Voici un bonus pour nos lecteurs anglophones. Cet épilogue à l’épilogue nous est parvenu trop tard pour l’édition française. Il raconte les derniers développements depuis la parution du livre aux Etats-Unis, le coup de fil d’Oprah Winfrey, l’évolution de la relation entre Lara et Sam…

Vous pouvez également lire ce nouveau chapitre en PDF ici.

Bonne lecture !

 

Chapter 23 (Bonus Content) 

Stand by Me

 

January 2024

If my 2024 were a sound, it would be an old-fashioned record scratch—a needle jumping the grooves and turning melody into chaos. Or maybe it would be the desperate screech of brakes—that panicked slow-motion wail of rubber clawing against asphalt right before a potential crash.

Twenty twenty-four came in hot and reckless and ready to do damage. I’d like to say that I was unprepared, that I was blindsided, that I had absolutely no idea what was coming. 

But that would be a lie. 

*

“Can we talk?” 

This is my least favorite question, so no one is more surprised than me to hear the words come out of my own mouth.

“Yeah, sure,” Sam says. 

He looks up from his phone, and I realize I haven’t really thought about what I’m going to say next. It’s taken me six months to gather the nerve to say these few words, and now I feel the vertigo that always comes when I know I’m going to say something I know will change everything. 

The reality was that I had been traveling a lot for the past two years by choice more than necessity, and even more in the last half of 2023. And with each day that passed since my memoir came out, I was finding it harder not to say the quiet things out loud. I was drunk on the truth, giddy from no longer pretending to be someone I wasn’t. And when you’re done pretending, anything scaffolded by pretense crumbles quickly.

Even a marriage you had just written about as a happily-ever-after, third-time’s-a-charm love story. 

I lift my chin and flick my eyes toward the stairs, and Sam gets the hint—thirteen years together and he knows the signals. The kids are all home, and this is not a conversation for a family meeting. Not yet, anyway.

I close the door to our bedroom, and Sam sits on the edge of the bed. I take a deep breath.

“We need to talk about us,” I say. “We can’t go on like this.” I take another deep breath. “We are so disconnected. We are living completely separate lives.”

Sam shrugs. I start to say more, but then I stop myself. We look at each other, and I just wait. I don’t want to do all the work. He sighs, and I look around the room.

“This is how relationships are,” he says. “When you get to be a certain age…”

“You’re fifty,” I say and then stop myself. So much for waiting it out.

He shrugs again. I don’t know what I want him to say, and a part of me doesn’t want him to say anything. A part of me doesn’t want to fix this.

“We can’t just not talk about it,” I say. “I don’t want us to blow up our lives. But I also can’t go on living in silence. Can we just start talking, being honest? Figuring it out? I feel like I’m all alone here…”

“You never ask me about my day,” he suddenly says, and he’s angry. “You have no interest in my work.” 

He’s right. I can’t pretend to be fascinated by his job as an ironworker when I’m not. He’s mad now, and I feel defensive because I want to be someone in love with their partner enough to care about building materials. 

We sit in silence again, and I think about how seven years earlier—before we bought this house, before I wrote a book—I had told him I didn’t feel like I was in love with him anymore. He had become despondent, freaked out, and then he love-bombed me for a month with notes and flowers until it seemed easier to stay than leave. 

“Do you remember before?” I asked. “When I was going to leave?”

He nods.

“I don’t think I ever fell back in love with you,” I say quietly. “I don’t think we ever fixed that because we never went any deeper. I just did what was easy. I can’t do that anymore. And we can’t fix anything or figure out how to figure out the rest of our lives together if we don’t talk about it. Maybe it’s going to look different than we thought, but we can figure it out together if we just, you know, communicate.”

“This is how relationships are,” he says again. “You don’t stay in love. It turns into…” He looks around our bedroom, points at my office door. “This.”

Maybe he’s right. Maybe I’m just a ridiculous closet romantic from all those Nora Roberts books when I was a teen, but I have felt alone around people, around partners, my entire life. Maybe there’s more, maybe there isn’t. But alone and honest is better than together and dishonest. 

Half alive is the exact same thing as half dead.

