Chapter 6 #2
The Hartfords chuckled politely, and Astoria kept her smile fixed in place.
“But you make it work,” Ellen said, clearly trying to smooth the moment.
“We manage.” Valerie's hand found Astoria's arm, squeezing gently. “Though between us, I've sometimes wondered if she'd even notice if I disappeared for a week. As long as the quarterly reports looked good.”
More polite laughter followed, and Astoria felt something icy settle in her chest.
“Oh, I’m sure that’s not true,” James Hartford offered.
“You’d be surprised.” Valerie’s smile didn’t waver. “My wife isn’t exactly the warm, fuzzy type. ‘Frigid’ might be the more accurate term, though I say that with love, of course.”
The word was suspended in the air, like the sting after a slap.
The Hartfords’ laughter died into uncomfortable silence. James cleared his throat, and Ellen suddenly became very interested in her champagne flute. Astoria stood frozen, her face blank while something cracked behind her ribs.
Valerie squeezed her arm again, leaning in conspiratorially. “I’m teasing, darling. You know I adore you.”
Astoria managed a smile. She didn't remember what she said—something appropriate that ended the conversation without making a scene—and the Hartfords drifted away with visible relief, then Valerie melted back into the crowd as if nothing had happened.
Astoria excused herself and walked toward the restrooms. Her heels clicked against the marble, each step precise and measured. She nodded at an acquaintance and smiled at a waiter, and above all, she did not run.
The bathroom was mercifully empty, and Astoria locked herself in the far stall, pressing her back against the wall.
Her hands were shaking. She couldn’t breathe.
Her chest had gone tight, her lungs refusing to expand properly, and the room felt too small as the walls pressed in.
She gripped the edge of the stall door and forced herself to count.
Inhale for four, hold for four, exhale for four.
Frigid.
In front of the Hartfords and anyone else who might have been listening and said with a smile, wrapped in laughter, so that Astoria couldn’t even object without seeming oversensitive.
The panic crested and slowly, slowly receded. Astoria stood in the stall until her hands stopped trembling, she could breathe without effort, and the mask was in place. Then she checked her reflection in the mirror—perfectly composed, not a hair out of place—and returned to the gala.
She got through the rest of the evening on autopilot. She smiled at all the right people, made her donation, and posed for one more photograph with Valerie, their shoulders touching, the image of a happy couple.
In the car afterward, the silence stretched taut between them.
“You’re upset,” Valerie observed. She was checking her phone, scrolling at something, not even looking at Astoria.
“You called me frigid in front of the Hartfords.”
“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 so seriously. 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, and this is the thanks I get. Accusations because I made a 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 pressing closer. 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.
Maybe that was good. If Miller was principled enough to question inconsistencies, maybe she’d eventually see through Valerie’s performance. Maybe she’d notice the patterns that didn’t add up.
Or maybe not.
Compassionate people often believed victims, even false ones. That’s what made them compassionate.
Astoria dismissed the thought. It didn’t matter what Rachel Hartwell or Miller Scott believed. What mattered was the evidence, and she had plenty of that.
She turned off her desk lamp and walked through the dark office to the elevator.
The building was silent around her, the hum of climate control the only sound.
She caught her reflection in the elevator doors as they opened: a woman in a wrinkled blouse, dark circles under her eyes, and a tote clutched like a shield.
She looked away.
The parking garage was nearly empty, her footsteps echoing off the concrete. Her car sat alone in its reserved spot, waiting to carry her back to a house that would be just as empty.
The drive home took twenty minutes through rain-slicked streets.
She didn’t turn on the music or news, just let the silence fill the car.
Traffic lights cycled through their colors for nobody except her.
The city felt hollowed out at this hour, everyone else tucked safely into homes where people waited for them.
The Cliffside neighborhood was dark when she pulled into her driveway. She’d left no lights on that morning, but the house loomed large against the sky, all sharp angles and glass.
Inside, she moved through the shadows without turning on the lights or lamps; she knew the path by heart. In the bedroom, the ocean was audible through the windows, waves breaking against the rocks below in their endless rhythm.
She changed into pajamas and slid between cold sheets. The ceiling stared back at her, blank and unhelpful.
Sleep didn’t come.
She thought about the week ahead. She’d have more documents to review and depositions to attend, the slow machinery of litigation grinding forward.
She wished, not for the first time, that someone understood what she’d survived without her having to prove it in court. That someone could look at the evidence and see not just documents but the woman who’d lived through every manipulation, every subtle cruelty, every smile that hid a knife.
But wishing didn’t win cases, evidence did. Tomorrow, she would keep fighting.
Astoria closed her eyes and listened to the waves until exhaustion finally pulled her under.