When I saw my husband and his lover in court, a special witness walked in. His smile collapsed. That day, Trent Somerville, the man I’d shared a bed with for eight years, sat a mere twelve feet away from me in that courtroom. The woman he’d been sleeping with, Sabrina Feld, was positioned directly behind him. Trent looked unnervingly relaxed, almost bored, as if this entire divorce proceeding was a trivial chore he merely needed to endure before his lunch reservation. Sabrina, seated in the gallery, exuded an air of triumphant confidence, her legs crossed, her chin held high, as if she’d already secured a victory.
My lawyer, Connie Bellamy, a woman whose presence alone promised action, rose and uttered five words that would shatter Trent’s composure and redraw the battle lines of my life: “Your Honor, one more witness.”
The room plunged into an eerie silence. Not the hushed reverence of a movie theater, but a suffocating, real quiet—the kind where the hum of the air conditioner becomes a distinct, unsettling click. My chest tightened, a familiar knot of anxiety twisting within me. My gaze flickered to the heavy oak doors at the back of the courtroom. “No,” I whispered, barely audible, to myself. “It can’t be.”
Trent’s smile, that confident, lazy, I’ve-got-this-handled smirk, crumpled the very second he recognized the person who stepped through those doors. The sight drained the color from his face, leaving behind a mask of stark disbelief.
My name is Arya Marquez. I’m thirty-two years old, and up until about nine months ago, I genuinely believed I led a perfectly normal life. I work as a payroll coordinator at a regional trucking company in Wilmington, Delaware. My annual salary of $52,000 isn’t glamorous, but it always paid the bills. Or, at least, it used to.
I married Trent Somerville when I was twenty-four. We’d been inseparable since I was twenty-two, our paths crossing at a friend’s Fourth of July barbecue in Bear, Delaware. He’d spilled lemonade on my sandals and, with a charming grin, somehow parlayed that clumsy mishap into our first date. Trent was undeniably charming—tall, with an easy, infectious laugh that made you feel like you were the only person in the room. He ran an auto detailing business with two bustling locations: one on Kirkwood Highway and another near Newark. Our arrangement was simple: I managed the household, and he managed the business finances. I never questioned it because, frankly, I never had a reason to.
That reason arrived in our mailbox on an unremarkable Tuesday in April. It was a Chase credit card statement, addressed to Trent at our home, but for an account I’d never seen before. I almost tossed it onto his ever-growing pile of business mail. But the envelope was already partially open, its seal somehow compromised, and my eyes snagged on a number that felt like a punch to the gut: $1,740.
This was a charge from a jewelry store in King of Prussia Mall. Below it,
489∗∗fromaboutiquehotelin∗∗CapeMay,NewJersey∗∗.Andattheverybottom,amodest∗∗489∗∗fromaboutiquehotelin∗∗CapeMay,NewJersey∗∗.Andattheverybottom,amodest∗∗67 at a florist, dated a random Tuesday. My birthday falls in November. Valentine’s Day was two months behind us. Our anniversary was in June. I stood in our kitchen, the cold card statement clutched in my hand, and a single thought echoed in my mind: Who is getting flowers on a Tuesday in April?
I confronted Trent that night, my voice calm, meticulously reasonable. And here’s the unsettling truth: he didn’t flinch. Not a flicker of surprise, no stammering, no averted gaze. He looked at me as if I were being utterly silly, explaining that it was a business credit card, used for client appreciation. The jewelry? A watch for a fleet account manager who’d brought in significant referrals. The hotel? A team strategy retreat with his two shop managers. The flowers? For a client’s wife who had helped them secure a new commercial contract. Every answer flowed from him, smooth and warm, as if he’d rehearsed them in the shower. His “team planning session” apparently required a king-size bed, a late checkout, and a hotel that prominently advertised couples’ massages on its homepage.
But when someone you love looks you directly in the eye and tells you that you are wrong, you desperately want to believe them. So, I did. Or, at least, I tried to. But I didn’t throw away that statement. Something in my gut—the same gut that had whispered that lemonade on my sandals was clumsy, not charming, all those years ago—told me to keep it. I tucked it into a shoebox, hidden beneath the guest bathroom sink. I didn’t tell anyone.
