Jennifer kept her distance at the office, and then, in time, moved on, visibly and without apology, to someone with a bigger life to offer, and when he confronted her about it, she reminded him that she had been a single woman when they met and was a single woman still, and owed him nothing.

And I want to be honest about what I felt, watching my ex-husband’s carefully constructed world dismantle itself, because I think the honesty matters.

I felt no triumph.

I kept waiting for the satisfying surge of vindication, the sweet vicious pleasure people always promise you will come when someone who wronged you finally gets what they deserve.

It never arrived.

What I felt instead, as the months passed, was something quieter and, I have come to believe, much better: peace.