The wife's best friend's joke revealed her new love affair

My wife, Seraphina—a woman who commanded respect, a true queenpin in her own right—always insisted on having her "sisters" over for dinner. "That's what makes a family," she'd always say.

Watching me serve a table piled high with food, one of her friends grinned.

"Our Arthur is just *so* perfect, isn't he? Always so attentive, always holding down the fort like a true patriarch."

My expression remained unchanged, but I casually shot back, half-joking.

"Oh? What, is there some stingy 'kept man' out there I don't know about?"