Chapter Twenty-Six
My cherished wishes, yesterday so blooming and glowing; they lay stark, chill, livid corpses that could never revive.
I’m shoving all my possessions into my suitcases.
Into boxes. With any luck, I’ll leave this trailer and Resilience Ranch within the hour, but just the idea of that wrenches my heart.
Picturing Axel Rose arriving here tomorrow morning and finding me gone.
Never seeing Copper Cash, Gatsby, Freckles, Rosie, Spitfire, or Tapioca again.
And then there’s Miss Adele and Betty. They’ll think I’ve abandoned them.
Nothing to do about it though. Except gulp back a sob.
A knock on my trailer door startles me, the framed photo of Betty I was about to pack nearly sliding from my grasp. I place it down on my bed and walk toward my door.
Through the peephole, I see Chet. I guess I’d rather find him standing there than Birdy or Grace Poole. Still, more than anything, I want to be alone.
“Go away, Chet!” I yell.
“Jane, please.” Chet’s voice is raw through the thin metal door. “Just give me five minutes. Hear me out, and then I’ll go.”
My hands shake as I reach for the doorknob. I should tell him to leave. But some stupid, stubborn part of me longs for him.
I yank the door open. Chet stands there looking like he’s aged ten years since earlier this evening. His eyes are bloodshot, his face lined with worry, his hair somehow seeming more gray at the temples. He doesn’t wait for an invitation before stepping inside.
“Birdy and Grace are leaving,” he says without preamble. “I booked Birdy into a luxury mental health program in Colorado Springs. Grace is going to drive her. They’ll be gone by morning.”
I cross my arms over my chest. “And that’s supposed to make everything better? You’ve been lying to me for weeks, Chet.”
“I know.” He runs a hand through his hair. “I’ve been lying to myself too. That’s why I need to tell you everything. The whole messed-up truth.”
“No. It’s too late for that. Whatever you’re gonna say won’t make a difference.”
His chin trembles. “That’s not the point.”
“Not the point? How can there even be a—”
“The point,” Chet interjects, “is that I love you. I understand that you’re leaving. But please, Jane. Hear me out. Let me explain how it came to this. I won’t make excuses or beg for forgiveness. But maybe you’ll understand.”
Chet’s dark eyes implore me. And dammit, my heart cracks open, just enough that he can almost worm his way back in.
“Fine,” I say, gesturing to my fold-down dinette table. “I’m listening.”
He sits and stares at his hands. Outside, something—a branch, maybe—scrapes against the side of the trailer.
“My dad died in Iraq,” he says. “You knew that already. You also know that my mom cleaned houses in Silicon Valley to keep us afloat. Then she married Tom, and from day one, Mason resented me. It didn’t help that Tom tried too hard, welcoming me into the family.
And when I got into Berkeley and Mason didn’t, well, after that—” He exhales. “You can imagine.”
I nod.
“ShopSpot was my capstone project. Tom invested on the condition that I hire Mason. And Mason, to his credit, was good at it. Charming people, closing deals. For a while, we were almost brothers.” He pauses.
“Then he started bringing Birdy to company parties. She’d hang off his arm, smiling for photos, but every time he’d had a few drinks, she’d go very still.
Like an animal that’s learned not to move. ”
My throat tightens.
“She showed me bruises,” Chet says. “Insinuated that he was abusive. I believed her. I confronted Mason, and he laughed at me—said she was the dangerous one, that I was being played.” His jaw works.
“And yet, I chose Birdy over Mason. Even though he was as close as I’d ever get to having a brother.
And if he resented me before, he hated me now.
Once Birdy moved into my place, Mason claimed I’d ‘stolen’ her from him.
And then—” Chet stops. Looks at his hands again.
I lean forward, curiosity momentarily quelling my anger. “Go on.”
He lowers his voice. “I started noticing inconsistencies—stories that didn’t add up.
” He meets my eyes. “I was always a firm ‘believe women’ kinda guy. Still am. But it’s not uncommon for someone with Munchausen’s to invent tales of domestic abuse, even injure themselves to make the story believable.
It’s part of the pathology. Creating drama, playing the victim. ”
“So you think she lied about Mason abusing her?”
Chet nods, chest heaving. “Back then, I didn’t know she had Munchausen’s. Around the same time, Mason discovered I’d been secretly moving funds from our venture capital partners into my pet project—a program to help small business owners succeed online.”
