The day I turned eighteen, my father picked my birthday dinner to drop his bombshell: he'd fallen for someone else, and he wanted a divorce.

Mom was about to flip the table. Then a stream of comments scrolled across my vision.

[Don't make a scene! He's just a cheater. We don't even want him.]

[Your mom's gorgeous. Play the sweet, doting type, win him over, and she'll walk away with most of his fortune. We're talking billions!]

[Take the billions and enjoy the rest of your life. Beats rotting at home as some bitter ex-wife, doesn't it?]

Following the comments, I clapped a hand over Mom's mouth and whispered:

"Mom, stop! Dad's worth billions, we have to watch what we say!"

Mom made muffled noises behind my hand, glaring at me, her eyes screaming, “You ungrateful brat, let go so I can kill him!”

Dad watched her thrash like that, smirked, tossed the agreement onto the table, and wore a look that said: “So I cheated, what are you going to do about it?”

My knuckles went white. God, I wanted to deck him!

But the comments were flying.

[Easy, easy, easy!]

[Lose your temper and you lose! He thinks he's a tycoon now, and you two are acting like fishwives, beneath his station. Divorcing him is the right move!]

The comments were right.

If I didn't stop her, Mom would just sob and scream accusations, then declare out of pride that we didn't want a single cent.

I pinched her, hard.

The pain brought tears to her eyes instantly.

Perfect. A beautiful woman in tears.

That was exactly how Dad fell for her, all those years ago.

I reached up like I was wiping her tears, letting my own eyes go red. "Mom, don't be sad."

Then, under cover of the gesture, I leaned to her ear. "Keep crying. Pull at his heartstrings. Divorce on good terms and he'll hand over half of everything!"

She just blinked those big, innocent eyes at me, so I added, "Two billion, minimum."

Mom sucked in a sharp breath, and in an instant her eyes were brimming as she turned to my father.

"Samuel."

Her voice trembled, just slightly. She lifted her chin, tears welling, holding them back by sheer will.

"Are you really... really leaving us?"

Dad froze.

He thought my mother would fly off the handle and hurl accusations like she always did over every little thing, looking nothing short of a bitter, unhinged shrew.

That way he could walk out with a clear conscience.

Instead she'd flipped the script, and his whole plan fell apart. He didn't know how to keep going.

He frowned. "You're... not going to fight this?"

The comments cracked up.

[Even Dad's thrown.]

[The shrew stopped being a shrew, and now the man doesn't know how to get divorced lmao.]

I watched Mom, breathless. Keep going, Mom!

She lowered her eyes. "I used to fight you. I was just so afraid of losing you. But I was naive. A lifetime is so long, and I thought we still had years and years."

She looked up, twisting her dress nervously, forcing out a small smile.

Something in Dad's face softened.

Nice one, Mom.

The comments were losing it.

[Mom's got RANGE!]

[Shame the deadbeat's dead set on leaving. Gotta push harder.]

I signaled her with my eyes and a tiny gesture. “Keep going, keep going!”

Her voice went feather-light, almost a sigh. "It's all right. If you've made up your mind, I won't stand in your way. Twenty years with you, and I've been so happy."

The moment she finished, the tear balanced on her lashes fell, right on cue.

Dad turned his face away. He couldn't even look at her.

A comment drifted past. [There it is. Men always fall for this trick.]

[Especially rich men.]

[Especially rich, ugly men. They're always so sure of their own "charm."]

The comments were dead right.

Crying and accusing would only make Dad feel he'd already given us twenty good years, so wasn't he a great husband, a great father? A useless housewife getting greedy had it coming.

But tell him with that still-beautiful face that I'm letting you go because I love you, and he wouldn't stand a chance.

Sure enough, his voice came softer than before, a little unsteady.

"I'll... make it up to you both. If this version of the agreement doesn't work, we can talk again."

Mom's eyes filled with tender love, her tone deliberately wounded.

"Samuel, I never asked you for anything. But that ruby necklace isn't in the agreement, and it hurts me that you'd leave it out..."

Dad blinked.

Her cheeks flushed. "You know the one. The one you had made for me in Paris, after our first night together."

"I've barely worn it all these years. Every time I take it out and look at it, I think of that night, of what you said..."

She stopped.

