We had been married for ten years—ten years during which I, Vanessa, gave everything I had. I wasn’t merely a wife. I became his anchor, his constant presence, and for the last three years, I served as his father’s full-time caregiver.
My father-in-law, Arthur, was once a titan in real estate—a self-made man who built a seventy-five-million-dollar empire from nothing. But wealth means nothing to cancer. When illness took hold, his son—my husband, Curtis—was suddenly “too busy.” Busy with meetings that never seemed urgent, golf games, and friends who loved the sound of their own voices. He told me watching his father deteriorate was “bad for his mental health,” that he needed to “stay focused.”
So I stepped in.