Actually, that’s not entirely true. I told one person: Gretchen Somerville, Trent’s younger sister, and whom I believed to be my closest friend in Wilmington. For six years, we’d had lunch every other week. She knew how I took my coffee, knew my irrational fear of escalators, knew I cried at dog food commercials. I trusted her implicitly.
I sat across from her at a cozy café on Concord Pike, recounting the credit card, the hotel, the flowers. She squeezed my hand, her expression sympathetic, and promised she’d “look into it.” Twenty-four hours later, Trent stormed home, his face contorted with fury. He accused me of trying to poison his family against him. Gretchen had told him everything—every word, every worry, every tear. That’s when a chilling realization stole my breath: I had no one.
My parents and my sister resided in Tucson, Arizona, a daunting 2,400 miles away. I had meticulously built my entire life within the Somerville world—Trent’s town, Trent’s people, Trent’s family. And now, the walls were closing in from every direction.
I work in payroll. I stare at financial documents eight hours a day, five days a week. I know what a legitimate business expense looks like. And flowers on a random Tuesday for a client’s wife do not look like one. But love is a funny thing. It makes you deliberately obtuse. And love, I was rapidly learning, was the most expensive thing I’d ever paid for. That shoebox under the guest bathroom sink would eventually hold far more than just one credit card statement. But I didn’t know that yet. All I knew was a simpler, far more devastating truth: the man sleeping three feet away from me every night was someone I had never truly met.
The Tightening Grip
Five agonizing months crawled by, from April to August, and Trent didn’t retreat; he leaned in, further entrenching himself in his secret life. He started coming home later—9:00, 10:00, sometimes not until midnight—always with vague excuses about being at the shop or meeting a “parts supplier” in Philly. His phone became a permanent fixture, face down on the kitchen counter, as if actively hiding its secrets from me. And here’s a detail that still sends a shiver down my spine: he developed an inexplicable obsession with personal hygiene. The man who once habitually fell asleep on the couch watching ESPN was now, at 11 p.m. on a Wednesday, meticulously showering the second he walked through the door. If cleanliness truly is next to godliness, Trent Somerville was desperately trying to wash away some very serious sins.
The financial squeeze began subtly in July. One Monday morning, before work, I logged into our joint Bank of America account and discovered that
11,200∗∗hadbeentransferredtoabusinessoperatingaccountIcouldn′taccess.IquestionedTrent."Equipmentupgrades,"hestatedcalmly."AnewpressurewashersystemfortheKirkwoodHighwaylocation."ThefollowingSaturday,Idrovepastbothshops.Nonewequipment.Thesamepressurewasherswithpeelingdecals.Thesamevacuumstationswithcrackedhoses.Thesamefadedsignagethathaddesperatelyneededreplacingsince2021.∗∗11,200∗∗hadbeentransferredtoabusinessoperatingaccountIcouldn′taccess.IquestionedTrent."Equipmentupgrades,"hestatedcalmly."AnewpressurewashersystemfortheKirkwoodHighwaylocation."ThefollowingSaturday,Idrovepastbothshops.Nonewequipment.Thesamepressurewasherswithpeelingdecals.Thesamevacuumstationswithcrackedhoses.Thesamefadedsignagethathaddesperatelyneededreplacingsince2021.∗∗11,200 of upgrades, and not a single thing had changed.
Then, he changed the password on our savings account, just like that. One morning, I simply couldn’t log in. He dismissed it as a “security update” and promised he’d share the new password when he “got a chance.” He never got a chance. He also drastically reduced his automatic deposit into our joint checking account, from
3,200∗∗amonthdowntoameager∗∗3,200∗∗amonthdowntoameager∗∗1,800. My salary barely covered the mortgage at
1,640∗∗amonth,leavingmewithapaltry∗∗1,640∗∗amonth,leavingmewithapaltry∗∗160 for groceries, utilities, gas, and everything else.
I began packing leftover spaghetti for lunch, day after day: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. My coworker, Janine, finally asked why I’d been eating pasta for four consecutive days. I offered a forced laugh and claimed I was on an “Italian wellness plan.” The truth was, the plan was called, My Husband Moved $11,000, and Panera Isn’t in the Budget Anymore. Janine chuckled. I did too, but mine held a distinct crack of desperation.
