Tuesday, 02 May 2006 | Star of stage and subway car

The sound of her voice was a surprise. She was silent in the moments when the train paused, allowing people to exchange and shift in relative quiet, but once the train lurched forward again, she resumed her tirade. She yelled at him as if he were standing at the other end of a field, rather than three feet from her in a subway car. The people new to the car looked at her in surprise; the train's veterans seemed to no longer notice and instead stared into their books and magazines.

She shouted about the reason she'd left him at the altar, and about how he'd cheated on her with another woman, already replacing her with a new girlfriend. She railed about how she'd been paying his rent, she explained a few finer points of the welfare system, and she offered heated justification about why she had good reason to go to the Bronx in that moment. Even though it was impossible not to eavesdrop, I felt guilty doing it, though I think it was more about hearing the pain in her voice than the words she was saying.

He never said a word. I'm not even sure which passenger he was.

On a different day, I might've focused on how crazy it was for her to seek revenge so publicly. Instead, the episode just made me feel incredibly sad.