The Divorce Papers: A Novel

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Book: Read The Divorce Papers: A Novel for Free Online
Authors: Susan Rieger
Tags: Fiction, Literary, Humorous, Contemporary Women
first wife, had serious money. Do you know
    470  the Fincher Galleries at the Fine Arts Museum? A gift of her
    471  grandparents. Dr. Stephanie is a bit of an outlier, not a WASP,
    472  no family money, too short. Her dad was only a doctor, also a
    473  dermatologist. But he was frugal and he believed in real estate.
    474  He left her, free and clear, two apartments in the Beresford.
    475  She lives in the smaller one, eight rooms. [Pause] I’m not sure
    476  she’ll get to walk down the aisle. [Pause] You shouldn’t think I
    477  was brought up to talk about money. I wasn’t. My mother, who
    478  was a rigorously honorable, straightforward person, imposed
    479  an absolute embargo on money as a subject of conversation;
    480  she thought talking about money was common. It offended
    481  her, the way Nixon’s hate list and anti-Semitism offended her,
    482  as a sign of bad breeding. I was never allowed to say how much
    483  anything cost. I must have looked an idiot. I went to school
    484  with the children of professors and lawyers. They knew what
    485  everything cost, including their parents’ psychiatrists. [Pause]
    486  I don’t talk about the price of things, that lesson has stuck,
    487  but I am prepared to acknowledge certain obvious facts about
    488  my life and my upbringing. I was brought up rich and I have
    489  the exaggerated sense of entitlement that money confers. I
    490  don’t always get what I want, but not because of money. That
    491  makes me very different from most other people, including my
    492  husband. He never had money until recently. He likes it, having
    493  it and spending it, but success is more important to him.
    494  Q. What about other assets? Savings and the like?
    495  A. Daniel makes the money, and he handles the
    496  investments. I don’t think he’s hiding anything. He has
    497  retirement funds with TIAA-CREF in the neighborhood
    498  of $600,000. He also has a 401(k) plan with approximately
    499  $300,000 in it. Other assets include about $700,000 in stocks,
    500  $90,000 in treasury bills, and $80,000 in a savings account.
    501  He does a quarterly accounting; I got the figures from the one
    502  he did in early October.
    503  Q. Any insurance policies?
    504  A. Daniel is insured for $1.5 million; I’m insured for
    505  $200,000—to pay Luz’s salary in case I conk. He’d need
    506  somebody.
    507  Q. Could you provide a salary history? And a few other
    508  particulars? [Note to Hannah: I handed Mrs. Durkheim
    509  copies of the Divorce Work Sheets: Summary Biographies for
    510  her and her husband.]
    511  A. Of course.
    512  Q.Does your husband have any separate assets? Any
    513  inheritances?
    514  A. Daniel’s an orphan. His father died in 1992, his mother
    515  in 1998. He inherited a 1989 Honda Accord and $16,000.
    516  His parents owned a printing business. They never made
    517  much money, but they saw that their son, their only child,
    518  was well educated. And praised, praised for everything
    519  he did, every bowel movement, every report card, every
    520  titration. They didn’t much care for the grandchildren. They
    521  couldn’t hold a candle to their father. And they certainly had
    522  no use for me or Helen. We weren’t worthy of him; we didn’t
    523  appreciate how extraordinary he was. If I made them dinner,
    524  they thanked Daniel; if he didn’t visit them, it was my fault.
    525  They made sure they didn’t die in debt. They were fierce
    526  about not saddling Daniel with nursing home costs and the
    527  like. They had long-term-care insurance for nurses and that
    528  sort of thing, and they belonged to burial societies and had
    529  prepaid their funerals, coffins, headstones, plots, even the
    530  cantor. God, my father never prepays anything. You lose the
    531  float.
    532  Q. Have you begun to think about

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