Everyone laughed when they sent an eighty-year-old man and his eighteen-year-old wife off to spend their wedding night together. “Let’s see if Grandpa can make it until morning,” one relative joked through a burst of laughter. He didn’t respond. He simply picked up his old briefcase and closed the door. When six relatives opened it the next morning, they stopped laughing when they discovered what he had been protecting all night.

“Good,” Walter replied simply.

Chloe let out a watery laugh at his brief reaction.

“Is that really all you have to say?” Chloe joked softly.

“After everything we went through, you could at least offer a real smile.”

Walter barely lifted the corner of his mouth in response.

“Let’s not overdo it,” Walter grunted playfully.

The legal divorce was finalized shortly afterward, proceeding exactly as they had originally planned.

It was a clean separation with no disputed property, no financial claims, and no messy litigation.