to stay calm under pressure. I had survived impossible deadlines, demanding clients, and conference rooms filled with executives who loved testing newcomers. I considered myself unshakeable. That was my first mistake.
Then I saw my husband’s face in a silver picture frame sitting on another woman’s desk.
For a second, my mind tried to protect me. It’s a common psychological defense—the brain refuses to process a trauma that hits too fast. Maybe it was someone who looked like him, I told myself. Maybe the angle was strange. Maybe the sharp
