He didn’t mention that his mother still sometimes woke at 3 a.m. convinced the coffin had been real.
Markets dipped, panicked, and remembered themselves. Comment sections burned for a week and then moved on to the next outrage.
The board called with apologies that melted when he asked for accountability. A few resigned. A few doubled down.
He began the slow, unglamorous work of cleaning house.
Moving to France
On the night before he was due back in the office full time, he found me on the deck, a blanket around my shoulders, watching the dark ocean heave.
“Pierre invited us to France,” he said, a dare wrapped in kindness. “Not for a visit. For six months. I can run most of the company remotely while we rebuild. I need distance. I want to know where half my face comes from.”
He took my hand. “Come with me.”
Six months is either everything or nothing.
I thought about my small apartment with its wall of books and its dripping bathroom faucet.
I thought about the life I had stitched together after Thomas died, the routines that had kept me from unraveling.
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