The warning alarm on my computer dings, as it always does at 4:45, reminding me it’s time to push away from my desk and to review the ‘regular day’.

It’s one of my things. I’ve tried to push the habit down on the rest of the company, but most don’t take to it. Work hard, work fast, and do it by taking two fifteen-minute spots to intentionally do nothing except think.

By taking the first fifteen minutes of my day, I lay out exactly what I have to do. I review my long-term goals and then break them down into what I’m going to do that day. Then I get to it.

Of course, the day isn’t always going to go to plan. In fact, a lot of days, things get torpedoed before I even get to lunch. But that’s what this time is for. To reflect, to adjust, and to update my priorities.

There’s nothing fancy to it. I don’t have a meditation rug or trippy ambient music to put me in the proper mood. They’re not needed. I turn away from my desk and close my eyes, letting what happened today wash over me.

It was a good day. The reports I got, the results generated, the plans that I sent out . . . they came back to me in good time and the quality was acceptable.

Still, everything didn’t go to plan. I had to lay into Randall Towlee for his report on the Yakima project. It may not have been as bad as I made it seem, but I expect more from him, so he at least partially deserved some feedback.

Thinking of that early morning confrontation, I feel my heart quicken in my chest and my blood start to flow a little faster. It’s not the memory of Randall Towlee’s report causing it, either.

Randall, for all of his qualifications, is someone who only does what needs to be done. It’s gotten him a long way, but that’s not what I’m about.

I want perfection.

I want to exceed expectations.

But what my mind keeps going back to is the girl. With a few clicks, I review the email list to figure out her name. Mia Karakova. Amazingly, she’s worked for me for years without my seeing her. Apparently, she’s been trapped in the basement with Bill Radcliffe’s team.

But in a glance, I can’t wait to see her again. Her blonde hair hung in cornsilk waves down her back, with a few strands curling over her shoulders, framing a face that shouldn’t have been as pleasing as it is.

Her eyes, while beautiful, are too wide-set, almost doll-like behind funky plastic frames, and her nose was a bit too upturned, naturally pixie-like, and her lips just a bit uneven, as though she’d been biting her puffy bottom one. But all together, somehow, it is sweet perfection.

Everything about her is impossible. Her body’s no lines, all curves, all of them going in different directions but somehow coming harmoniously together in a multifaceted ballet that’s interjected itself into my thoughts.

Her demure, almost shy sexiness inflames me, and I can barely focus for the rest of the fifteen minutes of my meditation. In fact, when five o’clock comes, I realize that I’ve spent the entirety of my meditation time researching her.

But in her very beauty, she scares me. I don’t have a great history with beautiful women, and that history goes all the way back to my childhood.

“You know, Tommy, you’re a very lucky little boy,” Mrs. Franklin tells me as my friend Ben and I enjoy some midafternoon cookies. “What with the mommy you have.”

I don’t really know what she’s talking about. Mommy’s . . . Mommy. I mean, they all have their good points. Mrs. Franklin, for instance, makes the best chocolate chip cookies in the world.

They’re even better than Keebler’s.

“Why?” I ask, trying to use words to explain all my thoughts. It’s really hard, I think because there are ideas running around in my head that I don’t even have the words for yet.

They say I’ll learn more when I go to big kids’ school next year.

“Honey, Grace Goldstone is a classic beauty,” Mrs. Franklin says, her voice sounding both happy and maybe a little angry. “Every time we go shopping, I’m reminded just how much so. Most women would kill to have looks like hers.”

I think about Mommy and shrug. The long cloth thing hanging by the fireplace that says Miss Teen California and the pictures of her with that sparkly thing in her hair say it too. But Mommy’s job until she had me was to be pretty. That’s what she said, at least.

“Honey, before I had you, people paid me thousands of dollars to take my picture,” she’d say. I didn’t quite understand why people would do that, but if Mommy said so, then it was true.

Ben and I finish our cookies, and then it’s time for Ben’s bath, so Mrs. Franklin walks me to the corner. I’m a big boy now. It’s okay for me to walk the other half block to my house by myself. I know to stick to the sidewalk, and when I get to my house, I turn and wave at Mrs. Franklin just like I’m supposed to.

She waves back, and I walk up to my front door. But I stop with my hand on the screen handle as I hear arguing inside.

“How could you, Grace?” Daddy screams. He’s very angry. “In our own bed?”

“It wasn’t like I planned it, Dennis!” Mommy yells back. “It’s not like you’ve been here anyway!”

“What does that matter? I put in long hours—”

“Hey!” I call out, opening the door. “I’m home!”

The memory hits me hard, and I shake my head, trying to blink it away, but it’s already rolling like a movie screen in my mind.

The bus drops me off, and I hurry inside. I open the door, and everything’s quiet. That’s pretty normal. Mommy’s been taking afternoon naps a lot recently, and she sometimes forgets to set her alarm. Checking the bedroom, I see her lying under the blankets, and I let her be.

Adults are weird sometimes.

At school, they make us take naps, and I hate it. Why nap when there’s fun to be had?

But adults, who can stay up late and watch the cool movies, take naps by choice.

Whatever.

I go back to the living room, where I watch cartoons for I’m not sure how long. I just know it’s time to turn it off when the stupid ‘Power Princess’ cartoon comes on.

Finally, I get really hungry, and I put my toys away. Mommy’s still not up, but I can’t really wait anymore, so I walk into the bedroom where she’s still lying on the bed. The lights are off and the shades are pulled down. “Mommy?”

She doesn’t move, her eyes closed and her hair all loose over her face like she does when she’s asleep. I pat her shoulder through the blanket, but all she does is wiggle a little.

“Guess you’re on your own, buddy,” I tell myself, using the nickname Mommy sometimes uses for me.

That’s okay, I’m a big boy now, so I go into the kitchen. Using the step stool, I get the box of chicken nuggets out of the freezer before looking at the microwave.

I’m not supposed to use this, but I’ve seen it used a lot of times and it’s not that hard. A few minutes later, I’m eating from my plate of hot nuggets when the door to the garage opens and Daddy comes in, his suit coat still on and his tie pulled halfway down.

“Hey, buddy.”

I smile, hoping he doesn’t ask how I got these nuggets.

“Where’s Mommy?” he asks, putting his briefcase on the table.

“Uhm . . . she’s taking a nap,” I admit, looking down. “I got hungry so I made these myself,” I say, nodding to the plate. “I’m sorry, Daddy.”

Daddy looks worried, and I’m afraid I got him angry, but he says nothing as he goes to the bedroom. I stuff my last nugget in my mouth and get up to take my plate to the sink. I’m halfway there when Daddy’s scream scares me, and I drop my plate.

For some reason, the sight of the Batman shattering on the floor of the kitchen is what I’m going to remember most.

I sit up, gasping for air as I’m jerked back to the present.

Sleep . . . she wasn’t sleeping. Six years old, and she’d left me.

The most beautiful woman I’ve ever known had cheated on her husband and killed herself afterward.