My Husband Divorced Me At 78, Taking Our $4.5 Million House: “You’ll Never See The Grandkids Again.” He Laughed, I Left. A Month Later, An Unknown Number Called Me: “Ma’am, There’s Been An Urgent Situation Involving Your Husband…”

Harold’s will had been drafted before he died. Karen was named. But the will could not supersede the court judgment, which was a senior claim on the estate. By the time the judgment and legal fees and estate costs were settled, the residual estate was modest. Karen hired attorneys to challenge this.

She lost.

I did not feel satisfaction exactly when I heard this. What I felt was something more neutral. The recognition that outcomes eventually tend to reflect the choices that produce them.

Not always.

Not reliably.

But sometimes.

And this was one of those times.

I bought a small house on a quiet street in Sarasota in the spring of my 78th year. It had a garden somewhat overgrown and a screened porch where the evenings were long and the light came through the trees in a way that reminded me unexpectedly, the first time I noticed it, of the old maple on Birchwood Lane.

I planted a tree in the corner of the garden. Nothing so ambitious as a maple. A citrus. A Meyer lemon, which blooms in late winter and fills the whole yard with a fragrance that is among the best things I have ever encountered.