We had been married for ten years.

Ten years in which I gave everything.

I wasn’t just a wife. I became the steady one. The quiet strength behind the scenes. And for the last three years, I became something else entirely — my father-in-law Arthur’s full-time caregiver.

Arthur had built a seventy-five-million-dollar real estate empire from nothing. A self-made man. Sharp. Demanding. Proud.

But cancer doesn’t care about balance sheets.

When the diagnosis came, Curtis — my husband, his only son — suddenly became “overwhelmed.” Watching his father decline was “bad for his mental health.” He had meetings. Golf games. Important dinners.

So I stepped in.

I cleaned Arthur when he was too weak to stand. I measured his medication. I sat beside him through the morphine haze while he drifted between past and present. At dawn, when fear crept into the room, I held his hand.

Curtis would appear occasionally — perfectly dressed — pat his father’s arm and casually ask, “Did he mention the will?”

I told myself it was grief.

At the funeral, he cried beautifully. Silk handkerchief. Controlled tremble. But his eyes? They weren’t on the casket. They were scanning the businessmen in attendance, measuring suits and watches.

Two days later, I came home from arranging cemetery details and found my suitcases dumped in the foyer.

Not packed.

Thrown.

Clothes half-folded. Shoes jammed in sideways.

“Curtis?” I called.

He descended the staircase like a man hosting a cocktail party. Crisp shirt. Polished shoes. Champagne glass in hand.