Wendy spent months feeling powerful, feeling like the master of a fortune, writing herself into a life of condos and luxury goods, and every day of that felt to her like winning.

She never once understood that the feeling of winning and the reality of winning are two entirely different things, and that I had quietly arranged our affairs so she could have the feeling in abundance while never possessing an ounce of the fact.

She thought the spending was power.

The spending was only permission, and permission is a thing that can be revoked in an afternoon by the person who actually holds the deed.

My wife built her whole scheme inside a structure she did not understand, could have understood, was invited to understand, and chose not to — because understanding it would have required reading, and patience, and attention to boring detail, which were the very qualities she despised in me.

Her contempt for the careful work was not incidental to her downfall.