“You embezzled money?” I can’t hide the shock in my voice.
“Yes, Jane. I embezzled from my own company.” His face flushes.
“But first, I tried to talk it out with Mason. Things were tense. He insisted he ran the business side and I had no jurisdiction there. I argued that ShopSpot was meant to level the playing field so small businesses could compete in e-commerce. When Mason refused, I diverted money earmarked for other expenses into my project. I planned to pay it back, but I’d used company resources without authorization.
” He sighs. “Mason threatened to expose me. We were at a standoff until Birdy suggested a solution—she’d keep quiet about the abuse if he stayed quiet about my ‘misappropriation of funds.’ I guess because Mason wanted to be free of me and the hole I’d created, he agreed to buy my shares and let me leave quietly.
” Chet’s tone turns ironic. “You know, from the company that was my brainchild.”
“And that’s how you became a billionaire,” I say flatly.
“Yes.” He looks miserable. “Still, ShopSpot was worth sixteen billion by then, and I left with a fraction of that. I didn’t care.
But Tom was disappointed—he believed whatever Mason told him without hearing my side.
I couldn’t come between a father and son, so Birdy and I traveled the world, looking for good causes to support.
” Chet looks out the window toward the stables.
“After a while, I grew bored. Plus, Birdy was spending more and more time online. Whenever I mentioned it, she’d ‘get sick.’ There were sudden doctor visits for conditions that vanished overnight.
” Sucking in a breath, he looks directly at me.
“One day, I tried to end it with her. That’s when she broke down in tears and said she’d been diagnosed with lymphoma.
“I believed her,” Chet continues, his voice hollow.
“How could I not? She showed me hospital bills, talked about her treatments. She even convinced me that buying a ranch and being around horses would help her heal. Funny thing is, while I fell in love with the horses and this land, Birdy couldn’t have cared less.
She’d go through the motions, take a few photos, but she was always looking at her phone, checking her likes and reading the comments. ”
He stands up and paces inside my tiny trailer, running his hands through his hair.
“Then she got an offer to work with this wellness nonprofit in Florida. She said it would be a short-term thing, just a few weeks. While she was gone, I started going through her things. I hacked her online accounts and recovered her browsing history.”
“What did you find?” I whisper.
He shrugs. “Just that she’d visited personal blogs by people with lymphoma, joined Reddit groups, and bookmarked posts on Instagram.
Reading it, it all sounded so familiar—like she’d been quoting, word for word, people who bravely shared their real struggles with cancer.
Plus, she’d Googled things like ‘How to get admitted into the hospital’ and ‘How to get cancer treatment prescriptions.’ It forced me to face the truth.
But I waited about twelve hours before I called to confront her. ”
“When was that?” I ask.
He releases a humorless chuckle. “Right when you arrived at the ranch. Remember our conversation by the fire? How awkward I was? That was me trying to process everything she’d said.”
Of course I remember our conversation by the fire. I also remember something else. Chet, so angry and impatient on the day Miss Adele was delivered. That woman is intent on making my life miserable. Had Chet just discovered the truth about Birdy?
“And what did she say?” I press.
“That’s the thing. Birdy confessed.” He laughs bitterly. “She broke down crying. Said it started small, just wanting sympathy, but then it spiraled. She couldn’t stop herself. She’d even been to a shrink, had gotten the official Munchausen’s diagnosis.”
I fold my hands on the table and stare at the wall clock. It’s refashioned from an old plate, painted with red daisies and trimmed in orange bric-à-brac. The hands read a quarter past eight, and all I can think is, Once August hits, it sure starts getting dark early.
“So,” I say, “how did she end up back here? And why did you let her come?”
“A couple of weeks later, she called me,” he says.
“Hysterical. Threatening to hurt herself.” Chet picks up a salt shaker from the counter and turns it over in his hands.
“I knew it was over between us, but part of me still loved her. We’d had some good times—shared a lot.
And I’d never have forgiven myself if she’d followed through and .
. .” He sucks in a breath. “So I told her she could stay in the blue barn.”
“Which you turned into a hospital room.”
“That was her idea. She needed time to wind down the story for her followers.” He sets the salt shaker down. “My aunt Grace came to help. We figured Birdy would crack, being cooped up like that. Then the Fourth of July happened.”
