Hailey threw her arms around Sunny’s waist. “Can we have pizza night tonight? With the special cheese daddy likes?”
“We’ll see,” Sunny hedged, her heart squeezing at the simple request. Would she even be here for dinner? The thought had been circling her mind like a vulture since Parker’s call.
Maddie hung back, unusually withdrawn. At six, she possessed a preternatural awareness of adult tensions.
“Maddie?” Sunny prompted. “You okay, sweetie?”
The little girl shrugged, eyes downcast. “Jamie said her mom thinks you’re going to leave soon. Like all the other nannies they know.”
A memory flashed through Sunny’s mind — herself at seven, sitting on the steps of a foster home with a small suitcase as a social worker tried to explain why the Clarks couldn’t keep her anymore. “Sometimes adults make promises they can’t keep,” the woman had said, her tone so rehearsed it held no comfort. “It doesn’t mean they don’t care about you.”
Sunny had nodded, pretending to understand, while inside her heart splintered with the certainty that she was unwanted, unkeepable. She’d memorized the feeling — the hollow pit in her stomach, the burning behind her eyes, the way her fingers went numb from clutching the suitcase handle too tightly.
Now, looking into Maddie’s worried eyes, Sunny recognized the same fear taking root. She knelt down, taking the girl’s small hands in hers.
“Jamie’s mom doesn’t know anything about us,” she said firmly. “About how much I care about you and Hailey.”
“So you’re not leaving?” Maddie’s voice was small, hopeful.
The question lodged in Sunny’s throat. She couldn’t lie to this child who had already endured so much loss, but she couldn’t bear to confirm her fears either.
“How about we talk about this tonight?” she offered instead. “With your dad, too. Right now, you need to go learn something amazing to tell me about later.”
Maddie nodded reluctantly and trudged toward the entrance, casting one last uncertain glance over her shoulder before disappearing inside.
Sunny returned to her car, hands shaking so badly she had to try twice to get the key in the ignition. A dull throb had started behind her eyes, the familiar tension headache that had become her constant companion. She dug through her purse for the bottle of pain relievers she now carried everywhere, swallowing two pills dry.
The empty house felt cavernous around her. Sunny wandered from room to room, touching objects that had become precious touchstones — a finger painting Hailey had proudly presented last week, the math test with Maddie’s perfect score magnetized to the refrigerator, Liam’s worn Coyotes sweatshirt thrown carelessly over a kitchen chair.
In the girls’ bathroom, she paused, staring at the careful arrangement of bath toys and character toothbrushes. She remembered the first time she’d given the girls a bath, how Hailey had laughed with abandon as Sunny created a shampoo mohawk on her head, how Maddie had solemnly explained the precise soap-to-water ratio necessary for optimal bubbles.
The memory squeezed her heart with cruel precision.
Her phone buzzed with a text from Liam:Practice ended early. Coach benched me. Coming home.
The terse message spoke volumes. If Coach Hendricks was benching his veteran player during practice, the situation was even worse than she’d feared.
Sunny moved to Liam’s office, drawn by a need to understand the full scope of what they were facing. His laptop sat open on the desk, emails visible on the screen. She hesitated, ethical boundaries warring with concern, before her eyes caught on a message from Mike, Liam’s agent:Toronto called again. They’re serious about the offer. Might be time to consider.
Toronto. Across the continent. Away from everything the girls knew.
Another email, from the Coyotes’ PR department, contained talking points for an upcoming press conference — bland corporatese about “refocusing on hockey fundamentals” and “prioritizing team dynamics.” Reading between the lines, Sunny understood the subtext: Liam was being offered a script to publicly distance himself from her.
Her chest tightened painfully, each breath shallower than the last. She sank into Liam’s chair, the room tilting slightly as dizzy spots danced at the edges of her vision.
This was what loving her was costing him — his career, his reputation, his daughters’ stability. The realization crystallized with perfect, terrible clarity.
She’d spent her childhood being shuttled from home to home, each transition breaking off another piece of her that never quite grew back. She knew firsthand the damage of impermanence, of watching adults you trusted disappear from your life. The possibility of inflicting that same trauma on Maddie and Hailey was unbearable.
But so was the alternative — staying and watching as Liam’s career imploded,as the girls faced increasing isolation and whispers, as the family’s stability crumbled around them.
With sudden resolve, Sunny moved to her room and pulled out the small duffle bag she kept in her closet. She began to fill it methodically — just essentials, nothing that couldn’t be replaced. Her hands moved on autopilot, selecting items while her mind raced ahead to logistics. She would need more gas for the car, would need to arrange to collect her things later, would need to write letters to the girls explaining why she’d gone.
Each item she placed in the bag felt like excising a piece of her own heart. The photo frame from her nightstand — Maddie and Hailey flanking her on the beach, all three laughing into the camera — was the hardest. She ran her finger over their captured joy, a frozen moment of happiness before everything unraveled.
The sound of the front door opening jolted her from her reverie.
Sunny
