He has six children. He knows this the way he knows his PIN code. Two marriages. The first one ended quietly. Simply because no one was home enough. The second one is still technically running. He is not sure what that means.
He was good at his job. Better than good.
There were years when walking into a room changed the room. People straightened up. People wanted to be near him.
He built something that gets you invited to speak at conferences, that gets your name said in the right meetings. He liked that. He would not have called it padding on the shoulders, but that is what it was.
The kids were always going to get more of him. Next quarter. After this project. When things settled.
Things did not settle.
Things never settle, but he kept meaning to.
His oldest is thirty-one now. She runs her own business. He found out through LinkedIn. The youngest is nine. He has a photo of her on his desk. She is smiling at someone just outside the frame.
He goes to the office less now. The people who looked up to him have retired. The ones who replaced them are polite but do not straighten up when he walks in. The room stays the same. He has started to notice this.
His hair went from blond to grey. He is not sure when. He is not sure about a lot of things that happened slowly.
He calls his children on birthdays. Most of them pick up. They are kind to him, in the careful way people are kind to someone they do not really know. He raised them to be kind. He thinks.
He built a life. A real life. It has weight and evidence and a Wikipedia entry that someone else will update when he dies.
His children have built lives too. Without him. Not out of anger. He just isn’t part of it.
He still goes to dinner parties. He still tells the story of the company, the years, the climb. People listen. He is good at the story.
On the drive home he is quiet.
His wife asks if he is okay. He says yes.
He is trying to remember the last time one of his children called him first.