“I couldn’t go through it again,” he admitted, the words barely audible. “Losing Kate nearly destroyed me. If I lost Sunny too…”
“So you orchestrated the loss yourself,” his father finished for him. “On your terms.”
Put so bluntly, the truth was unbearable. Liam pulled his hand from his mother’s grasp, standing abruptly.
“I think you should go,” he said, struggling to keep his voice steady. “I appreciate your concern, but I’ve got this handled.”
His parents exchanged a look saturated with decades of shared understanding. His father rose first, placing a heavy hand on Liam’s shoulder.
“You’re a good man, son,” he said quietly. “But even good men make very big mistakes sometimes. The measure is whether they have the courage to fix them.”
His mother’s goodbye was a fierce hug and whispered words against his cheek: “It’s not too late. Not if you’re brave enough to fight for what really matters.”
Then they were gone, leaving Liam alone with truths too painful to acknowledge.
Liam
Liam’s office had always been his sanctuary — the place where he retreated to review game footage, study plays, and escape the chaotic emotional landscape of family life. Now it felt like a prison, the walls closing in as he paced the perimeter.
He’d tried distracting himself with work, pulling up the Denver game on his laptop, determined to analyze where his defensive strategy had faltered. But the figures on the screen blurred and shifted, refusing to hold his attention.
Instead, he found himself clicking through photos on his screen — the ones he’d taken of Sunny with the girls, snapshots of domesticity he’d never thought he’d have again after Kate died.
Sunny helping Maddie with homework, her head bent close to his daughter’s, golden-brown hair falling in a curtain as they focused on math problems.
Sunny and Hailey covered in flour after an ambitious baking project, both laughing so hard their eyes crinkled at the corners.
Sunny asleep on the couch, a child tucked under each arm, all three lost in peaceful slumber after a movie marathon.
Then, a video he hadn’t seen before. He pressed play, and Sunny’s voice filled the room.
“Okay, ladies! Five, six, seven, eight!” She counted off a beat as the camera captured her teaching the girls a dance routine in the living room. All three wore improvised tutus, Sunny’s made from a blue bath towel wrapped around her waist.
“Spin, spin, arabesque!” she called, demonstrating a wobbly ballet move that sent Hailey into hysterical giggles. “Okay, maybe not arabesque. How about… jazz hands!”
Both girls immediately mimicked her, tiny fingers splayed as they shimmied in place. Sunny’s laughter rang out, bright and uninhibited, her face transformed with genuine joy.
“Daddy, you try!” Maddie’s voice called from off-camera, and the image shook as the phone was apparently handed off.
Then Sunny was reaching for the camera, eyes wide and sparkling. “No recording! Liam Anderson, don’t you dare — ”
The video ended abruptly, freezing on Sunny’s laughing face, one hand outstretched toward the lens.
Something snapped inside Liam — a dam that had been holding back the full force of his grief. A sound escaped him, something between a moan and a sob, as he slid from his chair to the floor, curling in on himself like a wounded animal.
What had he done? What had he thrown away?
The truth he’d been avoiding crashed over him in merciless waves. He hadn’t sent Sunny away to protect his daughters or his career. He’d done it to protect himself. He’d been terrified — terrified of loving someone that deeply again, terrified of building a life that could be shattered in an instant, terrified of becoming the man he’d been after Kate died.
So he’d attacked the threat like a hockey player — going on the offensive when faced with something difficult, striking first to avoid being struck. He’d agreed that Sunny should leave, even encouraged it, ignoring how the decision tore him apart inside.
And for what? A tenuous promise from management that they’d “see how things progressed”? The temporary approval of faceless executives who sawhim as nothing more than a commodity, an investment with diminishing returns?
He’d sacrificed real love — genuine, messy, terrifying love — for the illusion of security.
Worse, he’d taught his daughters that people you love can be discarded when they become inconvenient. That relationships were disposable. That connections could be severed when they required courage to maintain.
No wonder they looked at him with hatred and betrayal. He’d confirmed their worst fears: that love wasn’t permanent. That people could walk away. That nothing was safe.
