Page 52

Epilogue

Rebecca

It isn’t my dream wedding, but it’s also not the worst day of my life. Far from it, actually. I didn’t think I’d end up having as much fun as I did the second time around.

When Olivia suggested that Dan and I get engaged just a year after Gray’s death I told her she was crazy. But she laid out all the reasons that it was a good idea so rationally I couldn’t say no.

There were the optics of it all. The redemption narrative, the clean slate. And then there was the money. So much money for both the big day and its aftermath.

Let’s be honest, I have rarely said no to her when she’s wanted me to pivot.

Everyone loves a happy ending and what’s happier for a widow with six children than a wedding?

In America? Nothing.

Nothing except a new baby. And that’s coming in about six and a half months.

But no one knows yet. The pregnancy reveal will be epic.

Dan is psyched that I’m pregnant again. This time I know exactly who the father is.

It’s the same one as my bonus baby, but I’ll never tell Dan that.

I still don’t know if I’ll ever reveal what Dr. Carmichael did or if I’ll let the secret die with those two men in the barn.

Besides me, only Olivia knows, and she’ll never tell. She promised me that.

Olivia sold the exclusive photos and videos of the wedding for more than a million bucks.

The entire thing is sponsored and bringing in at least double that from vendors.

There are more than three hundred guests, including every major influencer to ever attend MomBomb.

We’re thinking of starting our own conference, so it was a nice way to test the waters.

It’s been the perfect relaunch for my brand.

The first issue of my magazine hits stands next week.

The TV crew will start filming us at the new ranch and new bakery in the first quarter of next year.

Our hotel is still a few years out, but the designs are in the works.

Dan doesn’t mind letting me be the boss.

He’s from New York originally, so women being in charge is second nature to him.

He was psyched to quit being a foot doctor and start being a full-time stay-at-home dad.

His kids are the sweetest and they seem to genuinely like living out in the country with my brood.

I suppose we are the modern-day Brady Bunch. Our audience has been eating it up.

We’re expecting another wave of attention when Lizzie’s book publishes next month.

Olivia brokered that seven-figure deal too.

It was enough that Lizzie could quit that magazine and launch a new career in true-crime writing, a niche she says she never knew she’d be into, but now she loves.

I gave her everything she needed to write my entire story.

We open it with the first time that Gray hurt me and how ashamed I was, how that shame kept me yoked to him and brought me to the ranch.

We talk about how I kept it solvent all those years, how I became the farmer, the mother, the homesteader, and the influencer despite everything Gray put me through.

I catch Lizzie’s eye as she finishes her matron of honor toast.

“There were years when I didn’t know if I would ever get to talk to Bex again, if we would ever get to laugh the way we did when we were na?ve eighteen-year-olds searching the couch cushions for change to buy a pizza.

But we found our way back together, and I think that makes our bond even more special.

There should be a German word for choosing your friends again as a fully formed adult.

But because there isn’t one, I want to share this poem that Bex sent to me a few months ago. It’s from Lyndsay Rush.”

Why shouldn’t I let love consume me and hold you in the center of my happiest days?

I believe the best is yet to come…

I’m bawling by the time she’s finished.

Veronica whistles loudly by placing two fingers in her mouth.

She’s wearing a very Olivia-like red pantsuit and she’s been mugging for all the cameras after acting as our wedding officiant.

That was also Olivia’s idea. She has Ronnie, that’s what Veronica calls herself now, auditioning next week for the Real Housewives of the Wild West .

She wants to get her all the exposure she can, even though she’s a shoo-in.

Veronica was ready-made to be a newly empowered widow influencer.

She’s embraced it with all the gusto she first embraced being a tradwife.

Now she’s live streaming her dates and she might outstrip me in terms of followers. Good for her.

I still don’t like Veronica, but I think I understand her a little better.

She felt as trapped by Marsden as I did by Gray.

She’s sworn up and down to me that she never had an affair with my husband.

She told me and the police that he emailed her and stalked her for years, but she ignored it until Marsden confronted her.

Olivia is dying for us to be friends. She thinks Veronica should be a regular on my new show. I told her I’d think about it.

I know I don’t question Olivia as much as I should. I know she does things behind the scenes that I don’t want to know about. But I also know that I have never felt as safe and secure and strong as I do right now. That’s all due to her. She helped all of us understand exactly what we were worth.

Olivia knew it was time for a rebrand for both Veronica and me, and she made that happen for both of us. The submissive, idyllic prairie daydream moment has ended. The audience, according to Olivia’s data and research, is now craving realness, vulnerability, and connection.

My hand shakes a little from holding the glass aloft for so long.

The nerves in my fingers will never be the same.

I tore a bunch of tendons trying to keep myself from suffocating as I strained against the noose that Marsden tied around my neck.

I honestly didn’t think I’d make it when I jumped, but I had to try.

I needed my kids to know I fought for them.

Mars and Gray might have had the local police in their back pockets, but Olivia got the FBI involved in the investigation after that night.

She gave them what we called the “security footage” from the barn when Marsden murdered Gray, before the camera went dark.

It was still saved. The agents wanted to know why I didn’t turn it over earlier, but I said I was afraid for my life and for the lives of my children.

I showed them evidence of Grayson’s and Marsden’s connections with the local police.

I said that I was waiting to figure out how I could keep all of us safe and I didn’t feel like I could come forward until Marsden finally killed himself in our barn.

They accepted it. Maybe Olivia had a hand in that too.

Kiki is sitting with Alice at the piano bench as my daughter begins a beautiful piece she composed herself for the occasion.

We had her second eardrum surgery a month ago, and she’s doing great and heading off to the special music boarding school in the fall.

Kiki beams at her. She quit six months ago to work on her app full-time.

Olivia got her the venture funding that she needed, and it looks like it will be a massive success.

Our new ranch is much closer to the city and the big kids are in a good school nearby.

The littles have a small army of babysitters to support me.

I don’t hide them from my feed. My entire audience knows them by name.

Same as they used to know the names of our chickens and Tripod (RIP to that nasty bastard).

Shouldn’t we fetishize women’s labor more than barnyard animals?

***

Lizzie walks over to me now and wraps an arm around my slightly rounded stomach. She leans down and kisses my belly, making sure first that no one is watching. “Hi, Baby Elizabeth,” she says.

“Is it okay that I’m naming her after you?” I ask for about the zillionth time. Our friendship isn’t what it was fifteen years ago. Like she said, we chose each other again as fully formed adults. It’s stronger now that it’s been broken and put back together bit by bit.

“I’m honored.”

Her handsome husband, Peter, is beaming at her.

His own novel is finally finished. It’s about a cowboy from the Wild West who somehow manages to travel forward in time to present-day New York City and becomes the hottest thing going on Tinder.

It was Olivia’s idea and she also brokered his deal.

We’ll see if it’s any good. It probably doesn’t have to be all that good to sell. Infamy is contagious.

I know that better than anyone. We were initially worried that I’d lose some followers, lose some deals, but it hasn’t happened.

Everyone loves drama and scandal and redemption.

I was able to give them all three. Now that all the dust has settled, I still give them the same kind of idyllic baking and ranching and mothering content just with a blended family and more help.

It turns out my audience didn’t want me barefoot and pregnant and silent.

They just wanted to watch something beautiful and aspirational.

Now I’m a lot more interesting to them as an entrepreneur and a survivor.

I might even run for the congressional seat Gray had his eyes on.

Who knows what the future holds. I’m a household name now and I plan to keep it that way.

There’s a new right way to be authentic.