And gave him another lingering, loving look.

The corner of Dad's mouth actually curled with pride.

I almost applauded!

Mom wasn't begging for an expensive necklace. She was making him remember that he'd "had it" that night.

A comment: [Ohh, look at the old man feeling himself again.]

[Mom went straight for the jugular!]

I gave her a silent mental high-five, ducked my head to fix my expression, then peeked up now and then with red-rimmed eyes, the look saying, Daddy, are you sure you don't want us?

He looked at Mom, then at me, and let out a heavy sigh.

"What I gave you is yours, of course. I'll have the agreement revised properly."

Mom gazed at him. "Samuel, I'll treasure our memories."

Then she pulled her eyes away as if it hurt to look any longer, as if one more glance would make it too hard to let him go.

Dad's throat bobbed. He fled.

The second he left, Mom calmly wiped her tears and snapped:

"That necklace cost three million dollars. The most expensive thing he ever gave me, and it's not even on the inventory."

Wow. Even furious, she was stunning.

All these years, I'd thought Mom only cared about love, not money.

Once she'd let it all out, she grabbed my hand. "Sweetie, how do you even know about your dad's assets?"

"Billions, really? How do I know nothing about this?"

Of course she didn't.

For twenty years she'd stayed home, a model wife and mother, never once asking about his business, letting him arrange every part of our lives.

If Dad said east, she never went west.

The only thing she ever cried about was him neglecting her, being gone all the time.

These last few years, with him barely home, her temper had only gotten worse.

The madwoman in the attic was always a man's making.

Following the comments, I pulled out my phone and brought up a few pages.

"Look. That no-name company he invested in at the start of the year? It went public, a huge IPO. His forty-six percent stake is worth around 1.2 billion."

Mom's mouth fell open. She couldn't get out a word.

"Add the two other hot tech companies, a dozen-plus properties, and an offshore trust, and conservatively, he's worth north of three billion."

I dug up the latest financial news.

"As of last month, he's officially the richest man in the city."

Mom sank into the couch, dazed.

"It's marital property. You're entitled to half."

Her eyes lit up, then clouded again.

"Ever since I turned forty, your dad's been getting bolder. But he never once mentioned divorce."

"This new girl got him to say it outright. She must have something. Can I really get that much?"

I steadied her by the shoulders. "Don't worry, Mom. As long as you keep playing the part, it's a lock!"

She sighed. "But sweetie, what's the point of money without love? When I was with him, I never thought about money at all."

I understood her. When she married Dad, he was just an ordinary office worker. He made his first real money off an investment from my grandfather.

But my hopeless-romantic mom didn't get it: a man's love was sometimes just a measure of how useful you were to him.

That other woman. Hmph. I'd deal with her in my own time.

"Mom," I coaxed, "your daughter already got into Yale. Business school tuition is brutal. There's a lot I want to do, and all of it takes money."

"There's no love left anyway. So all those years of your youth, everything you gave up, he should pay for it. In cash."

Mom blinked those big innocent eyes and nodded, half-understanding.

The comments sighed. [Queens get the bag.]

[With that face, she could've gone to Hollywood. She wasted her youth on a deadbeat, and now he's gaslit her out of even wanting the money.]

[Being a lovesick fool will wreck you!]

I nodded along, cheering her on. "See? Just those few lines and Dad couldn't even look at you! Keep up that act, Mom. We’ve got this.!"

Mom sighed, lifted her phone, and checked her reflection. "True. I really am a stunning older woman."

When Dad came back, he set the new agreement gently in the dead center of the coffee table, as if that made it fairer.

Mom had rehearsed in front of me the day before, and now she was brimming with confidence.

She wore the white strapless dress Dad liked best and flipped through a couple of pages.

I caught the numbers out of the corner of my eye.

Hah.

Fifty million more, plus two apartments.

Against his three billion, it was nothing.

Even the comments were outraged on our behalf.

[That's it? Did he get rich by being a cheapskate?]

[He still has no idea his wife and kid know exactly how loaded he is!]

[Man's addicted to lowballing people.]

I faked devastation, rushed over, and closed the folder. "Dad... can we not talk about this right now? I'm leaving for school soon. We won't get many more chances to be together, just the three of us. Mom cooked a whole table of your favorites by hand. She pricked her fingers doing it. Mom does so much for this family, I just..."

