Chapter 6 – Liam
Two months later…
Most people don’t hate Sundays. They just resent them—the reminder that the weekend was too short and Monday is waiting with its usual stress and obligations.
I hated Sundays for an entirely different reason.
Once a month, Sundays meant dinner with my family.
And there was something about returning to the house where my childhood trauma lived—where it still breathed—that sent me spiraling before I ever pulled into the driveway.
The entire drive there, I counted the hours.
The minutes. I begged for the night to be over before it even began.
If my family was anything, it was predictable.
Dinner always followed the same script. Dad would ask what I’d been up to, and I’d answer just long enough for him to find a way to circle back to the same conclusion: that instead of being a small-town cop, I should be in law school, becoming a lawyer like him.
Irritation would crawl under my skin, and I’d rush through my meal, halfway out the door before my plate was cold.
But not before I saw him.
An old photo of my brother—framed on the wall or sitting on the mantel. A life frozen in time. Except those pictures weren’t just memories or moments captured and forgotten. They were evidence. Proof of a life everyone else seemed to move on from.
Everyone except me.
There wasn’t a single day that passed where I didn’t think about my brother. Not one.
The day he died was the day my entire family fell apart.
I watched my mom turn into a shell of the person she used to be.
And my dad? For him, it was just another day.
He went into his office the very next morning like nothing had happened, working day in and day out.
I was surprised he even showed up for the funeral.
Losing my brother left an ache in my chest I’d never be able to explain. But I couldn’t talk about it with anyone—especially not my family. My mom wouldn’t survive the weight of it, and my dad wouldn’t give a shit.
That was why my plan for Sunday dinner was always simple: get in and get out.
I climbed up the concrete steps to my parents’ house, each one heavier than the last. After knocking on the large iron doors, I heard footsteps approaching from the other side.
“Hey, honey,” my mom said as she opened the door.
I smiled warmly. “Hey, Mom.”
As soon as I stepped into the foyer, the dark cloud settled over me. The smell, the sounds—even the shine of the marble floors—dragged me straight back to my own version of hell.
“I made your favorite for dinner tonight—ribeye and roasted potatoes,” she said, guiding me toward the kitchen. “Your dad should be home from work soon.”
He was late. Shocker.
I slid onto one of the stools at the kitchen island, positioning myself carefully. “How’s your art coming along?”
“I sold a couple of pieces last week. I think my newest one’s already spoken for too. It’s a coastal cowgirl vibe. A woman asked about it when I was working at the gallery last weekend.”
My dad made more than enough money for my mom not to work. They lived in a massive house in Great Falls—the largest city in Montana. But she still chose to paint, still chose to work downtown at the Great Falls Art Gallery. As a kid, I never understood why.
As an adult, I did.
She liked having money my dad didn’t control. Something he couldn’t dangle over her head the way he did with everything else. I make the money. I make the decisions. He used to say it like it was gospel.
As if he could hear my brain talking shit about him, he marched in, right on cue.
“Good afternoon, Liam,” he said, setting his worn leather briefcase on the counter.
No hi, son. No hey, buddy. Just that short, professional tone he used with everyone—like being my father was just another job he clocked in and out of.
“Hey, Dad.”
“I’ve got some work I need to get done in my study tonight, so don’t wait up for me after dinner,” he told my mom.
“Do you have time to sit down for dinner with Liam and me?” she asked, frustration in her tone, but my dad would either ignore it or not even realize it was there at all.
He glanced down at his watch, like he was actually weighing whether we were worth a few minutes of his precious time.
“Yeah, I think I can fit you guys in.”
This guy.
If I didn’t know it would only create more problems for my mom, I’d stand up and walk out right now—tell him to go fuck himself on my way out the door.
But I didn’t. And I couldn’t.
I couldn’t be the reason my mom had more to carry than she already did. Living with my dad every day—being married to a man who didn’t truly love her—was painful enough.
I sat down at the large dining room table, my plate already waiting in front of me.
