For several seconds, I couldn’t speak. The man standing before me was the same husband who bought groceries with coupons, fixed our kitchen sink himself, and never complained when my family mocked his supposedly insignificant income.
“Twenty-two billion dollars? David, how could you keep something like that from me?”
He sat beside me and took my trembling hands.
“Because I wanted to know that the person I married loved me for who I was, not what I owned. And you proved that long before we had Leo.”
I thought about our courthouse wedding, my simple ring, and the countless occasions when Eleanor had called David a financial embarrassment. I’d defended him every time, never imagining he possessed more wealth than my mother could comprehend.
Then he revealed something even more shocking.
“Remember when Eleanor demanded fifty thousand dollars to renovate the family home? The money came from me, through an anonymous development grant.”
