At first glance, the broad, maize-colored disc of the moon resembled nothing so much as the admonishing eye of God, spilling turbid dissatisfaction on Nick’s transgressions. As he stepped into the starless night, Nick made a mental footnote of being alone on the street. Shouldn’t somebody be out? Visiting their friends? Delivering Chinese take-out? Racing home from work to the open arms of a husband or a wife, the open legs of a mistress?

Or those of a sister-in-law with a drug habit?

Sure, it was a shitty thing he’d done. Sure, a wife’s pregnancy is no excuse for balling her twenty-year old cokehead sister, no matter how blonde said sister might be, no matter how fucking fantastic her rack is, no matter how willing she is to occasionally give up a little ass in exchange for money she’ll doubtless use to buy more coke.

Nick lifted his eye to the window of the apartment he and Lisa had shared for the past eight years. Her riding him about his alleged “drinking problem” had ruined another evening. Was she still crying? Nick felt his heart sink within its bone cage. Never meant to hurt her. Deep inside her, beneath all the undeserved pain and sorrow he’d dealt her over the years, Nick hoped this knowledge remained; especially since Nick, cursed with his father’s temper, was no more likely to change his spots than the old man had been…