CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Easton
Iwoke up on my couch to someone pounding on my front door.
Sunlight streamed through the windows, too bright, making my head pound. I'd driven around for hours last night before finally coming home and collapsing on the couch still fully dressed. My mouth tasted like ash, and every muscle in my body ached like I'd played three periods without a break.
The pounding came again.
"Go away," I called, my voice rough.
The pounding stopped. Then the scrape of something against my doormat.
I waited until the footsteps retreated before dragging myself off the couch and opening the door. The early morning air was crisp, autumn finally making itself known. At my feet sat a manila envelope, my name written on it in Sadie's careful handwriting.
My hands shook as I picked it up.
I should go inside. Should sit down. Should prepare myself for whatever was in here.
Instead, I sank down onto my front step, right there in my wrinkled clothes from yesterday, and opened the envelope.
The first thing I pulled out was a birth certificate.
Certificate of Live Birth
Name: Casey Marie Honors
Date of Birth: March 17
Time: 2:47 AM
Weight: 8 lbs 3 oz
Length: 20 inches
Mother: Palisade Honors
Father: Unknown
Unknown.
Two words that erased me from her life. Made me a ghost. A blank space where I should have been.
My throat closed up as I stared at that single word. Unknown. Like I was nothing. Like I didn't exist.
Except I did exist. I'd been living my life, playing hockey, dating women, completely oblivious that somewhere in New Hampshire, Sadie had been going through labor alone. Had anyone been with her? Holly must have been there, right? Someone must have held her hand while she screamed.
I should have been there.
The thought was a knife in my chest, twisting.
I pulled out the next document. Hospital records from the birth. Every detail I should have known, documented in clinical language.
Admitted at 11:32 PM. Water broke at home. Labor progressed normally. Epidural administered at 1:15 AM. Delivery at 2:47 AM. Healthy baby girl.
Mother and infant were discharged two days later in good condition.
Two days. Sadie had spent two days in the hospital with a newborn, then gone home to what? An empty apartment? Had Holly stayed with her? Had Sadie's parents been there?
Had anyone helped her during those first terrifying weeks?
The next papers were newborn screening results. Blood type O-positive (O+). Same as mine. Hearing test: passed. With all the little boxes checked, confirming Casey had been perfect and healthy from the start.
And I'd missed all of it.
There was one more thing in the envelope. A photo, slightly bent at the corners, like it had been carried in a wallet for a while before Sadie had given it up.
I pulled it out and couldn't breathe.
Casey, minutes old. Her face red and scrunched, eyes squeezed shut, one tiny fist pressed against Sadie's bare chest. Sadie's hair was plastered to her forehead with sweat, her hospital gown askew, but she was smiling.
Looking at Casey like she was the entire world.
Like nothing else mattered except that tiny, perfect human in her arms.
I should have been in that photo.
I should have been the one she looked at like that.
I should have been there to cut the umbilical cord, to hold Casey for the first time, to watch Sadie transform into a mother right before my eyes.
Instead, I'd been… what? Playing hockey? Celebrating a win at some bar? Sleeping with someone whose name I couldn't even remember now?
My vision blurred. I blinked hard, but the tears came anyway, hot and furious and unstoppable.
I sat on my front step at seven in the morning, still wearing yesterday's clothes, and sobbed over a photo of a daughter I'd never known existed.
By the time I pulled myself together, it was nearly eight. I had my appointment with Dr. Reyes at nine, which meant I needed to shower and look less of a disaster.
I tucked the photo carefully into my wallet, right behind my driver's license, where I could see it every time I opened it. Then I gathered the rest of the documents and brought them inside.
The shower helped. The hot water beat against my shoulders, loosening muscles I hadn't realized were knotted with tension. I stood under the spray until it ran cold, then forced myself to get out and face the day.
My reflection in the mirror looked like hell. Red-rimmed eyes, jaw dark with stubble, exhaustion written in every line of my face. Someone who'd had their world turned upside down.
Which, I supposed, I had.
I threw on jeans and a Shadow Wolves hoodie without thinking, then caught sight of Casey's matching one hanging on the hook by my door. The one she'd left here last week after staying over while Sadie worked late.
My chest squeezed tight.
She had the same one. We matched. Father and daughter matching hoodies, and I hadn't even known.
My phone buzzed. I'd been ignoring multiple messages.
Beck:
You good? Missed morning skate.
Holly:
Please tell me you didn't do anything stupid.
