Prologue

“Paul?” my wife called softly from the door to my office.

“Huh? Oh, sorry,” I said. Then I shook my head to clear my thoughts. “How long have you been standing there?”

“Not long ... a few minutes. You were thinking.”

“About her,” I said, nodding at my wife’s tactfully unspoken question.

She smiled in understanding, her eyes full of sadness and comfort. Then she walked around and leaned against the edge of my desk.

“I guess I’ve been sitting here a while,” I admitted, “just thinking about her.” Then I looked at my watch. Two hours had passed since I’d talked to the lawyer. Two hours and half a lifetime. Once again, I shook off the past and focused my thoughts. “When do you want to tell the girls?” I asked.

“Tonight,” she said. “After dinner.”

I nodded.

“I thought I’d cut up veggies for stir-fry while you pick up Laurie from practice,” she said, changing the subject to the routine of our lives.

I was glad for the distraction. “What time do I have to be there?” I asked.

“They’re usually through by seven.”

“Okay. What about Emily and Susie?”

“Em’s at Missy’s house,” she said. “I told her to be home by seven. And Susie’s at dance class. I’m picking her up before I go to the grocery store.”

“That reminds me,” I said. “I need to tell Trip and Wren about the funeral.”

“They’ll want to go,” my wife said, nodding. “You can tell them in person if you stop by their house and pick up Em on the way to get Laurie.”

“Yeah, that’s a good idea. But before then, I’ve got a million things I need to do,” I said. “I need to call the office to tell them I’ll be out of town for a few days. And before we leave, I’ve got Bread Company drawings to approve. I’ll also need to have someone cover a Taipei conference call for me. I’ve got to call the airport and tell them to have the company plane fueled and ready for tomorrow evening. I need to have my black suit pressed—”

“I’ll take care of your suit,” she said. “I can drop it off when I pick up Susie. Then I’ll pick it up tomorrow after the girls and I go shopping for dresses.”

“Thanks,” I said. Then I paused and shook my head in reflection. “When did our lives get so busy?” I asked semi-rhetorically. “It wasn’t like this when we were younger.”

She smiled in gentle reproach. “Yes it was, honey,” she said. “Even before we were married, we were constantly busy.”

“Yeah, I guess we were,” I said with a rueful laugh. “But life still seemed less complicated then.”

“It wasn’t.”

“No, I guess you’re right.”

With a smile, she leaned down and kissed my forehead.

I pulled her onto my lap and she laid her head on my shoulder. Then I wrapped my arms around her and rested my cheek against the top of her head. I took a deep breath and savored the fresh scent of her hair. We sat like that for a few minutes, simply holding each other in comfortable silence.

“I’d better let you get busy,” she said at last. “You’ve got lots of calls to make.”

I nodded absently.

“Be sure to call your parents, too,” she said as she stood and smoothed her shorts. “You need to tell them when to meet us at the airport.”

“Okay, I’ll call them.”

With that, I blew her a kiss. As she closed the door behind her, I stared at the phone for a long moment. Even though I had a myriad of things to do, my mind was a million miles away.

I was thinking about the past.

I think we all remember the past as a less complicated, more carefree time. But our memories are dimmed by the passage of time. The minutia of life fades into the background, overshadowed by major events.

When I left home for college, my future seemed certain. I looked forward to learning new things, and to basking in the satisfaction of accomplishment. Unfortunately, I had no idea that so many of life’s major trials lay before me. Nor had I tasted the bitter bile of failure or felt the pain of loss.

In retrospect, college wasn’t such a carefree time after all. The first year was the hardest. Some things came easily, but I discovered that success wouldn’t be handed to me on a silver platter like it had been in high school.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but the crucible of college made me stronger; in more ways than one, it tempered me.

Chapter 1 »