A MISCONCEPTION among some people is that I wrote the novel “Kramer vs. Kramer” based on my own divorce and custody battle. “How is she doing with his son?” a woman once asked a friend of ours about my wife. Our friend answered, “They have two sons and they’re both hers.”

I was never divorced. My wife, Judy, and I were married 37 years, my only marriage and her only marriage. In our early years, like many would-be writers, I tried to cobble together an income. So after the success of “Kramer vs. Kramer,” when a reporter interviewing me brought up my marital status, I said: “My wife and I never would have gotten a divorce. We never would have been able to figure out who would get custody of the anxiety.”

Judy died in 2004. She was a brilliant public relations strategist who in her last job, at Scholastic, masterminded the publicity for the introduction and publication of the Harry Potter books. Everything you first read and heard in the media about Harry Potter came through her. She was also incomparable at finding things — for our apartment in Manhattan, for our vacation home in Water Mill, N.Y., for friends’ homes. People loved to go antiquing with her.

Between her early career in public relations before our sons were born and her later career, Judy gathered up her good taste and opened a store in Bridgehampton, N.Y., where she sold wicker furniture, quilts and handmade pillows. While shopping for the store, she made sure to look out for things she might buy for our Water Mill house.