“She is your mother, not mine. If she still wants to keep buying designer clothes on Fifth Avenue, then you start paying for them.”

That was the first thing I said when my ex-husband, Anthony Caldwell, called me less than 24 hours after our divorce was finalized in a Manhattan courtroom that still smelled vaguely of paper and indifference.

He didn’t greet me, he didn’t hesitate, and he certainly didn’t pretend that it was anything other than anger wrapped in arrogance.

“What the hell did …