The night before, after the girls were asleep, I sat at the dining room table with my laptop open and revised my slides until nearly midnight.
Emily came down once in her robe and asked if I was ever coming to bed.
“Soon,” I told her.
She smiled in that tired, loving way wives do when they know you’re chasing something bigger than the moment.
“Don’t miss your own funeral,” she said.
So there in the lobby of the place that had just thrown me away, I told her.
Not every detail.
Just enough.
The presentation.
The missed calls.
The client leaving.
Nick firing me.
Her expression changed as I spoke.
The softness in it hardened into disbelief, then anger.
By the time I finished, she looked like she was holding herself back from marching deeper into the office and setting the building on fire with her eyes.