Late August brought the blow that hurt more than any financial betrayal. Gretchen, the very same Gretchen who had so casually sold me out to Trent in April, hosted a family barbecue at her house. I was not invited. No call, no text, no “Hey, I know things are weird, but you’re still family.” Nothing. I stumbled upon this cruel exclusion through Instagram, because that’s how one discovers their life is unraveling in the modern age—through someone else’s Valencia-filtered photo album.
Gretchen had posted pictures of the entire Somerville clan: burgers sizzling, corn on the cob piled high, sparklers illuminating the backyard. And in the background of one photo, standing intimately close to Pauliana, Trent’s mother—the woman I had lovingly called “Mom” for eight years—was a woman I didn’t recognize. Dark hair, a flowing sundress, laughing as if she belonged there, utterly comfortable, perfectly at home. Pauliana was handing her a paper plate laden with a burger, as if this woman had been a cherished guest at these cookouts for years. That woman was Sabrina Feld. And that image—Pauliana, my mom, serving a plate to the woman my husband was sleeping with—burned a hole in me that I still feel to this day.
In early September, Trent filed for divorce. He filed first. His attorney sent papers demanding a 60/40 split in Trent’s favor. The auto detailing business, which I knew from years of Trent’s casual bragging was pulling in somewhere around
400,000∗∗ayear,wasdeclaredinhisfilingatatotalvalueofamere∗∗400,000∗∗ayear,wasdeclaredinhisfilingatatotalvalueofamere∗∗185,000. The house we’d bought six years prior for
340,000∗∗wasnowconvenientlylistedat∗∗340,000∗∗wasnowconvenientlylistedat∗∗280,000. His petition boldly stated—and I will never forget this wording—that I had “contributed minimally to the growth and maintenance of marital assets.” Eight years of managing the household, paying the bills, keeping his life running seamlessly while he built his empire, and I had “contributed minimally.” His lawyer’s message was brutally clear: take the paltry deal, or litigation would devour whatever meager scraps remained.
I drove to the Wawa on Route 202 that afternoon, parking in the farthest corner of the lot. I turned off the engine of my Nissan Pathfinder and simply cried for forty minutes. Not elegant, movie-star crying, but the ugly, visceral kind where your face doesn’t know what shape to be. I had $3,100 left in my personal checking account, no local family, and no friends—Gretchen had seen to that. And a husband who had just legally and officially declared that I was worth almost nothing.
I considered calling my mom in Tucson, but I knew she’d book a flight that night, and I genuinely could not afford to feed another person on my “Italian wellness plan.” The next morning, fueled by a strange mix of desperation and what I now believe was divine timing, I went to the Wilmington Public Library during my lunch break. I wasn’t searching for anything specific; I just needed a quiet refuge that wasn’t the house. I wandered into the self-help section and pulled a book from the shelf—something about financial recovery after divorce. Inside the front cover, tucked like a forgotten bookmark, was a business card. On the back, written in bold blue ink, were two words: She’s worth it. Call her. The front read: Constance Bellamy, Attorney at Law, Family Law and Asset Recovery.
I stared at that card for a long time, the weight of those few words resonating deep within me. Then, before I could talk myself out of it, I called. Whoever left that card in that book, if you’re out there, you saved my life. Not in a dramatic, cinematic way, but in the real, slow, steady, one-phone-call-at-a-time way.
Connie Bellamy’s office occupied the second floor of a narrow brick building on Market Street in downtown Wilmington, directly above a sandwich shop called Jordanos that perpetually perfumed the stairwell with the aroma of roasted peppers. Connie herself was fifty-eight, built with the sturdy frame of someone who’d played collegiate softball and never quite shed the confident stride of a player who could still turn a double play. She wore reading glasses perched on a beaded chain around her neck, and her handshake was firm, instantly instilling a sense that things were about to be handled. On the wall behind her desk hung a framed cross-stitch proclaiming, “Assets don’t hide themselves.” Next to it, a photo of two golden retrievers. I later learned their names were Plaintiff and Defendant, which told me everything I needed to know about Constance Bellamy.
She sat me down, poured me coffee from a pot that looked like it had been brewing since the Clinton administration, and, without preamble, said, “Tell me what you got.”
