“I’m a little nervous,” I said in the parking lot. The ice and hard snow under foot felt foreign beneath stiff ski boots that hadn’t seen these ten toes for a decade. Slippery, and cold, I fumbled with my gear as a novice. I know myself. I know that I will push my ability until it breaks my body—the Peter Principle in the flesh and bone and muscle. I will rise to the level of my incompetence, not as a manager but as a man, and go down hard and tumble and somersault and cartwheel and break. I will meet a great pine far too fast. Do I even remember how to stop? I wonder if the ski patrol will come quick enough and if any good Samaritans will be there in the meantime to coo and hold my head in traction before I sever anything electrical. Will my broken form haunt their dreams for nights to come? Compound fractures. What if, what if, what if, what if, what—

“You’ll be okay,” said Tessy rubbing my back, and I smiled.