Chapter 7 #2
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.
She wasn’t hungry, but she unwrapped a sandwich anyway and took a bite. The morning had been long, and the afternoon would be longer.
Rachel spread her notes across the table. “The afternoon should be straightforward. I don’t anticipate any surprises.”
“And the document production?" Valerie asked. She'd taken a sandwich but hadn't opened it, her attention fixed on Rachel.
“Judge Whitcombe will probably split the difference. We'll get access to the financial records, but Gerald will win some concessions on the proprietary business documents." Rachel made a note on her legal pad. "It's not everything we wanted, but it's enough to work with."
Miller chewed mechanically, her mind drifting back to the courtroom. She kept seeing Astoria's face during Gerald's argument, that moment when her eyes had closed and the visible effort of pulling herself back together. The way she'd gripped her pen like it was the only thing keeping her upright.
“She looked rough today,” Valerie said.
Miller glanced up to find Valerie watching her, a small smile playing at the corners of her mouth.
“Astoria,” Valerie clarified, though they both knew it wasn’t necessary. "Did you see her? She looked exhausted, like she hasn't slept in weeks." The smile sharpened into satisfaction. "Good. She should be exhausted. She should be losing sleep over what she did to me."
Rachel made a noncommittal sound, still focused on her notes, and Miller stayed silent.
She should agree. Valerie was her client, and Astoria was the opposing party, the woman who, according to everything Valerie had told them, had spent over a decade making her feel small and invisible.
If Astoria was struggling, that meant the pressure was working and their strategy was having an effect.
But the satisfaction in Valerie's voice didn't sit right. It landed somewhere uncomfortable in Miller's chest and stayed there.
Rachel set down her pen. “Let’s focus on what we can control. The document production ruling will come this afternoon, and we need to be ready to pivot either way.”
Miller nodded, grateful for the redirect. She picked at her sandwich, pulling a piece of crust free and setting it aside.
Valerie finally unwrapped her own sandwich, taking a delicate bite. “I want to be there for her deposition. When we finally get her under oath, I want to watch her squirm.”
“That’s your right as a party to the proceedings,” Rachel said evenly. “Though I'd recommend we discuss strategy before—”
“I know how to behave in a deposition, Rachel.” Valerie’s tone cooled slightly. “I’ve sat through enough of them.”
A brief silence settled over the table. Miller took another bite of her sandwich but didn’t taste it.
She thought about what Nadia had said, weeks ago now, looking at a newspaper photo of Astoria: “She looked exhausted. All that buttoned-up composure, but her eyes... I've seen that look before.”
Miller had dismissed it then. It wasn't her job to feel sorry for the opposing party.
But watching Astoria in that courtroom this morning, Miller couldn't shake the feeling that she was seeing something she wasn't supposed to see. Something real, beneath all those protective layers.
It didn't change the facts of the case. It didn't change what Valerie had told them about the marriage, the manipulation, the slow erosion of her confidence and autonomy. It just made everything feel more complicated than Miller wanted it to be.
“Miller?” Rachel's voice cut through her thoughts. “You with us?”
“Sorry.” Miller straightened. “Just thinking about the afternoon session.”
Rachel studied her for a moment, then nodded. “Let’s review the remaining motions. I want to be ready for whatever Gerald throws at us.”
Miller pulled her legal pad toward her and focused on the work. She didn’t think about Astoria’s exhaustion or Valerie’s satisfaction or the strange weight that had settled in her chest sometime during the morning session.
She didn’t think about any of it…
For about thirty seconds.
Then the conference room door opened, and the bailiff announced that court would resume in ten minutes, and Miller gathered her files and followed Rachel back toward the courtroom.
And despite her best efforts, her gaze found the petitioner’s table before she’d even fully entered the room, searching for a charcoal suit worn by a woman who looked like she was barely holding herself together.
Astoria was already seated, her posture as perfect as ever, her face revealing nothing.
Miller took her seat at the respondent’s table and opened her legal pad to a new page.
The afternoon stretched ahead of them, hours more of arguments and motions.
She picked up her pen and trained her attention on the judge’s bench.
But the observations from the morning lingered underneath, quiet and persistent, refusing to be ignored.