Albert had picked up his son with his usual grim expression, and Joey waved foolishly as the stylish sports car pulled away. His wife didn't wave, she sat on the couch, what remained of her luxurious dark curly hair wrapped in a colorful bandana.

His wife had cancer, and had nearly succumbed but then the combination of chemo and radiation had shrunk the tumor, and it had continued to shrink until the doctors had shakily admitted it was remission. Remission was the blessed hopeful word of all cancer patients. But the doctors were loath to stop the chemo just yet.

Craig, his step-son, was 14, and his wife was still too sick maybe to notice anything. Joey had noticed. There was a distance in Craig's eyes, and there were unexplained bruises. Oh, he had explanations for them, for every last one. Falls, falls from skateboards and bikes, fights in school yards and parks. But Joey had known Craig a long time and had never known him to be clumsy, clumsy enough to fall from bikes and skateboards. And he'd never known him to be a particularly aggressive kid, the type of kid that would get into fights. He didn't believe him.

"Julia," he said, hearing a whine in his own tone he didn't like. This thing was Julia's call. He shared equally with her decisions regarding their five year old, Angie. But when matters concerned Craig he was more like an assistant coach who could mouth suggestions. The final call rested with Julia.

She looked at him, her sunken cheeks, her over large glassy eyes. She was getting better. She no longer resembled a skeleton with skin draped lovingly over it. The glazed look in her eyes and the severely chapped lips had gone, and she was eating and drinking again. Snatched from the brink, he thought, and breathed his own shaky sighs of relief. What would he ever have done without her?

"I'm worried about Craig," he said.

"Craig's fine," she said in her best, 'end of discussion' tone.

"He's fine? Julia, the kid comes in here with new bruises all the time, bruises in the shape of fingerprints. Now how do you suppose he gets those?"

The bruises he had seen were pretty concrete, but there was more than that, and he found it hard to articulate. Craig was jumpy. He was jumpy and he was trying to hide it but Joey saw. He saw the tenseness of his shoulders, he saw the little jerks of his muscles when people were loud, when things were loud, when people moved too fast. He saw this dull resignation in his eyes. He saw his mood change as Albert's arrival came closer. He was distracted. He was quieter. Albert was abusing him, it was clear as day to him. Why couldn't Julia see?

"From, from fights-"

"You believe that bullshit about fights?" He snapped at her, and saw the pain fill her eyes. He didn't want to cause her pain of any kind. But he couldn't let Craig suffer. Julia was being blind.

"He said-"

"I know what he said, but he's lying. Julia, he's lying,"

"Albert isn't hurting him," she said, stubborn. So stubborn.

"Oh no? Did you see him walk to his car? The kid looked like he was walking to prison, for god's sake. Albert is hurting him. We have to, we have to do something,"

That was easier said than done. Albert was rich. Albert was a bastard. He could make doing something very tough, very tricky. He knew his wife feared him still, all these years after the dissolution of their marriage. He knew she was employing some type of denial. She left Craig with him and he therefore could not be hurting him. It didn't square with her world view, it didn't square with her vision of what was, of existence itself. She was believing what she wanted to believe, what she had to believe.

Doubt filled her face, little cracks like in a ming vase thousand of years old. Then she shook the doubt away.

"Albert wouldn't hurt him," she said.

He shook his head. Had the pain meds and chemo blurred her vision? Craig was an abused child if he had ever seen one, and he had, years ago. What was that kid's name? He couldn't recall, but he remembered his messy sandy blond hair and worn blue jeans, he remembered his father, that distracted angry man in a worn business suit and out of style tie. They weren't wealthy like Albert was, but that guy had the same tense edginess that Albert had. He had the same hair trigger temper.