Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 82940 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 415(@200wpm)___ 332(@250wpm)___ 276(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82940 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 415(@200wpm)___ 332(@250wpm)___ 276(@300wpm)
It turned out his diagnosis wasn’t that unusual: He was suffering from stress and burnout. Humiliatingly, what he’d thought had been cardiac arrest was in fact a panic attack. Naturally, no one, but no one, knew the truth. When he’d emerged from the hospital hours later, embarrassed and chastened, the doc’s words rang in his ears.
“It was a panic attack this time. Consider it a warning. You keep going at the pace you are, and the next time you’re in here it will be a heart attack for sure. You want to be dead at forty? Keep on doing what you’re doing.”
It was the kind of dialogue his actors said in movies, not something Jay Malone had ever expected to hear in real life.
However, he’d listened. It hadn’t been easy, but slowly he’d begun to change. He started eating better. He kept up his weightlifting routine, but dialed it back from seven days a week to three, and instead added in swimming, surfing, and wilderness hikes. He would make the effort to take in the beautiful vistas while he walked, listen to the birds sing. Sometimes he even stopped to smell a rose, or pat a dog. He had learned to reconnect with life.
It wasn’t just his body that needed a change, it was his mind too. He’d always been a reader—it was how he’d educated himself. But instead of racing through Plato and Aurelius and Dickens in one sitting, as though he were taking a university of life crash course, he made the effort to slow down and absorb more of what he read. He expanded his choices, reading for pure pleasure rather than self-improvement. Sometimes poetry, sometimes a novel, sometimes a book on history or biology or astronomy, especially now that he was working with Herschel Greenfield.
To his surprise, he’d found he enjoyed old English detective novels written by people like Wilkie Collins and Agatha Christie, and passed whole evenings turning the pages with a small Scotch in hand (well, he couldn’t be a complete angel). He let his staff take on more responsibility. He also changed his relationship to his phone. From being always on, he selectively switched it to Do Not Disturb. There were a few exceptions, of course. Archer Davenport and Smith Sullivan could phone him day or night and he’d always pick up, but there weren’t many other people who made that list. Not many at all.
By that time, he was already successful enough and rich enough that he didn’t have to keep working if he didn’t want to. But he did want to. He loved his work and the thought of giving it up never crossed his mind. Now, a few years later, he still worked hard, still enjoyed the finer things in life, but he made darned sure to take time for himself. Life was precious.
This evening was one of those prized quiet ones when he didn’t have an event to attend or an important meeting and since his day was packed tomorrow, he was relaxing in the new leather chair in his library and re-reading Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time. Herschel had offered to clarify some points he hadn’t understood the first time around.
That was another thing that had changed since his time in hospital. Before the panic attack, he’d exerted so much effort in trying to pretend he always knew everything. Now he’d learned that no one knew everything, and to his mind, a mark of wisdom was not being afraid to ask questions.
He settled his new silver-rimmed reading glasses on his nose, glanced with pleasure around his library, now stocked with books he loved or books he intended to read. His gaze moved to the window, where he noticed a lone surfer out on the water. He loved this view so much, he was always keeping track of who was out there and what they were doing. There’d been a group of them earlier, but now there was only one.
He could tell she was female, and as he watched, he suddenly, instinctively knew it was Erin Davenport.
Something about the way she moved, the way she stood, was as unique as a fingerprint. As she rode closer, her wet hair streamed out behind her, and even though he couldn’t make out her face, he could picture the concentration etched across her usually smooth and unruffled brow.
He smiled. It was strangely comforting to know she was out there, enjoying herself. She was a superb surfer. Technically adept and elegant with it, too. As he watched, he came to realize how much Mila, who had been a world-famous champion surfer, had overshadowed her sister’s abilities. Erin wasn’t a pro-level surfer, but she was a darned good amateur.
How had he never noticed that before? And how much more had he never noticed?