Coach Martin:
Need to talk. Call me.
Nothing from Sadie.
I shoved the phone in my pocket and grabbed my keys. I had forty-five minutes to get to Dr. Reyes's office, and I couldn't be late. Not today.
I arrived fifteen minutes early and sat in my truck in the parking lot, gripping the steering wheel and trying to figure out what I was going to say.
Hey, Doc. Found out I have a six-year-old daughter. Also, I might have destroyed any chance of being with the woman I love. How was your weekend?
Christ.
I finally forced myself out of the truck and into the building. The receptionist's eyes widened when she saw me, her professional smile faltering for just a second.
Yeah. I looked that bad.
"Mr. Henley," she said carefully. "Dr. Reyes is ready for you. You can go right in."
I walked down the familiar hallway to his office. The door was open, and Dr. Reyes looked up from his desk as I entered. His expression shifted from welcoming to concerned in the space of a heartbeat.
"Easton. Come in, sit down." He stood, gesturing to the chair I always took. "What happened?"
I sat. Stared at my hands. Tried to figure out where to start.
"I have a daughter," I said finally. "Six years old. I found out last night."
Dr. Reyes was quiet for a long moment. Then, carefully: "Casey?"
My head snapped up. "How did you—"
"You talk about her constantly." A small smile touched his lips. "The way you light up when you mention her. The way you analyze her hockey form with such pride. I wondered, but…" He trailed off. "How are you feeling?"
How was I feeling?
"Furious," I said. "Betrayed, grief-stricken. Like someone reached into my chest and tore out six years of memories I should have."
"Tell me what happened."
So, I did. All of it. The realization came when I looked at Casey's photos. Confronting Holly. The fight with Sadie. The birth certificate, with "Unknown" where my name should be. The photo I now carry in my wallet.
Dr. Reyes listened without interrupting, his expression understanding, taking in everything I said and everything I didn't say.
When I finished, he was quiet for a moment.
"You're angry at Sadie," he said finally.
"Furious," I repeated. "She kept Casey from me."
"Did she?" Dr. Reyes leaned forward slightly. "Or did circumstances keep you apart?"
I bristled. "She should have tried harder."
"Should she?" He held my gaze. "Walk me through what actually happened. Not what you wished happened. What actually did."
I gritted my teeth. "She called. She texted. I didn't answer because my phone had broken, and I got a new number."
"Which she didn't know."
"No."
"So, from her perspective, she reached out to tell you she was pregnant, and you ignored her."
"I didn't know."
"I understand that." Dr. Reyes's voice was gentle but firm. "But she didn't. She was twenty-four years old, pregnant, and the father wasn't responding. What would you have done in that situation?"
I wanted to argue, but the question hung in the air.
What would I have done?
"You'd have fucked it up, just like everything else."
My father's voice was always there in the back of my mind, waiting for moments like this.
I could still see him in the doorway of my childhood bedroom, tie loosened, glass of scotch dangling from his fingers. I'd been sixteen, maybe seventeen. I'd missed the winning shot in a crucial game.
"You think you're good enough for the NHL? You can't even handle pressure."
"Easton?" Dr. Reyes's voice cut through the memory. "Where did you go just now?"
I blinked. "My father."
"What about him?"
"He would have said I deserved this. That I'd have fucked it up, anyway." The words tasted bitter. "And maybe he was right. Maybe Sadie was protecting Casey from me."
"Do you believe that?"
"I don't know what I believe anymore." I ran my hands through my hair. "All I know is that I missed six years of her life. And I can't get them back."
"No," Dr. Reyes agreed quietly. "You can't. But you have a choice about what happens next."
"What if I screw it up?" The question came out raw. "What if I'm just like him? What if the second things get hard…"
"Easton." Dr. Reyes's voice was firm. "You are not your father."
"How do you know?"
"Because you're here. Because you've been working on your anger these past weeks. Because the first thing you did when you found out about Casey was break down over a photo of her as a newborn." He paused. "Your father would never have done that."
The words hit me hard.
"You're terrified," he continued. "Not of being a father. Of failing at it. Of proving him right."
"What if I do?"
"Then you apologize, do better, and try again." Dr. Reyes sat back. "That's what parents do, Easton. They make mistakes. They screw up. And then they keep showing up."
I pulled the photo from my wallet, staring at Casey's tiny, scrunched face. "She doesn't even know I'm her father."
"How does that make you feel?"