I brought the shoebox. I opened it on her desk, the flimsy cardboard box feeling like a tiny coffin overflowing with the sins of my marriage. Inside lay the Chase credit card statement from April, six screenshots of Venmo payments from Trent to someone named “S. Feld” totaling $7,600 over six months, captioned with ridiculously unhelpful phrases like “lunch supplies” and “miscellaneous.” There were also printed Instagram photos from Gretchen’s barbecue, showing Sabrina Feld standing in the Somerville backyard as if she had a permanently reserved seat at Thanksgiving dinner.
Connie first examined Trent’s proposed asset declaration. She donned her reading glasses, scanned the document for about ninety seconds, then removed them with a sigh. She declared the numbers so “creative” they should be submitted to a fiction writing contest. Then she grew serious. She explained something called “dissipation of marital assets.” In simple terms, every dollar Trent had spent on Sabrina during our marriage—jewelry, hotels, dinners, Venmo transfers—was money taken directly from our marital estate. Not his money, but our money. And in Delaware, it was recoverable.
But Connie said this wasn’t just a husband squandering marital cash on a girlfriend. If Trent was funneling money through his business to fund this affair, it constituted financial fraud against the marriage. She promptly filed subpoenas for Trent’s business bank records from both detailing locations.
What came back in October made the contents of my shoebox look like a mere warm-up act.
First, Sabrina Feld was on the business payroll, listed as “marketing consultant.” Salary:
4,800∗∗permonth.She’dbeenonpayrollforfourteenmonths.IgrabbedapenanddidthemathrightthereinConnie’soffice,becausethat’swhatpayrollcoordinatorsdo.Wemultiply.14monthsmultipliedby∗∗4,800∗∗permonth.She’dbeenonpayrollforfourteenmonths.IgrabbedapenanddidthemathrightthereinConnie’soffice,becausethat’swhatpayrollcoordinatorsdo.Wemultiply.14monthsmultipliedby∗∗4,800 is
67,200∗∗.∗∗67,200∗∗.∗∗67,200 paid to my husband’s girlfriend from a business that was, by law, half mine. Sabrina had even filed W9 tax forms—she’d signed legitimate documents for a position that produced no website, no social media campaign, no marketing plan, no client-facing materials. Nothing. She was being paid almost five thousand dollars a month to simply exist.
Second, and this detail twisted my gut in a different way: Gretchen Somerville was also on the payroll. Listed as “administrative support,” salary:
1,200∗∗permonth.Gretchen,whohadneverworkedasingledayinTrent’sbusiness,whoheldafull−timejobasareceptionistatadentalpracticein∗∗Middletown∗∗,wascollecting∗∗1,200∗∗permonth.Gretchen,whohadneverworkedasingledayinTrent’sbusiness,whoheldafull−timejobasareceptionistatadentalpracticein∗∗Middletown∗∗,wascollecting∗∗1,200 a month for administrative work she never performed. When I saw her name on that printout, something clicked into place. The barbecue, the phone call to Trent in April, the workplace ambush coming later. Gretchen wasn’t just being a loyal sister. She was on the payroll. Her loyalty had a price tag, and it was $1,200 a month. Connie flagged it but told me to stay focused on the bigger numbers. We’d circle back to Gretchen.
Third, a separate LLC I’d never heard of: Coastal Ventures, DE. The business account showed regular, hefty transfers to this entity. $93,000 total over two years. Connie leaned back in her chair and declared that Coastal Ventures was “a parking lot for money your husband didn’t want you to find.” It wasn’t a real business. It didn’t sell anything, produce anything, or employ anyone. It existed solely to hold cash somewhere I’d never think to look.
I’ll be honest. I sat in Connie’s office that afternoon, and my hands were shaking. Not from sadness anymore, but from the sheer audacity of the math. I added it up:
67,200∗∗toSabrina,∗∗67,200∗∗toSabrina,∗∗14,400 to Gretchen,
93,000∗∗toafakeLLC,plusthe∗∗93,000∗∗toafakeLLC,plusthe∗∗7,600 in Venmo payments. That’s a staggering $182,200—money Trent had moved, hidden, or simply handed away while I was eating leftover spaghetti and crying in a Wawa parking lot.