Of course, my mom had set the table to the nines—three-piece silverware placed just right, one crystal glass for water, another for tea.
Fresh flowers ran down the center, their colors perfectly matching the fabric of the place mats.
To an unsuspecting eye, it looked like the kind of table a happy family gathered around every night—sharing stories from their day, laughing between bites, maybe even planning their next family vacation. But the memories carved into the wood of this table told a very different story.
If we managed to sit down together at all, the room was usually swallowed by silence. My mom would try to start a conversation, her voice hopeful at first, asking my dad about his day. He’d answer with short, one-word responses, until my mom finally gave up trying to make a connection with him.
After my brother, Noah, died, she stopped asking questions altogether. Who could blame her? Losing a child trapped her in a constant state of grief. Like me, I’m sure there wasn’t a single day that passed without my mom thinking about Noah.
Like most people say about the ones they’ve lost, he was the life of the party. Even though he was barely twelve when he died, he had an incredible way of seeing the world—full of hope, always believing the glass was half full, no matter who our dad was or how heavy the house felt.
Noah never stopped asking questions or thinking outside the box.
Most days, we’d disappear into the treehouse in the far corner of the backyard, imagining we were pirates searching for lost treasure, or playing I spy from high above the ground—laughing, pretending, and, most importantly, forgetting about the life that waited for us back inside our home.
That’s why, as soon as I turned eighteen, I enlisted in the military and ran from this hellhole without looking back.
When my time in the military was over, I couldn’t even convince myself to buy a house in the same town my dad lived in.
That’s why I landed in Silver Creek. Closer to the people who actually cared about me and farther away from the man who could make my blood boil in five seconds flat.
“Thought any more about law school?” my dad asked, peeking over the edge of the newspaper he’d pulled out of his briefcase.
Here we go again.
“No, Dad. You know I like being a sheriff.” I knew he wouldn’t like my answer, but no matter how many times he asked, it was never going to change.
“You can’t be making a good living doing that,” he said. “You probably barely make enough to live in a shack.”
“I live comfortably, Dad. Money isn’t the only reason to love what you do, you know.”
“Not where I come from. Money is the only reason you do what you do. Without it, you have nothing.”
The way my mom stared down at her plate told me his words had hit their mark.
My dad had always seemed to be missing the part of the brain most people have—the one that knows some thoughts are better left unsaid.
But because no one dared to take him on, he never realized it.
He said whatever he pleased. He’d done it his whole life, and he’d do it until the day he died.
“How are you ever going to start a family if you can’t even support them?” he pressed.
Quite frankly, I didn’t care if I ever started a family. There was no way I was passing on the Carson name. All it carried were generations of trauma and a reputation soaked in shame.
As I got older, I noticed the subtle shift in people’s expressions when they heard my last name. Their smiles tightened, and their tone changed. In Great Falls, the Carson name was well known—and not for a single good reason.
It stood for lies and deceit. For winning at any cost. That was my dad’s entire game plan when it came to a case: lie, cheat, manipulate your way to the top. He bribed them. Threatened them. Did whatever it took to win.
His morals were the complete opposite of everything I stood for.
“I don’t plan on worrying about that anytime soon,” I said, hoping he’d accept the half-assed answer.
The grunt he gave in response told me he was satisfied—for now.
The rest of dinner passed without incident. My mom was too hurt to try and spark conversation, and my dad finished his meal in record time, disappearing into his study without so much as excusing himself.
“Thank you for coming, honey,” my mom said as she walked me out to my truck. “I know how hard it is for you to come here and talk to your father.”
“I do it for you, Mom. Call me if you need me,” I said, climbing into the driver’s seat and finally letting the tension drain from my body. The hardest part of my day was finally over.
As I pulled onto the road, my phone buzzed in my pocket. I shifted in my seat and fished it out. Molly was calling.
“Hello?” I answered, not sure why she’d be calling me on a random Sunday.
“Liam?”
“Yes.”
“I’m pregnant.”