The room went silent.
Not the polite silence people use during speeches.
The uncomfortable kind.
The kind that makes people stare at their plates and wish they were somewhere else.
I stood frozen beside my chair.
Thirty-five years.
Thirty-five years of work, sacrifice, missed holidays, late nights, and early mornings.
And somehow my husband had managed to turn my retirement celebration into a public humiliation.
Roy sat there smiling.
Actually smiling.
As if he had delivered the punchline to a clever joke.
I felt my eyes sting.
Not because he wanted a divorce.
If I was honest, our marriage had been dying for years.
What hurt was the cruelty.
The timing.
