That kind of man you keep.
Then I did the thing nobody expected, least of all me.
I stepped back.
I didn’t want the glass tower.
I never had.
I’d built it to hold a marriage, and the marriage was gone, so I kept a controlling interest, a board seat, and my name finally on the paperwork where it belonged — and I handed the daily empire to people who actually wanted it.
With the rest of my days, I bought a wheel.
A real one, and a kiln, and a drafty studio outside town with north light and a concrete floor I didn’t have to keep clean.
My hands remembered more than I expected.
The first bowls were lopsided and I loved them anyway.
These days there’s clay under my fingernails more often than not, and I sell mugs at a weekend market to people who have no idea what I’m worth and no reason to care.
