Astoria sat motionless, watching Rachel with an expression of studied neutrality. Her pen rested in her hand, but she wasn't writing. She wasn't doing anything except listening, her focus absolute and her stillness almost unnerving.
Then her eyes closed, just for a second, a slow blink that lasted a beat too long before she straightened and the mask slid back into place.
Miller’s pen slowed. She’d seen exhaustion before. She’d seen clients running on fumes and witnesses fighting to stay alert through tedious proceedings. But there was something about watching the formidable Astoria Shepry struggle to keep her eyes open in the middle of a courtroom that made Miller’s chest feel strange.
Gerald rose to make his counterargument, and Miller forced her attention back to her notes.
“Your Honor, my client has been fully cooperative with the discovery process. The documents Ms. Hartwell references are proprietary business records that fall outside the scope of marital assets. Shepry Global Holdings is a corporation with shareholders and fiduciary responsibilities that extend well beyond this dissolution proceeding."
Miller wrote down the key points. She noted Gerald's strategy and identified weaknesses Rachel could exploit.
And she kept sneaking peeks at Astoria from the corner of her eye.
The way her hand gripped the pen too tightly, knuckles pale against the dark barrel. The way she shifted in her seat, as if holding still required effort. The way she’d positioned herself at an angle that let her see both the judge and the respondent’s table without turning her head—a strategic choice, most likely, but it also meant Miller could study her profile without being so obvious about it.
The judge asked a clarifying question. Gerald answered. Rachel prepared a rebuttal.
Miller watched Astoria’s throat move as she swallowed and thought about what it took to sit in a courtroom and fight for your life while looking like you’d barely slept in a month.
Morning recess came at eleven-fifteen. Judge Whitcombe announced fifteen minutes, and the courtroom dissolved into controlled motion with attorneys conferring, clients stretching, and the clerk disappearing through a side door.
Miller stood, rolling her shoulders to release the tension that had settled there. Rachel was already deep in conversation with Valerie, their heads bent together over a legal pad. Miller gathered the files they'd used and stacked them neatly, giving herself something to do with her hands.
Across the aisle, Astoria had risen from her chair and was speaking with Gerald in a low voice. Her posture remained impeccable, but there was a tightness around her mouth that hadn't been there at the mediation. A brittleness, maybe, beneath all that control.
Gerald said something, and Astoria nodded once. He moved toward the door, probably heading for the restroom or the vending machines, but Astoria stayed where she was. She reached for the glass of water on the petitioner's table and took a small sip, then set it down without drinking more.
No coffee, no snack from her bag. Nothing but water and barely that.
Miller thought about the protein bar in her own bag, the one she'd grabbed that morning out of habit. She thought about Sunday dinners at her mothers' house, the way Harper always made sure everyone ate, the way Nadia noticed when Miller was too stressed to have an appetite.
Did anyone notice when Astoria Shepry wasn’t eating?
The question surfaced before Miller could stop it, and she shoved it aside. It wasn’t her concern. Astoria Shepry had attorneys and assistants and probably a whole staff of people whose job it was to worry about her wellbeing.
Miller didn’t need to add herself to that list.
She turned back to the respondent's table, where Rachel was finishing her conversation with Valerie. "Anything you need from me before we resume?"
“We’re good.” Rachel glanced at her notes. "The judge seems receptive to our timeline arguments. If she rules in our favor on document production, we can schedule depositions for early May."
“I’ll have the subpoena list ready.”
Rachel nodded, already moving on to the next thought. Miller appreciated that about her: the efficiency, the focus, the way she never wasted energy on unnecessary conversation.
She didn’t look at the petitioner’s table again.
Or…she tried not to. But when she turned to retrieve a file from her bag, her gaze swept across the aisle almost involuntarily, and she found Astoria already looking back at her.
Their eyes met for one unguarded second. Astoria's expression flickered briefly—surprise, maybe, or something Miller couldn't figure out—before the mask reasserted itself. She gave a small, professional nod. Miller returned it, then looked away.
Her pulse was doing something strange in her throat, but she ignored it.
The bailiff called the room to order, and everyone returned to their seats. The hearing resumed, and Miller picked up her pen and focused on the work in front of her. But she could feel Astoria's presence across the aisle like a low current of electricity, constant and impossible to ignore.
Judge Whitcombe called lunch recess at one o'clock, and the courtroom emptied in a slow shuffle of files and murmured conversations.
Miller followed Rachel and Valerie to a small conference room down the hall, the same one they'd used that morning. Someone had brought in sandwiches—turkey and Swiss on wheat, neatly wrapped in wax paper—along with a carafe of coffee that smelled marginally better than the courthouse café's usual offering.
