It was that I needed him to do it to himself.

If I had marched in uninvited and seized a microphone to air my grievances, I would have been exactly the bitter ex-wife his story required — the woman who couldn’t let go, ruining a beautiful day out of spite.

That is the role he had written for me, and half that crowd had come half-expecting to watch me play it.

So I did not take the stage.

I waited, at the edge of his celebration, quiet in my navy dress, until his own arrogance could not resist reaching for me — until he picked up the microphone and pointed it at me himself, in front of everyone, to enjoy one last public humiliation of the broken woman from his past.