I don’t say any of this, and we sit in silence until he finally gets up and goes downstairs.

Six months earlier, I had tried to go to him with vulnerability, thinking my self-sufficiency was our problem. Vulnerability was a look I was still trying to get comfortable in—like high heels that made my ass look good but only if I didn’t topple over.

“I’m so scared about the book coming out,” I had said. “What have I done?” The idea that all of my past I had so carefully hidden was about to be in print forever had me shook. I felt exposed and afraid. I wanted to be held and reassured and told I was doing a brave thing. 

“You’ll be fine,” he had said, not looking up from his phone. “You always are.”

He was right.

I was fine, but we weren’t.

*

Two weeks after our talk, Sam tells me that he is in love with someone else. That he “manifested his dream woman.” And just like that, he’s gone. 

I don’t know what a dream woman is, but I imagine what that might mean to Sam. I know a dream woman is not me.

I’ve gone through betrayal and divorce before, but for the first time I don’t make it about me or the other woman. I don’t put on my FBI hat and investigate. I don’t need all the details. I don’t compare my looks to hers. I don’t see his choice of her as a declaration of something lacking in me. With Bryan all those years ago, I did. I internalized all the cheating and believed it meant there was something wrong with me. That I didn’t deserve love. Childhood shit. It’s what sent me spiraling into opiate addiction. 

But that was then and this is now. I feel hurt and scared and a little discarded and a lot disrespected. But not once do I think drugs are the solution. It never even crosses my mind.

I also feel angry. And anger, like vulnerability, is a new look for me. My mind goes to different places and platitudes as I sleep alone in my bed while Sam sleeps next to his dream woman in his new dream life. 

It’s for the best. This is what you wanted.

Life isn’t happening to you, it’s happening for you.

Everything always falls apart before it falls together.

When life gives you lemons, set them on fire and burn it all down.

I allow myself the luxury of feeling every emotion without judgment. I call a friend and then another friend and then more friends, and I cry all my tears and rage and let them know I am hurt and scared, and it all feels like too much all at once.

I am messy, but for the first time in my life I have people who see me at my messiest and refuse to leave my side. Refuse to let me go through hard things alone. 

The bad things or the good.
I soon find out that sometimes the good things can shake you the most.

*

A couple of weeks after Sam moves out, my publicist at Simon & Schuster, Bri, asks to talk to me about my book and the paperback launch, which is still several months away. I get on the video call with some trepidation, thinking she’s going to tell me they aren’t going to release my book in paperback because I have somehow failed everyone. 

“We were thinking about reaching out to book clubs again, Lara,” she says. 

“Okay,” I answer.

“Are there any you really want us to reach out to?”

This is weird, and Bri seems a little nervous. “Well,” I say, “I don’t know which ones you’ve reached out to or who has already passed.” 

She doesn’t answer, and instead asks me the same question again. It’s getting weirder. Finally I say, “Well, you know which one I want!” 

And then it happens.  

Oprah’s face pops up in the video and she asks, “Which one is that, Lara?”

One of my go-to ways of getting through insomnia and hard times has always been to script impossible, borderline delusional conversations and scenarios in my head. I did it as a child. I did it in jail. And I did it during my sleepless nights over Sam. Call it manifesting, call it self-soothing, call it magical thinking—but my go-to delusion (except for when I’m winning an Academy Award) has always been Oprah.

I stare at Oprah’s face on my screen, and I open my mouth, but nothing comes out at first. I am in shock and want to cry because this is real life, and it’s hard to know how to react when everything you dream about is happening in real time. 

“This is a full-circle moment, isn’t it?” she says.

And that’s why I love true stories, because real life is so much more fantastical than any scenario I could ever script in my head. 

Oprah says all the wonderful things I have spent forever imagining her saying, including that my book is going to be the first Oprah’s Book Club pick of 2024. She also shares that she has been secretly doing a book club in the largest women’s prison in the country for the last two years. 

Then she tells me that she randomly found my book in her home in Hawaii in December and picked it up and started reading. None of her staff know how the book got in her home. She tells me she asked everyone, and that it was a mystery to them all. 

