With You All The Time: A "Don't Worry Darling" Story

Chapter 1: How Did I Get Here?

My name is Bunny Burke. (Or, if you're TMZ, "Bunny Broke." Lawsuits aren't cheap, and I should know - I was a lawyer.) And I'm one of the Victory women. 

I don't know how the other "wives" feel about it, but I hate that name. It makes us sound like an American war effort initiative from the 1940s- a hair too close to Victory times for my comfort level. I always thought I would be known for my contributions to the legal profession - the Gloria Allred or Ruth Bader Ginsburg of corporate law. But, as mothers often are, I became known for my children. Or, more accurately, what I did for my children. For my family. Unlike all but Shelley, Frank's chosen wife in the real world and the simulation, I went into the Victory Project voluntarily, with my eyes open... literally and figuratively. 

Even with my unique perspective on the Victory Project, I was the only Victory woman not to get a book deal. Even Shelley is writing her memoirs about taking down her husband and his mid-century modern metaverse man cave. Guess she had to find something to occupy her on house arrest, after the murder trial. (Even with her connections, she couldn't find a lawyer who could get her off entirely. I know I could have.) I look forward to reading her book and seeing if it will answer all the questions I had that we never talked about. Alice's, too. (I miss her, my truest friend from Victory, the most.) I wonder how I'll be portrayed, or if I'll even be mentioned at all. With Shelley, being the only ones to know the truth should have made us friends. But, instead, we were only civil, and mostly avoided each other. I think we were both worried about jeopardizing everything. 

I've been called a traitor to the sisterhood for my role in the Victory Project, as it were. But I never had "sisterhood" like I did with the women of Victory, despite its shallow bittersweetness. The isolation, secrecy and simplicity of Victory life built up a particular kind of friendship, untainted by modern stressors and competitiveness. I always wanted to know what the wives were like in their real lives, before Victory. But Frank's axiom,  "Each man is responsible for his own wife," kept me from that. The men, I cared less about. Other than my husband, I guessed that any man who would go to those great lengths to capture and control a woman wasn't someone I would want to know in real life. Now, I've had my chance for both, whether I like it or not. 

Some of the men from Victory have killed themselves. Some women, too. Dean and I didn't go to the funerals. The men and women we knew died with Victory. But there's a part of me that still wants to know those women, and that wants them to know me, too. Why I did what I did - not the mainstream media or made-for-TV movie interpretation. Me, in my own words. And, more importantly, why I didn't speak up or break us loose. (That's something I'm still trying to understand myself.) And there's a part of me that grieves for Victory, for my false family. I wonder if the other women, the ones that remain, feel this, too My grief response, or at least our chosen way of dealing with it, was part of what got us all in this mess in the first place. (Although, what I lost then was so much greater than the loss now). Maybe writing it all out will help. Then, I can really put it behind us.

Dean and I are trying to move on. After I got disbarred, I got a job at a legal aid clinic, like Mike Ross did on "Suits," a show Dean and I loved despite its inaccuracies. But I think every professional feels this, just a little, about shows which portray their chosen field. I like doing something for a change, knowing that I'm helping someone. I hope it balances out all the hurt I caused by staying silent and how complicit I was in the project. I started running again, for my health. I'm not up to my previous mile times, but I love disappearing into the hustle and bustle of the city, something I could never do in Victory. Dean and I are thinking about children again. 

I don't know what I would tell my new children about what I did, or when, but I know it would come up. Victory is out of the news cycle, for now, but, with the Internet and social media, nothing really dies. Maybe that's why I'm writing this - for something simpler than, "Sometimes love and grief makes you do crazy things. Here's what I did for love. For my family." I don't know if they'll understand. But all I can do is lay out what happened and why. 

So, here's what happened...