Chapter 25 - Malcolm Learns to Delegate
Malcolm’s board renewed his CEO contract.
He considered declining.
Not because of scandal.
Because the past year exposed how narrow his life had become.
Meridian.
Deals.
Flights.
Board dinners.
Celeste had not invented his emotional absence.
She exploited it.
Malcolm negotiated something unusual for himself.
More delegation.
A president beneath him.
Fewer operational decisions.
A firm vacation calendar.
Evelyn laughed when he told her.
“You discovered work-life balance at forty.”
“I’m thirty-nine.”
“For six more days.”
He groaned.
He also began therapy.
Quietly at first.
Then stopped treating it as secret.
His issue was not trauma in some dramatic sense.
It was control.
Like everyone else.
He had hidden behind competence.
If he could solve enough problems, nobody could accuse him of needing anyone.
Celeste had correctly predicted he would hate divorce.
Because public failure threatened the identity he built.
He wanted a life where leaving a harmful relationship did not feel like failure.
That work belonged to him.
Not Evelyn.
Not Nia.
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