“I was joking. Everyone knew I was joking.”
“Nobody laughed.”
Valerie sighed, the long-suffering exhale Astoria had heard a thousand times. “You're being oversensitive. It was a lighthearted comment at a party. If you can't handle a little teasing?—”
“It wasn’t teasing. It was humiliating.”
“See, this is exactly what I mean.” Valerie finally looked up, her expression patient, pitying. “You take everything soseriously. It's exhausting, Astoria. I make one joke and suddenly I'm the villain. Maybe if you showed any warmth at all, I wouldn't have to?—”
“Wouldn’t have to, what? Mock me in public?”
“I wasn’t mocking you. I was trying to connect with people, which is something you've never been good at. Someone has to make you seem human.” Valerie's voice hardened. “Do you have any idea how hard I work to make you look approachable? To convince people you're not just some cold machine who only cares about profit margins?”
The car moved through the dark streets, headlights sliding past. Astoria watched the city blur beyond the window.
“Everything I’ve done for this marriage,” Valerie continued, “every connection I’ve made, every relationship I maintained while you buried yourself in work, andthisis the thanks I get. Accusations because I madea joke.”
“Just because you keep calling it a joke doesn’t mean it is a joke.”
“You’d be nothing without me.” The words came out flat, stripped of any performance. “Do you understand that? All those donors who smile at you, all those board members who think you’re brilliant, half of them only tolerate you because of me. Because I make you palatable.”
Astoria turned to look at her wife. Valerie's face was angular in the passing streetlights, beautiful and hard, and for the first time, Astoria saw her clearly. Not the charming woman who'd taught her which fork to use, not the partner who smoothed her rough edges, just this: someone who needed Astoria to feel small so she could feel large.
The realization settled quietly, like a blanket of snow.
Oh,Astoria thought,so this is what you really think of me.
She didn’t argue or defend herself. She just looked at Valerie, and something inside her went very still.
“You’re giving me the silent treatment now?” Valerie’s voice carried an edge of disgust. “Typical. Classic Astoria, can't handle honest feedback so you shut down.”
Astoria shifted in her seat, turning back to the window.
The car pulled into their driveway, and Valerie went inside first, already on her phone moving on to the next performance. But Astoria sat in the dark for a moment, listening to the engine tick as it cooled.
Then she went inside, climbed the spiral staircase to the guest room, and locked the door behind her.
In the morning, she called her attorney. Within a week, she’d filed for divorce.
The gala program blurred through tears.
Astoria set it aside and pressed her fingertips against her eyes til she saw stars. Six months ago felt like a lifetime, yet it felt like yesterday.
She’d spent fifteen years believing she was the problem—that she was too cold, too focused on work, too difficult to love. It had taken one ugly moment of clarity to understand that the problem had never been her at all.
Astoria let out a heavy sigh and pulled the next file toward her and kept working. She made it through another hour before the words stopped making sense.
Astoria sat back in her chair and rubbed her eyes. The stack of reviewed documents had grown, yellow and green and pink tabs marking the evidence. Gerald would have what he needed, and she could finish the rest tomorrow.
Her phone showed 11:47 p.m. She’d been at this for nearly six hours. The office felt smaller in the dark, the shadows pressingcloser. She gathered the files into their folders, aligned the edges with more precision than necessary, and tucked them into her bag.
Valerie’s patterns were even clearer now that they were documented throughout years. It hadn’t been just random cruelty like she used to believe. It was strategic control applied so gradually that Astoria hadn’t recognized it until she was drowning. More than anything, she was fighting Valerie’s narrative, the story of the cold, neglectful wife who’d driven her partner away. And Valerie would perform victimhood beautifully in court. She always performed beautifully.
Gerald’s strategy was sound: stay factual and let the documents speak. But Astoria knew juries believed stories, not spreadsheets. They believed tears and trembling voices and the compelling arc of a woman who’d suffered. They believed people like Valerie.
And now Valerie had the might of Rachel Hartwell’s firm behind her, the kind of representation that made a client look credible simply by association.
Miller Scott would build a strong case. She was sharp, principled, and clearly committed to her client. But that commitment wasn’t blind loyalty. It was clear she paid attention to the details, even if it meant calling out discrepancies.
