The Reyes commission fell apart on a Wednesday at two-fifteen in the afternoon, in a conference room that smelled like fresh coffee and bad decisions.
I had been working on it for three months. Not continuously I had other projects, other clients, the ongoing demands of a practice that ran on precision and reputation but consistently, in the specific way you work on something that has captured your professional imagination. The north extension solution had been elegant. I had been genuinely proud of it in the way you are rarely proud of things, the way that happens when the solution is not just functional but right when it honors what the building was trying to be while giving both clients the thing they actually needed.
The husband had changed his mind on the drive to the final presen
