The struggling artist I supported for 3 years was a millionaire – I discovered his fortune when I…

The Discovery of a Carefully Constructed Lie

I was standing in our cramped Brooklyn loft, eight months pregnant, staring at a letter from Chase Private Client. The letter was addressed to my husband, Daniel Foster. The same Daniel who’d asked me last week if we could wait another month before buying a crib because money was tight.

The letter congratulated him on his portfolio performance. $43 million. My hands started shaking.

I looked up. Daniel was standing in the doorway of our bedroom, paint still under his fingernails from his morning session, wearing the threadbare jeans I’d bought him at Goodwill three years ago.

“How long?” My voice came out as a whisper.

He didn’t even try to lie, just stood there looking at me with those sad brown eyes. And said, “Since before we met.”

I dropped the letter. Let me back up. Let me tell you how I got here, standing in this moment where my entire life revealed itself as a carefully constructed lie.

I was 35 years old when my mother sat me down at Thanksgiving and told me I was going to die alone. Not in those exact words, but close enough. My sister Emma had just announced her third pregnancy.

My brother’s kids were running around the house. And there I was, the successful one, the lawyer who made partner at 33, sitting at the table with an empty chair beside me.

My mother said, using that voice that made me feel 12 again, “Rebecca, you can’t be too picky. You’re not getting any younger.”

I’d heard it before. The comments about my standards being too high, how I was too focused on work, and how men my age wanted younger women anyway, so I should be grateful for anyone who’d have me.

I threw myself into my work even harder after that. I told myself I didn’t care. I had a corner office in Midtown Manhattan with a view of the Empire State Building.

I had a salary that made my younger self’s dreams look quaint. I didn’t need a man to complete me. But late at night in my pristine Chelsea apartment that echoed when I walked through it, I wondered if my mother was right.

That’s when I met Daniel. It was a rainy Saturday in March. I’d gone to a small gallery in Williamsburg, one of those places that always smells like coffee and pretention.

I was there because a client had mentioned it, and I was trying to cultivate interests beyond depositions and briefs. I was standing in front of a painting, a swirl of blues and grays that somehow captured the exact feeling of loneliness I’d been trying not to name.

Someone spoke beside me. “It’s called waiting room. I painted it in my ex-girlfriend’s apartment after she kicked me out.”

I turned. He was maybe 40 with paint stained hands and a gentle smile. Not handsome exactly, but kind looking, real, nothing like the finance bros I met at the firm’s networking events who spent the whole conversation staring at my chest or checking their phones.

“It’s beautiful,” I said.

“Thank you,” He said.

He held out his hand. “Daniel Foster.” “Rebecca Chen.”

We talked for two hours. He told me about his art, how he’d been trying to make it work in New York for 15 years, and how he lived in a tiny studio in Bushwick with three roommates. He told me how his family back in Ohio had stopped asking when he was going to get a real job.

I loved his authenticity, his vulnerability. Here was a man who chosen passion over profit, art over security, a man who knew what really mattered. When he asked me to dinner, I said yes.

On our third date, he admitted he couldn’t afford anywhere nice. We got pizza and ate it on a bench in Prospect Park. He told me about growing up poor and how art saved him.

He told me how he dreamed of having a show in a real gallery someday. I remember thinking, “This is what I’ve been missing. Someone who values things beyond money. Someone genuine.”

My mother hated him immediately. She said when I brought him to Sunday dinner, “An artist? Rebecca, you’re 35. You need stability, security. What’s he going to provide?”

“Not everything is about money, Mom,” I said.

It says the woman who’s never been without it, but I didn’t care. For the first time in years, I was happy. Daniel made me laugh.

He cooked me dinners in his cramped kitchen. He painted portraits of me that made me feel beautiful in a way I’d never felt before.

After six months, he told me he was being evicted. His roommates were moving out, and he couldn’t afford the place alone. He looked so defeated, so ashamed.

“Move in with me,” I said.

My Chelsea apartment had two bedrooms. I could afford it. And more than that, I wanted him there.

I wanted to wake up next to him. I wanted to build a life together. He moved in with a duffel bag and three paintings.

That was it. Everything he owned fit in my coat closet. I started paying for everything.

It happened gradually: dinners, groceries, his art supplies, the studio space I rented for him in Brooklyn because he needed better light. I paid for the money for canvas and paint and the website I had designed to showcase his work.

He always said when I sell something big, “I’ll pay you back.”

I always said, “It’s fine. I make enough for both of us.”

And I did. My salary was healthy. I was making senior partner money.

I could afford to support us both. My friends started asking questions.

Sarah, my college roommate, said over drinks, “Are you sure about this guy? I mean, when’s he going to contribute?”

“He contributes in other ways,” I said. “He makes me happy.”

“But Becca, you’re spending thousands on him,” Sarah said. “Doesn’t it bother you that he never pays?”

It didn’t. Or I told myself it didn’t because Daniel made me feel something I’d never felt with the lawyers and bankers I dated before. He made me feel needed, essential, like I mattered for more than just my accomplishments.

After two years, he proposed. It was perfect, exactly what I would have chosen if I’d been planning it myself. A quiet evening in our apartment.

No expensive ring, just his grandmother’s simple gold band. He said, kneeling on the floor of our living room, “I can’t give you diamonds. I can’t give you a fancy wedding or a honeymoon in Europe, but I can give you my whole heart. Will you marry me?”

I said yes through tears. We got married at city hall with just my family and two of my friends as witnesses.

My mother wore black. Emma kept asking when Daniel was going to get a job with benefits. My father just looked sad.

But I didn’t care. I had Daniel. I had love.

That was enough. We talked about kids. I was 37 by then.

The doctor said we should try sooner rather than later if we wanted them. Daniel seemed uncertain.

He said, “I don’t know if I can be a father. What do I have to offer a child? I can barely support myself.”

“You’d offer love,” I said. “That’s what matters.”

He asked, “What about money, college, all the things kids need?”

“I’ll handle that,” I said. “Like I handle everything else.”

I regretted it the moment I said it, but it was true. I handled everything: the rent, the bills, the groceries, his studio rent, his art supplies. I even handled the car I’d bought him because the subway was too unreliable for transporting paintings.

He didn’t say anything. Just kissed my forehead and went back to his canvas.

I got pregnant four months later. It wasn’t planned, but I was thrilled. Daniel seemed scared, but he promised he’d step up.