In late November, Trent finally figured out I’d hired a lawyer. The subpoenas, naturally, tipped him off. So, he sent Gretchen. She showed up at my workplace during my lunch hour, walked directly into the breakroom, and launched into a tirade as if delivering a sermon. I was “destroying the family.” Trent had made “one mistake.” I was “going to ruin everyone.” My coworker, Janine, was sitting right there, a turkey sandwich frozen halfway to her mouth. A guy from shipping named Ronnie suddenly found something immensely interesting about his coffee cup to stare at. I didn’t say a word. I simply let Gretchen speak until she ran out of fuel, which took about four minutes, and then she left. I returned to my desk and calmly emailed Connie every document I’d organized that morning. People who yell are usually afraid. People who stay quiet are usually ready.
That night, I started waking up at 5:30 a.m. Every morning before work, I’d sit at the kitchen table with my laptop, meticulously organizing every bank statement, every receipt, every screenshot into labeled folders on a flash drive—color-coded, date-stamped, cross-referenced. I work in payroll. Organizing financial data is literally what they pay me to do. People always told me that being a payroll coordinator was boring. And yes, maybe it is. But boring people notice when the numbers don’t add up. And every single number in Trent Somerville’s financial life was screaming. For the first time in nine months, I felt something other than fear. I felt methodical. And methodical felt like the beginning of something Trent wasn’t ready for.
Then Connie called with something I didn’t expect. She said someone had reached out to her office. Someone from Trent’s own family. Not Gretchen. Someone else. Someone who had been completely silent through all of this. And that person wanted to talk.
The person who called Connie’s office was Pauliana Somerville, Trent’s mother. The same woman I’d watched on Instagram, handing a burger to Sabrina Feld at the family barbecue as if welcoming a new daughter. The woman I’d called “Mom” for eight years. The woman who hadn’t spoken a single word to me since April. When Connie told me, I sat on the edge of my bed in the guest room—because that’s where I slept now—and stared at the wall for a solid three minutes. I had completely written Pauliana off. After the barbecue photos, after the silence, after watching her stand next to Sabrina as if I’d never existed, I figured blood won. It’s what mothers do. They pick their children, even when their children are wrong. I understood it. I hated it, but I understood it.
I was wrong about Pauliana. And being wrong about her was the best mistake I ever made.
Here’s what happened: The night of that barbecue in late August, after the burgers, the sparklers, and the Instagram photos, Trent stayed late at Gretchen’s house. Most of the family had gone home. Pauliana was still there, quietly cleaning up the kitchen. Trent had a few beers in him. And when Trent Somerville had a few beers in him, he talked. He told his mother that the business was clearing over $400,000 a year, more than double what he’d later declare in court. He called me “clueless.” Said I’d “take whatever scraps he threw because she doesn’t have the spine to fight.” He bragged about Coastal Ventures being his “escape fund that Arya will never touch.” He called the payments to Sabrina “the cleanest trick in the book.” And then he laughed. Sitting in his sister’s kitchen, barbecue sauce smudged on his shirt, he laughed about gutting his wife financially as if it were a clever business maneuver.
Pauliana didn’t laugh. Because she’d heard those exact words before, thirty years ago, from Trent’s father, Gerald Somerville. The man who built the original detailing shop had done the very same thing to Pauliana. Hidden accounts, fake expenses, a woman on the side. Pauliana had stayed quiet back then. She chose loyalty, she chose family. And when Gerald died seven years later, she discovered the business went entirely to Trent. The house was mortgaged into the ground, and there was nothing left for her. Pauliana spent her fifties rebuilding her life from a rental apartment in Bay, Delaware, working the front desk at a veterinary clinic until she could finally afford a used car and a security deposit on something better. She heard her dead husband’s words echoing from her living son’s mouth that night, and something inside her cracked open—something that couldn’t be sealed back shut.
Three days after the barbecue, Pauliana called Connie Bellamy’s office.
Trent had inherited his father’s business, his father’s charm, and apparently, his father’s unshakable belief that women can’t read a bank statement. The apple hadn’t fallen far from the tree; it had rolled straight into a hidden LLC.
