For the next week life got back to normal for Brett. His emotion seemed to settle down and true to his own promise he never picked up the water hose.

There was a new closeness to his kids that he could feel and sense, but the tension in the air with Shelly seemed to go the other way. It felt

like they were playing house. Being cordial, attentive, but something was missing. There was a level of uneasiness that hung in the air like

a rain cloud. The conversations they had started eight days earlier were unfinished,

unresolved. It seemed neither of them knew what to say or perhaps didn't want to say the things that were stirring inside.

Brett could feel the heaviness of the unfinished discussions weighing down on him.

He knew that Cherry would feel it too.

He knew that sometime, sometime soon, the dam was going to burst.

On the ninth day, Brett powered through his work.

At least that had been going well.

Somehow the connection he made with his children had invigorated him somewhat, made him more

enthusiastic about, well, life.

It was about 3 p.m. on Friday afternoon, about an hour before Brett was going to call it quits when a Facebook

message alert popped up on his computer screen. It was Tommy. Almost 10 days later

and he finally messaged Brett back.

Hey, it's Friday.

Want to grab a drink old friend?

Brett stared at the message for a good two minutes.

He glanced over at the picture of Sherry and the kid that was

propped on the corner of his desk. He knew things were delicate at home that

going out for a drink with his childhood best friend probably wasn't the best idea.

Yeah I'm in Tommy how about the whiskey room down on third street

...