After my father-in-law’s funeral, my unemployed wife inherited $379 million. Out of nowhere, she asked for a divorce, saying, “You’re no longer of any use to me.” I responded, “Don’t end up regretting this.”

I looked at the papers. Irreconcilable differences. A polite legal euphemism for “I’m rich now, and you’re a peasant.”

“Kimberly,” I said, my voice rough from days of silent mourning. “We’ve been married for eight years. Your father was buried on Tuesday. It’s Friday. Don’t you think this is a bit… premature?”

She laughed, a sharp, brittle sound like glass breaking. “Premature? It’s overdue. Daddy is gone, which means the only reason I pretended to tolerate your lack of ambition is gone, too. I’m an heiress now, Ben. Three hundred and seventy-nine million dollars. Do you have any concept of what that buys? It buys a new life. A new zip code. And certainly, a new husband who doesn’t spend his days changing bedpans and reading poetry to a dying old man.”

The cruelty of it took my breath away. She wasn’t just leaving; she was rewriting history. She was erasing the last two years where I had quit my job as a structural engineer to care for her father, Arthur, because she was too busy “networking” at country clubs to visit the man who funded her lifestyle.

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