The plan came together meticulously. Pauliana would testify about Trent’s private admissions: the real business revenue, the true purpose of Coastal Ventures, the consulting payments, his stated intent to leave me with nothing. Connie would add Pauliana to the official witness list fourteen days before trial, January 2nd, for a January 16th court date—per Delaware family court disclosure rules. No ambush, no tricks, fully legal.
And here’s the part that still makes me shake my head in disbelief: When Trent’s lawyer received that updated witness list and saw “Somerville,” they assumed she was testifying for Trent. Why wouldn’t they? She was his mother. Blood is blood. They didn’t call her. Didn’t prep her. Didn’t ask her a single question. They just assumed. That assumption was the second biggest mistake Trent’s legal team made. The first was thinking I wouldn’t fight.
Pauliana also told Connie about a fireproof safe at the Kirkwood Highway shop. Inside it, a backup hard drive where Trent meticulously kept his real financial records. QuickBooks files going back four years, every Coastal Ventures transfer logged, internal spreadsheets tracking actual revenue. The safe combination was “44”—Trent’s high school football jersey number—because, of course, it was.
Connie didn’t mention the safe specifically. She filed a broader discovery motion for “all business financial records at the Kirkwood Highway location, including digital media”—standard legal language. The court granted it. The combination from Pauliana simply told us where to look. The hard drive confirmed everything:
410,000∗∗inrealannualrevenue,∗∗410,000∗∗inrealannualrevenue,∗∗93,000 in Coastal Ventures transfers, the
67,200∗∗inSabrina’spayments,the∗∗67,200∗∗inSabrina’spayments,the∗∗14,400 in Gretchen’s payments—all meticulously recorded in Trent’s own spreadsheets. The man had kept a detailed record of his own fraud. I suppose when you’re utterly convinced nobody will ever look, you get organized.
One more thing about those months: Delaware doesn’t require separation before divorce. His lawyer advised him to stay in the house to protect his property claim. Connie told me the same. So, from November through mid-January, for six grueling weeks, Trent and I lived under the same roof like two strangers in a waiting room. I slept in the guest room. He came and went at random hours. We passed each other in the kitchen without speaking. He’d leave coffee mugs in the sink; I’d wash them without a word. It was the hardest performance of my life, knowing everything, yet showing nothing. Some nights, I’d lie in that guest room, staring at the ceiling, and remind myself: Patience isn’t weakness. Patience is what separates people who win from people who just react.
January 16th arrived. Trent didn’t know what Pauliana had told Connie. He didn’t know about the hard drive. His own lawyer saw “Somerville” on the witness list and never once picked up the phone to check which side she was on. Trent walked into that courtroom like a man who’d already won. I walked in carrying nine months of meticulously gathered evidence, a forensic accountant’s report, and one witness he never imagined would speak against him: his own mother.
January 16th. The courtroom air was thick with the scent of burnt coffee and floor wax. Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, their faint, intermittent flicker casting an oppressive pallor, making everything feel like a waiting room at the DMV. Judge Matilda McBrier presided from the bench, a woman in her early sixties with steel-gray hair pulled back severely, her reading glasses constantly sliding on and off like emphatic punctuation marks. She was known in Delaware family court for two things: thorough questioning and an absolute zero-tolerance policy for incomplete financial disclosures. I liked her immediately.
Trent sat at the opposite table, resplendent in a new navy blazer that still bore crisp creases down the sleeves. He looked like a man who had ironed his confidence that morning, along with his shirt. Sabrina Feld sat in the gallery directly behind him, legs crossed, chin up, quiet and poised, playing the role of the supportive partner observing a mere formality.
Trent’s lawyer opened first, his voice dripping with practiced nonchalance. “Arya contributed minimally. The business valuation of $185,000 is accurate. The original 60/40 offer was more than fair. Let’s finalize this and move on with our lives.” He spoke as if placing an order at a drive-thru.
Then, Connie stood up. She didn’t rush, didn’t raise her voice. She laid out the evidence with the precise, deliberate care of someone setting a table for a guest who doesn’t realize they’ve been invited to their own funeral.
First, the subpoenaed bank records detailing the Coastal Ventures LLC. $93,000 in transfers over two years to a company with no employees, no products, no clients, and no purpose other than holding cash where I’d never see it.
