It's a quiet evening, with few more plans made up for tomorrow

The rest of the day was fairly uneventful, even if Jack was still troubled by Samantha's visit, and that was still nothing compared to some other things he was **** to consider. Such as work, for example. He'd still not heard a word from his old boss, and he didn't look forwards to calling, if just to confirm that he'd actually been sacked for good. Not that he wished to go back there in the slightest, but if that was the case he really needed to get a new job as soon as possible.

The fact that he'd not even told his daughters yet was another major part of the problem of course, and he still didn't know how to explain why he wouldn't go to work the next morning. Perhaps he could simply leave the house for most part of the day, to do something else, but that would just be an even bigger lie than what he'd been telling them so far.

For all those reasons it certainly wasn't easy to relax during the day, and he found himself unnecessarily grumpy and short-tempered, just like he'd been at the start of the week. Which in turn made him feel even worse, especially as he felt like it ruined the relations he'd built up with his kids during the last few days, and for more reasons than that he was seriously starting to doubt his own capabilities as a father.

Somehow they all went on like usual however, and Jack finally realized that this was just the way that things had been for quite a long time. He'd almost never been at home with his family for a full day before, and even when they tried to enjoy some time together he'd always been authoritative rather than sociable.

It was a harsh realization, and something he'd be **** to put some deep thought into one day, but that too was put on a bit of a hold while he still just tried to figure out what to do the next morning. Surprisingly, the girls seemed to enjoy his company all the same, even if in some ways they actually weren't much better than himself at expressing their feelings.

Catherine, for example, had always been trying to provoke him with her way of dressing or flirtatious manners, but even then she never really stood up to confront him when he tried to rebuke her. She wasn't just doing all that for fun though, and sometimes it seemed like she was simply doing her best to get close to him, even if Jack had never understood her means of doing so.

Jennifer, on the other hand, seemed like the absolute opposite, who always did her best to never stick out, and often pleaded for help as if she only wanted to make him feel useful. He'd seen the same behavior with Shirley as well, but never applied the same rules to any of their daughters, most likely because he'd rarely thought so much about them in the first place.

Lastly, Kimberly was always at the center of attention, and perhaps the only one who was constantly trying to appease him, though even that didn't always work since he usually just found her by far too noisy. Then again she'd never been any more clingy than her sisters, which could also be blamed on himself for not letting anyone close, except for his wife.

All of those things were just giving Jack a serious headache however, and at the end of the day he wasn't even sure if he'd learned something new from those insights. He did find a way to delay the bad news about his work for the next morning however, and late that evening he made some nighttime sandwiches, so that it would look like he'd already been up and left before the girls got up in the morning.

That way he figured they too would leave for school or work like usual, and give him the whole day to think about what he could tell them when they returned back home again. It also gave him some chance to sleep a bit longer in the morning, which was a rare thing indeed. But on the other hand he wasn't surprised at all when he woke up early as always, despite some serious trouble with falling asleep that night...