The silence in the nursery was heavy, broken only by the rhythmic, soft snoring of three tiny infants. The triplets—Leo, Sam, and Noah—had finally gone down for a nap at the same time, a miracle that usually occurred once in a blue moon.
I stood in front of the hallway mirror in the Connecticut house Mark had banished me to. I lifted my shirt. My stomach was a roadmap of tiger stripes, the skin loose and soft. My eyes were sunken, rimmed with purple bruises from lack of sleep. My hair was thrown into a messy bun that hadn’t been washed in three days.
“Scarecrow,” I whispered to the reflection.
The word tasted like ash. It had been six weeks since Mark Vane, the illustrious CEO of Apex Dynamics, had tossed the divorce papers onto the bed and walked out of our Manhattan penthouse.
He hadn’t just left; he had incinerated my self-worth on his way out the door. He had looked at the mother of his children—a woman recovering from major abdominal surgery and raising three newborns simultaneously—and called her repulsive. He had traded me in for Chloe, a twenty-two-year-old assistant whose biggest responsibility was keeping Mark’s latte order straight.
I was alone. I was exhausted. And according to Mark, I was finished.
The first month in Connecticut was a blur of survival. I lived in a haze of diapers, formula, and spit-up. I cried in the shower so the boys wouldn’t hear me. I checked social media, a form of self-torture, watching Mark and Chloe attend galas. There they were on Page Six: “Tech Mogul Mark Vane and his stunning new partner dazzle at the Met.”
He looked powerful. She looked perfect.
I looked at my laptop, gathering dust on the kitchen counter.
Mark had always hated my writing. When we were dating, he called it “charming.” Once we were married, he called it “distracting.” When he became CEO, he called it a “waste of time” and a “cute little hobby.”
“No one wants to read your little stories, Anna,” he had told me once. “Real power is in numbers, not words.”
I walked over to the laptop. I opened it. The screen glowed, a blank white page staring back at me.
I wasn’t a scarecrow. I was a storyteller. And I had a hell of a story to tell.
I didn’t hire a therapist. I didn’t go on a dating app to find a rebound. I wrote.
I wrote when the boys were sleeping. I wrote with a baby strapped to my chest in a carrier, swaying back and forth while my fingers flew across the keys. I wrote at 3:00 AM, fueled by espresso and rage.
I didn’t write a memoir. That would have been too messy, too litigious. Instead, I wrote fiction.
I created a character named Marcus Vane—subtle, I know. He was the CEO of a company called “Vertex.” He was handsome, charismatic, and outwardly perfect. But in the book, I peeled back the layers.
I wrote about his crushing insecurity, how he rehearsed his “casual” jokes in the mirror for hour. I wrote about his strange phobia of aging, how he dyed his gray hairs with mascara before meetings. I wrote about the illegal offshore accounts he hid from the IRS (hypothetically, of course). And I wrote about his mistress, a character I named “Zoe,” who was secretly laughing at him behind his back while spending his money.
But the real heart of the book was the wife. The character of Elena. I poured every ounce of my postpartum isolation, my physical pain, and my fierce, terrified love for my children into her.
I titled the book The Scarecrow’s Harvest.
I finished the first draft in eight weeks. It was raw, vicious, and funny. I sent it to an old college friend who was now a literary agent in New York.
She called me twenty-four hours later.
“Anna,” she said, her voice breathless. “This isn’t just a book. This is a weapon. And I’m going to start a bidding war.”
The book was fast-tracked. The publisher sensed blood in the water. They marketed it as the “Gone Girl of the Upper East Side.”
While the publishing machine turned, I focused on myself. I hired a night nurse with the advance money. I started sleeping. I ate real food. The “scarecrow” began to fill out. My skin cleared. The light came back into my eyes.
The release date was set for November.
Mark had no idea. He was too busy dealing with a sudden, unexplained dip in Apex Dynamics’ stock and trying to manage Chloe, who was reportedly getting bored of playing stepmom to his ego.
I sent him a copy of the book one week before it hit the shelves. I included a note: “For the man who appreciates ‘aesthetic’ things. Enjoy the read.”
The explosion was silent at first, and then deafening.
The Scarecrow’s Harvest debuted at #1 on the New York Times Best Seller list.
But it wasn’t just the sales. It was the chatter. People in Mark’s circle began to read it. They recognized the restaurants. They recognized the specific dialogue. They recognized the details.
I was in the kitchen feeding Leo some mashed carrots when my phone rang. It was Mark.
I let it go to voicemail.
He called again. And again. Finally, I answered.
“What do you think you’re doing?” he screamed. He didn’t sound like the cool, collected CEO anymore. He sounded like a frightened child.
“Hello, Mark. I assume you received my gift?”
“You… you wrote about the Cayman accounts,” he hissed. “You wrote about the bribe to the zoning commissioner! Anna, this is defamation!”
“It’s fiction, Mark,” I said calmly. “Check the disclaimer at the front. Any resemblance to actual persons is purely coincidental. Unless, of course, you’re admitting that Marcus Vane’s crimes are actually yours?”
Silence. He knew I had him. If he sued, he would have to prove the character was him, which would mean admitting to the embarrassing and illegal details in the book.
“Everyone is laughing at me,” he whispered. “The Board members are asking questions. The SEC is asking questions, Anna! My stock is tanking!”
“That sounds stressful,” I said, wiping carrot puree off Leo’s chin. “Maybe you should take a nap. You sound tired. You don’t want to look ragged, do you? It’s bad for your image.”
“Stop it,” he begged. “Chloe left me. She read the chapter about the mistress getting dumped for a younger model and she freaked out. She took the jewelry, Anna.”
“Smart girl,” I said.
“I can fix this,” Mark stammered. “We can fix this. I made a mistake. The house in Connecticut… it’s too far. Why don’t you come back to the city? Bring the boys. We can be a family.”
I looked out the window. The autumn leaves were turning gold in the yard. My boys were happy. I was rich—my own money, made by my own hands. I didn’t need his penthouse. I didn’t need his validation.
“Mark,” I said softly. “You called me a scarecrow. You were right.”
“No, I wasn’t, I was just—”
“You were right,” I interrupted. “Because a scarecrow is designed to terrifying pests. And it turns out, I’m very, very good at scaring away rats.”
I hung up the phone.
Six months later, Mark Vane was forced to step down as CEO of Apex Dynamics amidst an internal investigation triggered by “rumors” that oddly matched the plot of a certain best-selling novel.
He retreated to a small apartment in Jersey City.
I, on the other hand, was busy. The Scarecrow’s Harvest was being adapted into a movie. I was wearing a stunning red dress, walking the red carpet at the premiere.
A reporter thrust a microphone in my face.
“Anna! Your book is a phenomenon. It’s such a story of female empowerment. What inspired you to write such a complex villain?”
I looked directly into the camera, knowing exactly who was watching from his small, lonely living room.
“I just wanted to prove that a woman isn’t defined by how she looks in a nursery,” I smiled. “And that you should never, ever underestimate a mother with a story to tell.”
THE END
