She pulled the next document from the stack: an email chain from two years ago between Valerie and board member Richard Hoffman. The subject line said, “Re: Q3 Strategy Concerns.”
Astoria read the email.
“I hate to say anything, but I’m worried about Astoria. She’s been so focused on the Harbor Point acquisition that I’m not sure she’s seeing the bigger picture. Between us, I’ve tried to bring up some concerns, but you know how she can be when she’s fixated on something. Maybe if it came from the board…”
Astoria remembered this. Richard had approached her a week later with vague concerns about “work-life balance” and “strategic oversight,” and she’d been baffled by the intervention. She’d worked harder and stayed later, trying to figure out what she’d done wrong.
She let the email aside and marked it with a yellow tab. Definitely relevant.
The next document was a calendar entry from eighteen months ago. Astoria had been scheduled to attend a sustainable development conference in Seattle, a major networking opportunity she’d been looking forward to for months. The entry showed the original time blocked, then a modification three days before:“Conflict with V’s charity board meeting. Rescheduled.”
But she hadn’t scheduled. She’d missed it entirely, and she couldn’t remember now whether the charity meeting had even happened or whether it’d been another of Valerie’s tests to see if Astoria would choose her over work.
The rain intensified against the windows, the light patter turning into an atmospheric drone. Somewhere in the building, a door closed, the sound echoing. Gloria had stopped by at seven, her coat already on and bag over her shoulder. “You should go home and eat something and sleep.”
“I need to finish this,” she’d said.
“It can wait until tomorrow.”
“No, it can’t.” Astoria hadn’t looked up from her screen. “I’ll leave soon.”
Gloria had lingered in the doorway, the way she did when she wanted to say more but knew it wouldn’t help. After a moment, she’d simply said, “There’s soup in the break room fridge. I labeled it for you.”
That had been two hours ago. The soup sat untouched, and Astoria had worked through another inch of documents, each one a small autopsy of a marriage she’d thought was merely unfulfilling rather than systematically dismantling her.
She reached for her coffee and found it stone cold, the surface filmed over, her third cup since lunch—or was it her fourth? She couldn’t remember if she’d even eaten lunch. Gloria had left something on her desk around noon, but the day had blurred into documents and calls and the steady, grinding work of proving she wasn’t the monster Valerie was claiming.
Astoria picked up a piece of paper, another email chair, this one from three years ago from Valerie to their accountant requesting access to accounts Astoria hadn’t known she’d asked about. The accountant had CC’d Astoria on her response, which was standard procedure, and Valerie had smoothed it over that evening with a laugh and kiss on her cheek.“I just wanted to understand our finances better, darling. You’re always so busy, and I hate feeling like I don’t know what’s happening with our money.”
Astoria had felt guilty for making Valerie feel excluded. She’d spent the following weekend walking her through their investment portfolio.
She marked the email chain with a yellow tab and added it to the growing pile.
This was the hardest part—not the legal strategy or public scrutiny or even Valerie’s accusations, but seeing the pattern laid out in black and white, years of manipulation she’d livedthrough without recognizing any of it. Every email was a death of a thousand cuts. Every calendar change was a quiet theft of her autonomy. Every concerned conversation with a colleague was a seed planted to undermine her.
She’d thought she was failing at her marriage, but she hadn’t realized she was being micromanaged.
Astoria pushed back from her desk and crossed to the window, pressing her palm against the cool glass. The rain had turned the city into smeared light, headlights and streetlamps bleeding together in the dark. Her reflection stared back at her, hollow-eyed and drawn.
Gerald had said something similar to Gloria.“You need to pace yourself. This case will take months.”
She knew that. She also knew that if she stopped working, she’d start thinking, and thinking led to dark places she couldn’t afford to go. Work was manageable. It was controllable. It didn’t ask her to feel anything except competent.
She turned back to her desk. The stack of documents still waited, ever patient and damning. Someone in that mess was the evidence that would prove the truth that Valerie had orchestrated her own narrative for years, positioning herself as the neglected wife while systematically isolating Astoria from colleagues, friends, and eventually her own sense of reality.
The question was whether anyone would look past Valerie’s performance long enough to see it.
Rachel Hartwell would build a compelling case. She was experienced and methodical, and her reputation for integrity gave Valerie’s story an additional layer of credibility. And her associate, Miller Scott, had proven sharper than expected.
Astoria mentally replayed that moment during the mediation when Miller’s voice cut through the negotiation, confident and precise. She’d held her ground when Astoria had challenged her, and she hadn’t flinched. Miller believed Valerie’s story, and ofcourse she did. Valerie was convincing, and Miller was the kind of attorney who’d built her career on believing victims.
Astoria returned to her desk and pulled the next document from the stack. She worked until her eyes burned and the words blurred and her neck ached. And still, she didn’t stop because stopping meant going home and lying awake in the dark while her thoughts chewed her alive.
The files, at least, didn’t require her to feel anything at all.
Except…the next document stopped her cold.
It was a program from the Phoenix Ridge Philanthropic Gala last year in late September. It was tucked between financial statements like it belonged there. Valerie had saved it; of course she had. Valerie saved everything, curated evidence of their perfect life the way other people collected photographs.
