When she introduced herself, she extended her hand and waited for me to finish standing before we sat. I noticed that she placed the folder neatly on the table without opening it immediately. She seemed determined to establish that she was a person before she became a source of documents.
She began by thanking me for agreeing to meet. Then she said she was sorry about what had happened with Jade. I told her I was sorry about whatever had led her to collect a folder about her own husband. She gave a brief smile at that, one that disappeared almost as soon as it arrived.
She explained that she and Remy had been married for nine years and that their relationship had changed gradually, then suddenly, in a way she had struggled to explain to herself. At first the trouble consisted of missed dinners, extra sessions, and late-night messages that he called professional. When she asked questions, he accused her of being threatened by his success.
That sentence made me look up. Dana noticed and nodded as though she had expected it. She said Remy had become highly skilled at presenting himself as the person encouraging growth while describing anyone who questioned his behavior as fearful or limiting. When she and Remy argued, he would tell her she was resisting their evolution.
When she asked whether a client needed to call at midnight, he said she did not understand the demands of coaching people through major change. He treated ordinary expectations of honesty as attempts to control him. Dana spent years trying to decide whether her discomfort was reasonable because every conversation ended with her defending the fact that she had asked a question.
About two years earlier, she began keeping a written timeline. At first it was for herself, because she wanted to remember conversations accurately and stop confusing one incident with another. Later, as contradictions accumulated, she saved messages that were available to her through accounts and conversations she was entitled to access. She stressed that she had not hacked anybody's phone or stolen clients' medical or financial information.
Some women had contacted her independently after discovering Remy had misrepresented his marital status. Others had provided statements voluntarily when Dana explained why she was trying to understand the repeated pattern. She had worked with an attorney to distinguish useful evidence from material she had no right to circulate.
I appreciated that explanation more than she probably realized. In the days since Jade's text, I had watched how quickly facts could become weapons if a person wanted to win an argument badly enough. Dana did not seem interested in winning an argument. She wanted an accurate account of what had happened during her marriage and, if necessary, a formal review of Remy's professional conduct. She made no grand predictions about the outcome. She said only that he had created a confusing situation for more than one person and that the confusion had allowed him to avoid accountability longer than he should have.