For the next five weeks, as my personal life unravels, I keep the secret of Oprah choosing my book while working around the clock to meet all the deadlines and generate the content her team needs to prepare for the big announcement. CBS News comes to my home to film, and I sit down with reporter David Begnaud for an in-depth interview even though my stomach turns over when I see him holding all my old court papers in his hand. 

I fly to Los Angeles to film for Oprah Daily and to record an episode of her Super Soul podcast. Oprah and I go to a bookstore at night to interview with David together. Bri comes out from New York and stays by my side through it all. There is more glam than I had for any of my weddings, and more outfit changes than I usually do in a week. 

On February 26, I officially file for divorce. It is a rough day, and Sam and I fight and yell in ways we never did while we were married. Maybe we should have fought more, cared enough to fight more. But not like this. This is mean and ugly and hurtful. 

Outside the courthouse, I pause and look into his eyes. “What if we agree that today is the worst it will ever be between us? What if we make that commitment to each other? Like a vow.” 

He thinks about it for a second. We’ve just spent the day trying to prove each other wrong, trying to push our individual narratives about our thirteen years together. I’m exhausted.

“We can decide what’s true,” I whisper. “It will never be worse than today.”

“Okay,” he says, and then he snorts. 

“What?” 

“I do,” he says.

It’s another one of those full-circle moments—we are beginning the end of our marriage the same way we started it.

With laughter.

*

The next day my boys and my friends gather in my living room, and we watch my CBS Mornings interview. Everyone cheers as Oprah announces my memoir as her 104th book club pick. In New York, in the CBS studio, Gayle King and her cohosts discuss the mystery of how my book magically appeared in Oprah’s home. A part of me cringes, thinking it sounds like I broke into her house or did something devious to get the book in her hands. 

That old feeling of guilt, of somehow being in trouble, is a trauma response that can pop up even in the best moments. Maybe especially in the best moments.

But at least I notice it now. At least I talk about it with people who understand. I am overwhelmed by all the rapid change—the end of my marriage, deciding to sell the house I thought could never be taken from me, Oprah. It is horrible and wonderful and too much and just right all at once. 

 

April 2024

I drive the winding road through the towering redwood trees that buffer Santa Cruz from Silicon Valley and take three deep, sharp, rapid inhales until no more air can fill my lungs, and then I blow the air out slowly through my mouth. I learned this trick from a trauma doctor on Instagram whose name I forget. I hope I’ve remembered the breathing technique correctly and that I’m self-regulating and not hyperventilating, but who knows. Since the Oprah news, I’m on social media a lot, and it’s all trauma doctors and book clubs in my feed. Somehow, I’ve gone from a couple hundred people from my high school and college days following me on Instagram to over thirty thousand people I’ve never met. 

A company sent me free laundry detergent in exchange for an unboxing video, so I’m practically an influencer. 

Kaden says I’m cringe on social media. He says it with love, and he’s right. But that fact doesn’t seem to scare too many people away.

Strangers send me all their deepest, darkest secrets through DMs, messenger, email, text message, regular mail, and even rambling voicemail messages. I’d change my number, but I’ve had it since I walked out of jail in 2009, and I can’t give up on the most consistent thing in my life. Not now. I know that it’s only because I’ve snitched on myself, and shared all the secrets and shame I once carried, that these strangers feel safe to do the same. 

From hearing all these secrets, I learn that people are carrying way more than we know or can even imagine. Nobody has it easy.

I remind myself of this as I get closer to Waterfall Lodge. Today is Cody’s wedding day. I’m a mix of nostalgia, joy, and anxiety. It’s a huge milestone in our family—the first real wedding for one of my boys—a celebration of love and family and all that is good in our world.

But driving through these redwoods, I’m hoping I don’t pass out. I’m hoping there’s no drama. I’m hoping I can hold my head up high.

Almost the entire cast of characters from my past will be at this wedding—my old neighbors, Darcy, Bryan’s family, all my boys. Not Sam, and I will have to tell people why. I press my Spotify-generated Daylist to distract me from my anxiety, and the title pops up on the screen: SAD GIRL STARTER PACK. 

Sometimes I think Spotify knows me better than I know myself.

