“I should…” Liam began, reluctantly pulling away.
“We should,” Sunny corrected, wiping her eyes. “They’ll be confused if we’re both hiding up here.”
The effort it took to sit up, to smooth her hair and splash water on her swollen face, was monumental. Sunny stared at her reflection in the bathroom mirror, barely recognizing the hollow-eyed woman who stared back. How could she possibly face the girls with this grief still so raw?
But she did. They both did.
Downstairs, Liam transformed before her eyes — his posture straightening, expression shifting into something resembling normalcy as he greeted his daughters. Sunny watched in amazement as he compartmentalized, tucking away his pain to protect the girls.
“Daddy! Sunny!” Hailey launched herself at them. “We had a substitute today and she let us have extra recess!”
“That’s great, pumpkin,” Liam replied, his voice impressively steady as he hugged her.
Maddie followed more slowly, her perceptive eyes scanning both their faces. “Why are you both home? Beth said Sunny had a doctor’s appointment, but she didn’t say anything about you, Daddy.”
“I, uh…” Liam faltered briefly. “I had a shorter practice today. Thought I’d come home early.”
Sunny stepped in, summoning a smile that felt like shattered glass on her lips. “How about a snack? I think we still have those apple slices and peanut butter you like.”
The familiar routines of after-school snacks and homework supervision provided a lifeline, something to focus on beyond the gaping wound of their loss. Sunny moved mechanically through these tasks, her body present while her mind drifted in a fog of grief. She caught Liam watching her several times, concern etched in the lines around his eyes.
As the evening progressed, she noticed a subtle shift in his demeanor. Where he had been physically and emotionally present in the hospital room and during their shared breakdown upstairs, he now seemed to be retreating, his responses becoming more automatic, his eyes more distant.
During dinner — takeout pizza that neither adult could stomach but the girls devoured — Sunny watched him checking his phone repeatedly, scrolling through messages with fierce concentration.
“Is everything okay?” she asked quietly when the girls were distracted by an argument about the last slice.
“Just team stuff,” he replied, not meeting her eyes. “Nothing important.”
But she felt the lie between them, sensed his withdrawal like a physical presence at the table. Was this how he had coped after Kate died? Building walls, retreating into work and routine while his heart calcified around the pain?
Tonight’s bedtime routine stretched longer than usual, with both girls seemingly reluctant to settle. Hailey insisted on three stories instead of her usual one, while Maddie lingered in the bathroom, brushing her teeth with methodical slowness.
“Are you sick?” she finally asked Sunny directly, those penetrating blue eyes — so like Liam’s — searching her face. “You look really sad.”
Sunny’s heart clenched. “I’m just tired, sweetie. It’s been a long day.”
“Are you going to be okay?” Maddie pressed, displaying that uncanny perception that sometimes made her seem older than her years.
“Yes,” Sunny answered, pulling her into a hug and holding on slightly too long. “I promise.”
It was a promise she wasn’t sure she could keep, but Maddie needed to hear it.
Later, lying beside Liam in the darkness of her bedroom, Sunny stared at the ceiling, exhaustion pulling at her body while her mind remained brutally alert. Though Liam lay less than a foot away, he might as well have been in another hemisphere. His breathing wasn’t the deep rhythm of sleep, but he made no move to bridge the gap between them.
Sunny reached across the cool sheets, finding his hand in the darkness. His fingers briefly tightened around hers, a momentary connection that gave her hope. But then, almost imperceptibly, his grip loosened, hand sliding away as he turned onto his side, facing away from her.
The rejection, however slight, cut through her like a blade. This morning, they had been planning a future together — marriage, family, forever. Now, in the span of a single day, that future seemed to be crumbling around her, and she didn’t know how to stop it.
Sunny curled onto her side, arms wrapped protectively around her empty womb, and let silent hot tears soak into her pillow. Beside her, Liam’s shoulders rose and fell in the pattern of someone trying very hard to pretend they were asleep.
When morning came, Sunny woke alone, the sheets beside her cold. A note on the nightstand explained in Liam’s angular handwriting:Emergency team meeting. Didn’t want to wake you. L.
She traced her fingers over the letters, noting the absence of any endearment, any acknowledgment of yesterday’s loss. It was as if he had compartmentalized their grief along with everything else, tucking it away in a box too painful to open.
Beth arrived early again, her kind eyes full of sympathy that made Sunny want to scream. She couldn’t bear pity today — not when she was barely holding herself together.
“I can handle things,” Sunny insisted, though her body still ached and her heart felt shattered. “The girls need normalcy.”
