Prompt: Show your reader a business man who is facing a tough personal decision. Don't tell (such as: John wanted a divorce but was having a hard time figuring out how to tell his wife) but show us the character as he struggles with the thoughts and feelings that reveal his predicament.

Dr. John, as he was known by his patients, stared at the bottom of his coffee cup. He desperately wanted another mug full--hot, black and strong--but knew in the back of his mind it wasn't a good idea. How could he be preaching lifestyle changes if he wasn't willing to make them himself? Three pots of coffee a day couldn't be healthy.

He should go home and sleep instead. He imagined the living room of his house, which he hadn't seen in days, strewn with crayons and coloring books, half-dressed dolls with shaggy hair, and video game controllers tossed down on the couch as though they were pillows. Somewhere in the midst of the chaos his wife would be hard at work on something that he was clueless about.

John felt he was pretty much clueless about whatever it was that happened at home.

Both he and Stacy had expected that their lives would be like this. Between consultations, surgeries, and babies that came into the world as they pleased, they understood from the start that there would never be a schedule in their married life. What they didn't count on was the outrageous malpractice insurance and the fact that so many so many of his colleagues would decide to quit practicing. They had no idea that the work load would grow like this, that he would at times be out of the house for days on end, just caring for the endless stream of patients and paperwork. But there it was. So many had opted out....

How could he do that? How could he just walk out on Eileen Phillips who had been trying to carry a baby to term for four years now and was on the brink of delivering a full-term baby boy. She trusted him. She relied on him. Behind her there was little Angie Thompson, newly married thanks to her impending arrival and scared beyond reason. He was beginning to help her understand that she really had little to fear about birthing a baby. Then there was Constance Brown and her husband Evan who would might have been fighting an incredible package of guilt right now had they not been able to come to him and talk frankly about whether to continue a pregnancy that was unexpected. He could continue the list of women as long as his arm that were looking to him as one of the two remaining obstetricians that practiced at the local hospital. How could he dump all that work on Dr. Henderson, especially when he had put in his time and was due to retire within the next five years?

John fingered the pictures on his desk. Madison at two, with sunlight caught in her golden curls and her cheek nestled against her new puppy. He couldn't even remember what she'd named the dog who had since grown into a package almost bigger than she was. And then Ethan, pudgy and content and smiling the toothless smile of a healthy infant. Only he wasn't an infant anymore. The picture was almost two years old. Then there was Charlie. Charlie, who was perpetually mad at him for one reason or another, and he could never sit down with him long enough to dissolve it. He was growing that long jawline, and his legs and arms were turning into long spindly things, his voice cracking and squeaking, especially when he was biting out angry words and fighting back disappointment. He would be gone before long. In more ways than one, John was certain.

How could he miss any more of the lives of his very own children? How could he face his old age knowing he'd been a perfectly competent and involved doctor, but a perfectly absent, uninvolved father?

Besides the patients there was the money issue. What on earth would he do if he didn't have his practice?

Wearily John pushed his chair back and crossed over to the coffee pot. He had to be awake to discuss this with Stacy who was coming down to the hospital in a few hours to have breakfast with him. He couldn't wrestle it alone anymore. He couldn't even begin to predict what she would say; that's how distant they had become over the past year. Maybe she'd have ideas he'd not considered. He remembered that she used to surprise him that way from the beginning and wondered why he had waited till now to tap into her wisdom. No, no. Something had to give. He just didn't think it could be his family that did all the giving anymore.