7.

The evening period between five when he usually got home and eight when all three girls were finally asleep was always the toughest part of the day. Will figured it was because somehow they had a secret stash of Mountain Dew and Ecstasy that they got into right before he got home. Opening the garage door that led to the family room usually brought loud and colorful explosions. Claire would pop up and give him a hug as soon as he stepped through the door, telling him something silly one of the boys did in her second grade class. Emma would wander over to him saying "Daddy!" and hug him and then ask for his phone. Ashley might look at him with her "meh" glance but usually would be focused on one of her dolls.

Dinner was rowdy and the odds were fifty-fifty that all three girls would be sitting at the table with them. With lots of screaming and sometimes crying or whining or laughing or throwing food. It was a little bit of chaos that sometimes calmed down by the time the girls got into their beds. But their moods and energy and willingness to obey were all a bit like the wind outside. You never knew which way it was going to blow and how fierce it might be.

Will's joke to anybody who listened was that the girls often led him to drink. After the recent incident and the subsequent talk with Tricia, Will had realized that it wasn't such a funny thing after all. There was always a little bit of truth in every joke, right? It was only recently that Will had discovered his means of surviving those dinnertime hours and trying to relax was by getting the wine to do it for him. This realization didn't change any habits, however. He'd get around to that whenever life slowed down.

"Daddy!"

It didn't matter who was screaming because they were all screaming for him at different times. Will was watching the news and waiting to tell his wife the news, but he knew it had to be in those eighteen seconds between the time the girls went to bed and the moment Tricia started to drift asleep. She'd get comfortable on the loveseat watching a cooking or a fashion reality show. The loveseat was only large enough for two, so their female Shih Tzu was the only one to share the love.   

"Daddy come downstairs!"

Bedtime was close and he couldn't wait. To get this stuff—this awful adult life-is-hard sort of junk--off his chest. Then he could check it off and start making plans.

A couple of blinks and a couple of glasses of wine and the little girls were asleep. Or in the words of singer/songwriter Leonard Cohen:

Hallelujah.

The time ticked down now before he lost his wife.

"Hey, so I spoke with Victoria today."

This got Tricia's attention since they both knew what that might mean. There was no resting on her side, nor was there any channel-surfing.

"What about?"

He gave a look that he knew told her everything. Her body seemed to deflate for a moment, her head tilting and her eyes focusing closely on him. She suddenly had a familiar look on her face, too. The are you kidding me look.

"They're canceling the book," Will said without any emotion.

The emotion came from her as they spoke about the realities of everything for several minutes. He didn't expect Tricia or anybody else outside of the publishing world to understand the realities involved inside it. He understood her anger and confusion and simply tried to stay calm and collected. Those two words didn't describe him, not deep down, but right now his anger and frustration wouldn't help the situation.

Exasperation. They'd crossed that border a couple of years ago. This was a new one entirely. Desperation? Desolation?

It all depends on the context.

In the context of this room, the one with the juice-box stained carpet and the sofas hiding Cheerios and Cheez-Its, then it definitely could be put into the emergency category. But in the blinding light of the rest of the world, one that kept cracking apart like poorly made peanut brittle,