I wait.
“She attacked Mason after overhearing him on the phone with his lawyer. Apparently, he was saying that Tom originally invested under false pretenses. Even though I’d paid Tom back—all of it plus interest—Mason claims he has grounds to take everything.
” Chet exhales through his nose. “After that, I knew two things: Birdy is dangerous, and Mason cannot find out about any of this. Not yet. So I was determined to protect Birdy from herself, and the world from Birdy, and to protect Resilience Ranch from Mason. Otherwise, if his lawsuit worked, the horses would suffer.”
A sudden, sharp pain stabs my heart. “And where do I figure into all this?”
His face softens. “You don’t just figure in, Jane.
Everything centers around you. This whole time, I was petrified you’d find out and hate me.
Of course, I planned to tell you eventually, but I convinced myself that given time, Birdy would get better on her own, that she’d decide to leave, and then I could confess everything. ”
“Come on, Chet. You’re too smart to believe such a thing.” A headache is forming behind my eyes. I try blinking it away, but no luck. “But to be fair, I thought I was too smart to believe such lies. You really got me, I’ll give you that.”
He doesn’t answer right away. Chet’s jaw tenses, his gaze flicking down. “That was never—” He rubs his face. “You just appeared, like some wish I hadn’t realized I’d made. And you were perfect—”
“Ha!” I cry. “Come on. We both know I’m far from perfect.”
“Perfect to me,” Chet states. “I was about to say that you were perfect to me.” He pauses, betraying nothing. “Even still, I tried to stay away, knowing that I couldn’t . . . that I shouldn’t . . .”
I glare at him. “Yet you did. And now everything between us is ruined. Not just our relationship, but this place, my job, the horses—everything.”
“Don’t say that.” Chet slides into the chair across from me and reaches for my hands. I pull them away.
He recognizes my rebuke with a single nod of his head. “Look, Jane, you—you’re meant to be here, and Miss Adele, Betty, Freckles—they need you. So, please don’t go. I promise I’ll stay out of your way. I’ll even transfer ownership of Betty to you, make it official—”
“No way.” I choke out the words before he can go on. “I can’t let you give her to me. I can’t let you give me anything at all.”
Chet’s mouth drops open. “Why not?”
I swallow the lump in my throat. “Because your relationship with Birdy is toxic, and you’re not over her. How do I know that you haven’t been with her these last six weeks? You’ve had plenty of opportunity—and if you can lie about hiding her here, you could lie about anything.”
He briefly covers his face with his hands and rubs his eyes, which are already red. “I understand you thinking that way. But I swear to God, Jane—Birdy and I, we’re over. While I still love her, I’m no longer in love with her. Not anymore.”
“And yet,” I say, “you still want to save her. If you’re telling the truth, then—best case—you have a savior complex, Chet.
Birdy needs rescuing and you get off on it.
Now here I am, in need of saving, just like her.
And while most of what Birdy said was a lie, one thing rang true: You’ll get tired of me soon.
The moment I seem strong to you, the moment I’m not someone you can save—that’s when you’ll lose interest.”
“You don’t understand,” he says. “I fell in love with you, Jane. But I never thought about saving you. Instead, I thought you might save me.”
His words hit me like a gut punch. “For what it’s worth, Chet, I fell in love with you too. But you had no business letting me feel that way.”
He stares at me. “Fuck, Jane. Like I have control over your emotions.”
“You led me on,” I say.
“I tried not to.”
“Not hard enough.” The tears are right there, just behind everything. “Now you have to let me go.”
Something moves across his face—resignation, maybe, or grief. “Where will you go?” He pauses. “Take Betty. Please.”
I shake my head and stand up. My legs are unsteady, and I know if I don’t move right now, I’ll fall apart completely. I walk to the door and hold it open.
“Please leave,” I manage. “I need to pack.”
He looks at me for a long moment, his eyes wet, and I have to look away. I hear him stand, hear his shoes cross the floor.
“Goodbye, Jane.”
The door closes. I press my back against it and cover my mouth with both hands, because if I don’t, I’ll open the door and call after him and tell him that I’ve never loved anyone the way I love him. And we’ll be right back where we started.
I slide down to the floor. I cry for hours. Until my eyes sting. Until my throat is sore. Until there are no tears left. Then, I pick myself up, dust myself off, and figure out a plan.