Second, the payroll record unequivocally showing Sabrina Feld as “marketing consultant,” receiving
4,800∗∗permonthforfourteenmonths,totaling∗∗4,800∗∗permonthforfourteenmonths,totaling∗∗67,200, for a position that generated zero deliverables. No website, no campaign, no analytics report, not even a single flyer.
Third, Gretchen Somerville, listed as “administrative support” at
1,200∗∗permonth,totaling∗∗1,200∗∗permonth,totaling∗∗14,400 for work she never performed, from a woman who already held a full-time job at a dental practice in Middletown.
And finally, the hard drive. Court-ordered, recovered from the Kirkwood Highway location, and authenticated by a forensic accounting firm out of Philadelphia. It revealed the real annual revenue:
410,000∗∗andchange,notthefabricated∗∗410,000∗∗andchange,notthefabricated∗∗185,000. Trent’s own QuickBooks files, his own spreadsheets, his own damning numbers.
Trent’s lawyer immediately objected to the hard drive. Judge McBrier overruled him without a flicker of hesitation. “It was obtained through a court order and verified by a certified forensic accountant. The objection is noted and denied.” The interruption didn’t even slow her down. Trent leaned over and frantically whispered something to his lawyer. His lawyer, visibly rattled, requested a recess. Denied. Judge McBrier stated flatly that she wished to hear “all evidence” before any breaks. The word “all” hung in the air, a beat longer than it should have.
Then Connie stood again, her gaze sweeping across the stunned courtroom. “Your Honor, we’d like to call one more witness. P. Somerville, already disclosed on the witness list.”
I knew this was coming. I’d planned it with Connie. I’d rehearsed my composure countless times in the guest room mirror. But knowing something is coming and watching it arrive are two completely different things. I looked at the courtroom doors, and my chest locked, just as it had that morning. I whispered, “Not for anyone else, just for me. No, it can’t be.” Not because I was surprised, but because the full, crushing weight of it hit me all at once. Eight years of calling this woman “Mom.” Thanksgivings, birthday cards with twenty-dollar bills tucked inside, the way she patiently taught me to make her famous brisket. And now, she was about to walk through that door and single-handedly end her own son’s case.
Trent’s reaction unfolded in slow, agonizing stages. First, confusion. He looked at the doors, a puzzled frown on his face. Then, recognition. His mother, Pauliana, walking steadily toward the witness stand. Then, he turned to his lawyer with a look I will never, ever forget. It wasn’t anger. It was the face of a man realizing that the one wall he thought would never fall had just crumbled into dust. His lawyer looked back at him with the exact same expression—a shared dawning horror. They’d had “P. Somerville” on the witness list for two weeks. Neither of them had called her.
My heart hammered so violently in my chest, I was convinced the court reporter would type its frantic rhythm into the transcript. Pauliana didn’t look at Trent, not once. She sat down, her gaze fixed on Judge McBrier, and spoke in a steady, unwavering voice.
She testified, “After the family barbecue in August, Trent told me privately that the business brings in over $400,000 a year. He called Arya ‘clueless.’ He described Coastal Ventures as his ‘escape fund.’ He called the payments to Sabrina ‘the cleanest trick in the book.’ He said Gretchen’s payments were ‘a thank you for keeping her mouth shut.’ And he said Arya would ‘take whatever scraps he offered.’”
Connie asked Pauliana why she decided to come forward. Pauliana’s answer was simple, devastatingly honest. Her husband had done the same thing to her thirty years ago, and she had stayed quiet. She had lost everything. She wasn’t going to watch that happen to someone she loved.
Behind Trent in the gallery, Sabrina Feld went utterly still. She heard “cleanest trick in the book.” She heard the consulting payments described as a mechanism for moving money, not a real salary. She looked at Trent, a dawning horror in her eyes. He didn’t look back. The $4,800 a month was never for her. It was never about her. She wasn’t his partner. She was his paper trail. And her signature was on every damning document.
Judge McBrier’s expression remained unreadable, but her questions grew sharper, cutting like a surgical blade. She asked Trent’s attorney directly whether his client wished to amend his sworn financial disclosures before she issued her ruling. The attorney stammered, requesting a sidebar. Denied. The judge declared she’d “heard enough and was prepared to rule.”
