“Come dance with your elderly meal ticket.”
I nearly choked.
He grinned.
That was Richard.
He made cruelty ridiculous until it lost its power.
Our marriage began as an arrangement.
Something else grew inside it.
Not the kind of wild romance I had once shared with Jake.
Something quieter.
Richard never tried to replace Jake.
He placed a photograph of Jake on the bookshelf in Emily’s room.
When I asked why, he looked offended.
“That is her father.”
Richard taught Emily chess.
He attended parent-teacher conferences.
He learned the names of every child in her class.
He sat through a two-hour elementary-school musical in which Emily played a tree and applauded like she had won an Oscar.
Once, when another parent whispered that I had married Richard for money, nine-year-old Emily turned around and announced:
“My mom married Grandpa because we were poor.
