I changed my life. I stepped back from the relentless travel and the acquisitions that had made me a stranger in my own home. My company survived me being more of a father and less of a machine — companies always do; children don’t get a second childhood. I’m here now. School pickups, breakfast, bedtime, all of it. The thing I almost lost by not paying attention, I now pay attention to above everything else.
Marisol is still with us. She’ll be with us forever, as far as I’m concerned. She’s not the housekeeper anymore, not really — she’s the woman who helped me raise my daughters, who protected them when I failed to, who loved them when it cost her and offered her nothing. My girls have two people who’d walk through fire for them now: their father, finally awake, and the woman who was awake the whole time.