Adele’s “I Drink Wine” comes on as I make the final turn toward the wedding venue. It’s my gospel song, especially when she sings about getting over herself, not trying to be somebody others want her to be, and obsessing over things she can’t control. I belt out the lyrics and roll down my window for the young man holding a clipboard at the gate.

“I’m here for the Love wedding,” I say.

I give him my last name as Hardin and he can’t find me on the list. “Try Love,” I say, “Lara Love.” I guess Cody wanted to make his own point about his feelings toward Sam, and I smile. Time to go back to the name I’ve had for the last thirty-plus years. 

The boy with the clipboard directs me to my cabin and tells me how to get to the bridal suite cabin where they are waiting for me. Where I will get to help my soon-to-be daughter-in-law, Carly, prepare to marry her childhood best friend.

I shake off thoughts about how I’m getting divorced for the third time. Today is a day for love and only love. Today Bryan and I are going to walk down the aisle on either side of Cody and offer our blessings for the next generation to do better than we did.

Dylan and Kristy are getting married in August. Two weddings in four months reminds me again that 2024 is just not playing around. Dylan is standing up as Cody’s best man. Cody is standing up as his. Ty and Kaden are groomsmen. Thinking of all of them standing side-by-side brings me new tears, or maybe it’s still the sad girl starter pack playlist.

I see Bryan’s mom and her husband entering the cabin next to me and I walk toward them. 

“Hellooo,” I say and give a little wave.

They smile and say hi back.  

“I’m in the cabin next door. I’ll see you later.” They just smile. “Big day . . .” I add awkwardly.

I can do this. I feel some of the tension leave me as I walk away from them, but I wish I had thought to hug them. 

Two down, 148 more guests to go.

*

The bridal cabin is a madhouse in the best possible way. Champagne is flowing, makeup artists are makeuping, and hairstylists are spinning curling irons like batons. Bridesmaids and small children crowd every room. I hug Carly and see all the monogrammed “Mrs. Love” accessories.

“You look absolutely beautiful,” I say, and it’s an understatement. She’s glowing, and if she’s nervous, she’s hiding it well. Her bridesmaids hover around trying to feed her, take pictures, keep her curls from uncurling. The sons of my old neighbors are also going to be groomsmen alongside my boys. Seeing all these healthy, happy long-term relationships in my boys’ lives gives me joy. And inspiration.

I have a squad of friends coming to the wedding as my guests, and I am grateful for the backup should I need it. My best friends from college, Erica and Lori, have come from Lake Tahoe and Boston to be with me. Eileen is here. One of the authors I represent, Silvia, is here. My best guy friend, Dune, has also come as my plus one and official date for all wedding activities. 

Shortly after I tried on my vulnerability with Sam and was shut down, but before my book launched, I met Dune at improv class. We had only known each other a few weeks when he asked me, “How are you taking care of yourself with all the attention and hoopla that’s coming from your book?” 

The New York Times had just published an article about me, and an old college acquaintance sent me a message on Facebook that said, “Congratulations on the NYT profile, I suggest you don’t read the comments.” 

*

Dune’s question about how I was taking care of myself shook me, but only because I realized no one else close to me was asking me that. I wasn’t asking that question of myself, or even considering it. It also made me start to look carefully at why I was feeling more supported by someone I had just met than others who had been in my life for years. 

Dune became my emotional support animal during my book tour—whether he wanted to or not. I would call him from the road or before interviews, and he would patiently talk me off whatever made-up ledge I stood on. He reminded me to breathe when I held my breath, he celebrated my wins and listened to my fears, and he became my best friend and biggest supporter. I vented to him about Sam’s messy departure and yelled about the difference between conscious uncoupling and unconscious coupling. Through it all he was calm and steady and present and held a quiet space around me when I cried or raged or used humor to deflect. He sat next to me on my couch while I watched myself on the news for Oprah’s announcement, putting his arm around me whenever I started to hide my face in my hands. 

The old me probably would have tried to start a torrid affair with him as a distraction from all the pain, or for validation, or as an anchor against my unknown future. 

But the 2024 me is learning to ask for help and trust others to support me. I have no idea where I’m going to live next or what the future holds or if I’ll ever be in a relationship again, and that’s okay. I can be needy and emotional and not have all the answers and still be okay.

