For yourself. And everyone else.
Because love isn’t like fame. It’s not something other people bestow on you. It’s not something that comes from outside.
Love is something you do.
Love is something you generate.
And loving other people really does turn out, in the end, to be a genuine way of loving yourself.
Epilogue
“HOW’S WILBUR DOING these days?” might not be your most pressing question right now.
But can I just tell you? The man is thriving.
He’s living his best life, times ten.
All to say: The birdhouses really took off.
After he got out of prison, he started a birdhouse-building company, and he filled up his entire front yard with them. Hundreds. In all different colors, on poles of all different heights, in all different shapes: barns with sliding doors, Dutch windmills that spin, and even a little modern replica of Fallingwater. It’s become the most photographed birdhouse-themed location on the internet. Not only for its whimsy, but also because it’s a perfect selfie background.
He named his company Make It Better Birdhouses.
Nowadays, he’ll tell you that night on Jack’s roof was the darkest moment of his life. In fact, it’s in the mission statement on his website, under the heading, “Why Birdhouses?” He encountered a powerful dose of kindness at exactly the moment he needed it most—and it was a revelation. He got some professional help, and some medication, and now he tries every day to pay it forward.
To reject rage—and to choose kindness, instead.
And birdhouses.
He even did a TED Talk about it.
Last time I checked, it had four million views.
Dammit if Wilbur didn’t turn out to be the wisest one of us all.
I mean, sort of.
He’s also very aware that he almost killed both me and himself that night long ago, and not only did he send a sternly worded letter to the man at the gun store who sold him that pistol even after Wilbur hinted at what he planned to do with it—he now uses his platform to advocate for stronger gun laws every chance he gets.
It’s not theoretical for him, he says. It’s personal.
Also, every year on my birthday, he sends me a birdhouse.
Does it freak me out that he knows where I live?
Absolutely.
But not that much more than everything else.
The motto for Wilbur’s company is, after all: “Make the birdhouse you wish to see in the world.”
He seems to have found a healing vocation for himself. And to be making a pretty good living. And he’s definitely become a folk-art hero of the birdhouse community.
He says getting lost in darkness forced him to look for the light.
He also mentions Jack Stapleton as his “biggest fan and best friend” pretty frequently.
Which is fine. Jack hasn’t seen Wilbur once since the night he shot me—but it’s fine.
Jack has actually featured a couple of Wilbur’s birdhouses on his Instagram. And I follow his TikTok. As fans of both birdhouses and people who courageously change their thinking, we’re very glad he’s doing well.
In theory.
From a distance.
The question of the hour, of course is: Did Lacey ever come back to Wilbur?
She did not.
She filed for divorce.
But, as luck would have it, on the day he got served the papers, Wilbur decided to eat an entire sheet cake as a method of self-care, and when he called the order in to the bakery and asked to personalize it with YOUR LOSS, LACEY! KISS MY ASS, the cake decorator thought it was so funny that she slipped her phone number into the cake box with a note that read: “You’re hilarious. Call me! Love, Charlotte.”
A year later, on Valentine’s Day, Wilbur and Charlotte eloped.
So I sent them a copy of Charlotte’s Web as a wedding gift.
* * *
DID JACK WIND up making the sequel to The Destroyers?
He did.
Turns out it’s harder to give up being a world-famous movie star than you’d think.
Especially when you don’t hate yourself like crazy every day anymore.
Though he also made a One Movie a Year rule.
In the five years since filming Destroyer II: The Redemption, he’s made five movies. A space adventure, a political thriller, a war movie where everybody—even Jack—gets eaten by sharks （I will never watch that one）， a rom-com （you’re welcome）， and a western.
He did his own stunts for the western.
But nobody believes it.
It seems to be just the right work-life balance. A little filming, a little promoting, and a lot of walking the banks of the Brazos looking for fossils. And I do a similar thing, too, now—one assignment a year. And we time them just right so we’re gone at the same time.