His eyes went wide.

Mom was the pampered daughter of a wealthy family, trained in dance. She kept our home spotless and kept herself beautiful, a living statue you'd find in a Paris gallery.

The one thing she couldn't do was cook, and Dad always complained about it.

Later, after enough fights, she stopped cooking altogether.

Even once she'd mastered it, she only cooked for me, out of spite.

Mom froze for a second, then caught my cue and ran with it.

She touched her fingertips lightly. "It's true. You work so hard, and still you came here to sort out the agreement."

She bowed her head, wounded.

"I wasn't a good wife, back then."

She sat at the table and ladled him a bowl of soup. "When you were first starting out, you worked so late. The clam soup I made was too fishy for you to even swallow."

A single tear dropped into the bowl.

"After the company took off," her voice quavered, "even at home, the only ham in the fridge was molded over. The one thing that made you happy was eating out at Michelin places with me."

"You drank so much you ended up with a perforated stomach, and I couldn't even make a decent broth to settle it. I made you bleed. All I could do was sit by your hospital bed. You were so sick that time. I stayed three days, cried three days, prayed three days. Thank God you woke up."

"You've had it so hard all these years. So maybe I just don't deserve much. Fifty million is plenty. I'm content."

The comments laughed out loud.

[With cooking like that, she should've just poisoned him and taken the inheritance!]

[Honestly, impressive the daughter made it to adulthood.]

I bit down so hard my face went red, not daring to laugh.

Only Dad was actually taking it in.

The hand holding his spoon went still.

His expression changed.

"You stayed... the whole time? Why did you never tell me?"

Mom shook her head.

"We were husband and wife. It's what you do. Nothing worth mentioning."

"You matter more to me than anything. More than dance."

She looked at him with longing as she spoke, her nose reddening, and with one blink the tears fell.

The timing couldn’t be more perfect!

He was leaving her, and she still loved him this much, still put him first.

Just like all those years ago, when she chose to get pregnant, to have me, to leave the company, all for the family.

In his early start-up years, the company nearly went under three times. Too proud to ask my grandfather again, it was Mom who emptied her savings and sold every piece of jewelry she had to fill the holes.

She never disturbed my father even when she fell unconscious from illness, all so he could focus on his career.

Dad genuinely believed he'd been a good husband, a good father, that he'd let us coast through twenty easy, comfortable years.

Men had selective memory for anything that didn't benefit them.

But his greatest weakness was that arrogance, the certainty that he could take care of everyone.

Sure enough, he set down the spoon, stood, walked to the living room, and picked up the agreement.

Then he tore it apart.

"The West End villa is yours, and you can take whichever car you want. I'll give you a hundred million, and then another hundred million on top of that. Leah still has school, so I'll give her two million a year until she graduates."

Mom shook her head desperately.

"No. I can't accept that."

Dad only grew firmer.

"No. You have to take it. I'll arrange it tomorrow."

The comments drifted by again.

[The more she refuses, the more he wants to give! Men are honestly pathetic!]

[Is he really the richest man in the city? How's a woman who hasn't worked in twenty years playing him this easily!]

[Don't tell me he's a lovesick fool too?]

Dad was about to keep going when his phone rang.

Vivian.

A comment: [Here she comes, here she comes, strutting right in.]

[Is every mistress on earth named Vivian?]

[Welp. My own name's Vivian. Crying.]

I silently swiped through the comments, knowing trouble was coming.

But it didn't matter. The call came at the perfect time. We'd already gotten what we came for today.

Dad picked up, soothing the other end in a low voice. "What? You're not feeling well? I'll be right over..."

He hung up, turned, his tone urgent but laced with guilt. "I... have something to handle. Work."

Mom's face went stiff. Then she gave a small nod.

The door slammed.

He knew Mom had put so much into this dinner, and he still walked out the second that woman called.

Mom didn't say anything. She turned her back to me and looked out the window.

Twenty years of marriage. She was probably still a little sad.

I crouched and gently took her hand.

She stroked my hair.

I blinked up at her.

"Mom, that piece of land? It's worth two hundred million now."

Her eyes lit up.

The sadness vanished in a flash.

Sure enough, money really was the best medicine in the world!