Today my squad of friends is going to stand by my side while I stand by my son’s side, and I am grateful.

I hug Carly one last time before she and Cody head to a place they picked out to share private vows before the public ones. 

“I love you,” I say, and we both stare at each other for a second, unblinking, before frantically waving our hands in front of our eyes to stop the tears before they ruin our makeup.

Dylan, Ty, and Kaden look amazing in their tuxedos. Bryan and his wife, Kim, are beaming, as are Carly’s parents. The bridesmaids and groomsmen are laughing and getting in last sips of champagne and shots of whiskey before it all begins. The flower girl is weaving through the chaos as her mom chases after her. It’s a tiny cabin full of joy and celebration and love. 

I step outside and am halfway between where the ceremony will take place and where the guests are gathered waiting to be escorted to their seats. I can see Eileen and Dune and Lori and Erica down below in the crowd. I’m supposed to stay in the cabin, but I take a deep breath and walk down the hill toward my friends and all the guests. 

I’m going off script. The wedding planner calls me back, but I know I have one last thing to do so I can be truly present for my son on his wedding day. 

When I reach my friends, I hug them all quickly and tell them I will see them soon. Dune’s eyes meet mine, and I give him a little nod to tell him I’m okay. He smiles and nods back.

I wave to other friends as I walk by, and only stop when I get toward the far end of the crowd. My next-door neighbors, the ones who were closest to me, who stayed closest to my boys, whose son is a groomsman, and who I hurt the most fifteen years ago, are standing chatting with other guests. I walk up to them, and they look a bit surprised.

“Hi,” I say. “Thank you so much for coming, you both look amazing!”

And then I open my arms and lean in to hug each of them. I haven’t seen them up close since my arrest, and I don’t know if they are startled or shocked, but I think they hug me back. At least they don’t push me away as I hug them. 

And then I walk down the line. I hug Darcy and tell her she looks beautiful because it’s true, and I imagine she’s as nervous to be here as I was earlier. I hug each of Bryan’s family members and welcome them. I go through the entire crowd and hug anyone who I am afraid might not be happy to see me, or who I know has big feelings about how I’ve shared my story, about who I am today. 

Today isn’t about me, or a book I wrote, or anyone’s pain and hurt from fifteen years ago. Today isn’t about shame or regret or lying or stealing or writing or healing.

Today isn’t about the past, and so I hug everyone who I think might be standing there holding on to an old story and invite them to a new beginning.

And then I smile at all the people who are there who I don’t know and who may only know me by some other name I’ve been called: Mama Love. The Neighbor from Hell. Author. Oprah pick. Wife. Ex-wife. Felon. Criminal. Addict. 

Today I don’t want to have many lives or many names. Today is simple.

“Welcome,” I say, and then I introduce myself in the only way that matters right now. “I’m Cody’s mom.” 

*

The wedding ceremony is beautiful, and the crowd is in full celebration mode.

Cody and I have not practiced our mother-son dance, but when the deejay says it’s time for the mother-son dance he reaches for my hand and pulls me to the floor. The sun is setting outside, and twinkle lights adorn the big barn where everyone has gathered. 

The first few notes of the song we picked start to play and the guests stand in a semicircle around us. 

Cody and I spin and twirl and laugh and try to dip each other and not step on each other’s toes. Friends, family, old neighbors, and all the plus ones and even the staff sing along to “Stand by Me” at the top of their lungs in a beautiful, chaotic chorus. 

Because the song is true: when things are dark and we are scared, we don’t ever have to be alone. I don’t know why it took me so long to learn this, but I’m glad this is the year I finally have. 

Cody and I stop dancing and hug while the crowd sings the final lyrics and cheers and claps. I kiss him on his forehead and cheek like I did when he was little. We touch our foreheads together for a brief moment and then I lift my head and see Dylan, Ty, and Kaden with their arms around each other’s shoulders, standing side by side and grinning. 

Our family is growing and changing—with every person who chooses to step away or stand by us. 

So bring on the good things and the hard things and the surprise plot twists of pain and joy, because my four boys and I will never stop standing together.

This is all that matters.

The only story that has ever really mattered.