father, he's strict. Let's say," Joey said, his face evasive, wishing the grilling by Emma was over.

"Strict?"

"Yeah. Strict. So if he doesn't want Craig around us, that's that. What can I do?"

"You can fight, Joey! It isn't fair, it's his sister, jeez!"

"Life isn't fair, Emma,"

She'd pouted the rest of the party, and Manny pouted right along with her. Spike had laughed at them, feeling her two wine coolers. Snake had smiled indulgently, recognizing the love sick looks. He thought of Craig and how he'd been asleep in homeroom on the very first day of school, and while sleeping in school wasn't all that unusual, Craig's startled reaction to being awoken was. Before he composed himself and recognized his surroundings Snake had seen a look of near terror in the kid's eyes.

"Emma, I don't want Craig around Angie, alright?" Joey said later that night, the soft blackness outside seeming to press against the old windows.

"No, Joey, I'm not going to be a part of this mess,"

"She's my daughter, and I'm telling you I don't want him around her," he said, trying not to freak out on her, knowing the convictions that lay in that little heart.

"Why? Are you afraid of his father, too?"

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Later in the evening Emma's words came back to him as he laid Angie down in bed, her thin pajamas rippling around her, her dark curls sticking to her forehead. She looked so much like her mother that it physically hurt his heart, sometimes, to look at her. Craig looked like his mother, too. They both had the curly hair, the shape of her eyes, certain expressions. Was he afraid of Albert?

Downstairs, opening a bottle of wine and pouring a little into an oversized glass, he swirled it and watched the play of the lights on the deep red liquid. Was he happy that Craig had reappeared? When Julia died he had moved with Albert to somewhere, he wasn't even sure where. He hadn't seen him in at least three years. The last time, before today, had been the funeral. The funeral. That day, and the days all around it were a sick haze of going through the motions. It had felt nightmarish, a cruel compliment to their wedding day. All the same people were there, all the flowers, and once again he and Julia were the star of the show. He'd looked at her still and pale face in the satin lining of the coffin, reached out one finger to touch those dark curls one last time.

He'd rather not have to deal with Albert at all. Things were understandably bitter between them, they'd loved the same woman but he had won. They both had lost in the end, and they both were left with their children to remind them of the love they once had, and they were both left to raise a motherless child. If Albert didn't want Craig to associate with them he'd just have to respect that, even if he didn't agree. He was happy enough to let him raise his son, and he'd raise his daughter.

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"He was kind of a funny kid, huh?" Spike said to Snake as they sat on the ratty old couch in the muted blue glow of the T.V.

"Yeah, the girls seemed to like him," Snake said, laughing.

"Yeah," she said, shaking her head at Emma liking someone, being old enough to think that way, to feel that way, "but he seemed, I don't know, like something was wrong. Like he was hiding the fact that something was wrong,"

Snake shook his head. He didn't know what to make of Craig yet. His radar had been alerted that morning he fell asleep in class. Sleeping in class was a bit of a warning sign. Maybe it was as simple as a kid staying up too late playing video games. As simple and innocent as that. But it could connote alcohol or drug use, some disturbed home life, nightmares, abuse, something, anything.