They wanted the benefits of my discipline — the paid mortgage, the covered tuition, the household that simply worked — while retaining the right to sneer at the discipline itself, to enjoy the fruit and despise the tree.

And then, when it all came apart, that same despised carefulness turned out to be the thing that made me unassailable.

The deeded title I had insisted on.

The prenuptial agreement I had not been too romantic to sign.

The records I had kept without knowing I would need them.

Every single one of those cold, controlling, unromantic acts, performed by the organized woman they loved to belittle, became, in a lawyer’s office, a wall he could not climb.