His father walked out the front door and his sister and her two children followed. After a proper hug and greeting from his family Tom turned and pull...d his duffel from the truck.The whole family group headed toward the house jabbering and talking, trying to catch up as fast as possible. Tom looked toward the porch once again and stumbled. There was a beautiful woman standing watching the family walk toward her. She had a tentative smile on her face and looked nervous.Tom stopped a moment then. Scruffy, but I suspected that was because she wasn’t getting as much sleep as she should with a new baby, although my only experience of that at that time was through a friend of my ex-wife. She did, however, have a lovely smile. On the first few occasions we merely exchanged a friendly greeting and she petted Scruffy who could take any amount of that. I assumed that she lived in the village, but I left it at that since she was really only one of a number of people that I met when I was out. "As I understand, it's a question of strategy and having the right tools for the job. We are not ostrichs with our heads in sand," he grinned, "but Generals think they know how to win wars. Stalin, he thinks he knows because his people keep telling him he's right in everything. It maybe not a good idea to tell one's boss he doesn't know anything, right? John, you need to be more, ah, diplomatic, yes? You need to learn to grovel a little, maybe? You piss Mikoyan off, yes? He is, ah, liked by big. It was an ugly divorce and had left Jack in a deep depression. It had taken him several years before he was truly over it. He regretted that he had missed so much time of his daughters life. Between losing himself to the drink and trying to continue to hold on to his job, he had little time left to be in Emily's life.Eventually time and a few work friends had brought Jack back around. He laid off the sauce and refocused his efforts at work. After securing his own career future with a promotion.