What she said next made nine months of spaghetti lunches worth every single bite.
Judge Matilda McBrier didn’t deliver her ruling with dramatic flourish. She delivered it the way you’d read someone their tab at the end of a very expensive dinner. Calm, clear, and utterly final.
“Due to deliberate dissipation of marital assets and fraudulent financial disclosure under oath,” she began, “the court awards Ms. Marquez 70% of all marital assets. The house is awarded 100% to Ms. Marquez; Mr. Somerville forfeited his claim through documented financial misconduct.” The auto detailing business was ordered for independent appraisal based on actual revenue figures, not the fairy tale $185,000 Trent had sworn to, and I was entitled to my full equitable share. The Coastal Ventures LLC was frozen immediately, all funds subject to equitable distribution.
Then, the judge’s voice dropped half a register, and the room became deathly quiet. She referred Trent’s sworn financial filings to the Delaware Attorney General’s Office for perjury review. He had lied under oath about the value of marital assets. She separately referred the business payroll records to the IRS, stating that “fictitious consulting and administrative payments used to reduce reported business income constituted potential tax fraud.” She pointedly noted that Sabrina Feld, as the recipient of
67,200∗∗inpaymentsforanon−existentconsultingposition—awomanwhofiledW9taxformsforthatrole—wouldbeincludedintheIRSreferralforpotentialtaxliabilityreview.AndGretchenSomerville’s∗∗67,200∗∗inpaymentsforanon−existentconsultingposition—awomanwhofiledW9taxformsforthatrole—wouldbeincludedintheIRSreferralforpotentialtaxliabilityreview.AndGretchenSomerville’s∗∗14,400 in fabricated administrative payments were flagged as well.
I watched Trent try to stand. His lawyer grabbed his arm, not gently, and pulled him back into his chair. His mouth opened, but nothing came out. The navy blazer he’d worn to project success now looked like a costume on the wrong man. He wasn’t arrested. That’s not how it works. The Attorney General’s office would investigate. The IRS would audit. Grand jury proceedings take months, but the machinery of justice was already grinding into motion, and Trent knew it. He walked out of that courtroom without handcuffs, but with something far worse: the absolute certainty that someone was coming for him. He just didn’t know when. And the not knowing, I think, is its own kind of prison.
Sabrina sat frozen in the gallery, as if someone had unplugged her. Nobody looked at her. Not Trent, not his lawyer, not Pauliana. She had come to that courtroom as Trent Somerville’s confident partner, the woman who thought she was next in line. She left as a name on an IRS referral document. She had signed those W9 forms. She had deposited those checks. She hadn’t designed the scheme, but her signature was all over it. She didn’t need a boyfriend anymore. She needed a lawyer. And based on the vacant look on her face, she knew it.
Trent once told me, about three years into our marriage during an argument about whether I should have access to the business accounts, that I was “too emotional to understand money.” I remember exactly where I was standing—by the kitchen sink, holding a spatula. I didn’t say anything back. I just turned around and finished making dinner. That moment replayed in my head as Judge McBrier read her ruling: too emotional to understand money. And here I was, walking out of a courtroom with the house, a real share of a $400,000 business, and a frozen LLC. Meanwhile, Trent Somerville was walking out with a perjury referral and an IRS audit. Turns out I understand money just fine. I just needed someone to stop lying about it.
In the hallway afterward, Gretchen approached me. She started to say something. I don’t know if it was an apology, an excuse, or just incoherent noise. I walked past her without slowing down, without looking at her. Not because I was angry, but because I was done. Gretchen’s $1,200 a month in “sisterly loyalty” had just morphed into a tax investigation. I had nothing left to say to someone whose support had a payroll number attached to it.
By the elevator, I saw Pauliana. She was standing alone, holding her purse with both hands. She didn’t try to hug me, didn’t make a speech. She just looked at me and nodded. Once. I nodded back. Eight years of holidays, birthday cards, brisket recipes, and Tuesday phone calls lived in that one shared nod. There was nothing either of us could say that would be big enough for what had just happened. So, we said nothing. And nothing, in that moment, was more honest than any words could have been.
