Chapter 19 Brad
I checked my packed bag for the tenth time, fighting the anxiety clawing at my chest. Three days in Calgary.
Three days away from Finn. Three days trusting someone else with everything that mattered.
And my first game back since the MCL tear—weeks of rehab condensed into this moment, my knee wrapped and braced like a ticking bomb.
"Brad." Serena's voice cut through my spiral.
She stood in my bedroom doorway, watching me with that mix of understanding and exasperation I'd come to depend on.
"The medication is labeled. The emergency numbers are posted.
The backup inhaler is in my purse, Finn's backpack, the kitchen drawer, and probably three places I haven't told you about. I've got this."
"I know." I forced myself to zip the bag. "I just—"
"You've never left him overnight with anyone but family." She crossed to me, hands settling on my chest. "I get it."
"You are family." The words escaped before I could stop them. Her breath caught, eyes widening, and I knew I should take it back, qualify it, make it less than what it was. Instead, I pulled her closer. "Maria will check in. The Hendersons are on standby. Dr. Lisa knows you're—"
She silenced me with a kiss, soft but sure. "Go. Play hockey. Show them the knee's fine. Win games. We'll be here when you get back."
We. Such a small word to carry so much weight.
The drive to the airport was torture. My phone buzzed with texts from Serena before I even reached the highway.
Finn ate all his breakfast. Peak flow normal. He says score a hat trick but "don't hurt your knee again."
Then a photo—Finn in his Avalanche jersey, grinning gap-toothed at the camera, holding a sign that said "DAD'S FIRST GAME BACK!" Serena visible in the reflection making bunny ears behind him.
"You've got it bad," Theo observed from the driver's seat.
"Shut up."
"I'm just saying, one month ago you wouldn't let anyone but me watch Finn long enough to grab coffee.
Now you're leaving him for three days with your 'fake' girlfriend who's living in your house, wearing your clothes, raising your kid like she was designed for it in a lab.
All while you're about to test whether that knee can handle NHL-level contact. "
"It's not—" I started, then stopped. What was the point of denying it? "Yeah. I've got it bad."
"FINALLY!" Theo pounded the steering wheel. "Do you know how painful it's been watching you two dance around each other? Maria and I have a bet going about when you'll make it official."
"It's complicated."
"It's really not, man. You love her. She loves you. And most importantly, Finn loves both of you. Your knee's healing. Your life's healing. Stop making it complicated."
Love. The word sat heavy in my chest, too big and too true to examine closely.
That first night in Calgary, I called during Finn's bedtime routine. The hotel room felt like a sensory deprivation tank— beige walls, recycled air, the ghost of industrial carpet cleaner. But on my phone screen, home blazed in full color.
Serena had propped the phone against something—the dinosaur lamp, probably—and there they were. Finn's hair stuck up in post-bath chaos, his cheeks pink from the warm water.
"Daddy!" Finn bounced on his knees, nearly knocking the phone over. "Miss Serena knows about SPACE! She showed me Orion and he has a belt and a sword and everything!"
"That's awesome, buddy." I watched Serena help him with his preventive inhaler, her movements sure and practiced. The domestic intimacy of it—her in one of my old t-shirts, Finn automatically lifting his arms so she could check his breathing—hit me like a check into the boards.
"Story?" Finn asked her, not me, and I should have felt replaced but instead felt... complete. Like pieces clicking into place.
She grabbed a book of fairy tales, launching into a story about brave dragons and dancing fairies with theatrical flair.
Her dragon roars made Finn dissolve into giggles.
Her fairy dance moves, performed one-handed while holding the book, had him copying her from his bed.
But then—genius—she gradually softened everything.
The dragons became sleepier. The fairy kingdom grew quieter and more peaceful.
Her voice dropped to honey-slow words that made my own eyes heavy from eight hundred miles away.
Finn's breathing evened out. She kept reading, softer still, her free hand playing with his hair in the same absent pattern I'd used since he was a baby. Like muscle memory she'd never actually developed but somehow knew.
"Love you, Daddy," Finn mumbled sleepily. "Love you, Miss Serena."
She froze, eyes flying to the phone, seeking permission or reassurance or something. I nodded, trying to convey everything I couldn't say with Finn listening.
"Love you too, sweetheart," she whispered, and Finn smiled, already mostly asleep.
After she'd settled him, she took the phone to the living room. "Brad, he said—"
"He meant it." My voice came out rougher than intended. "Seven-year-olds don't lie about love. He doesn't say things he doesn't mean."
"Neither do I," she said, quiet as a held breath.
We stared at each other through screens, thousand miles apart but somehow closer than we'd ever been.
The second day brought crisis.
I was sawing through pre-game chicken when my phone lit up like a bomb countdown. Four texts from Serena, rapid-fire:
Don't panic. Finn had an episode at school. We're handling it. He's okay.
My chair screeched against linoleum. Someone's water glass tipped. I was already calculating charter flight costs when my phone started vibrating—video call incoming.
"Wilder, what the—"
I walked out of the meal room, didn't even look back. The team could fine me later.
Finn's face filled my screen, nebulizer mask fogging with each breath. But his lips were pink, not blue. His eyes tracked normally. Serena's hand rested on his chest—counting respirations, I knew, though she made it look like casual comfort.
"Hey, Dad." His voice came muffled through the mask, slight wheeze threading through it like a familiar enemy. "I'm okay."
"Tell me everything." My voice came out sharp enough to cut glass.
Serena shifted the phone, and I caught more of the scene—our living room, the emergency inhaler on the coffee table, the pulse oximeter clipped to Finn's finger showing 96%. Good. Safe. But my heart hadn't gotten the memo.
"Surprise PE session," she said, her teacher-voice cutting through my panic. "They had indoor relay races. No warm-up, straight to sprinting."
"Where was his inhaler?"
"In his backpack, but the substitute didn't know—" She stopped, reset. "Finn recognized the early signs. Told the teacher immediately. Used his rescue inhaler within thirty seconds of symptom onset." Pride colored her voice. "He advocated for himself perfectly."
The knot in my chest loosened a fraction. I had drilled that into him since diagnosis—speak up, don't wait, never be embarrassed about needing help.
"His peak flow?"
"Seventy percent initially. Back up to eighty-five now.
Breathing treatment every four hours tonight, monitoring through the night.
" She rattled off the statistics like she'd been managing his asthma for years, not weeks.
"Dr. Lisa stopped by with her stethoscope—lungs are clear, no secondary wheeze. "
"I'm coming home—"
"No."
The word cracked like a whip. Finn's eyes went wide above his mask.
"Bradley Wilder, you are not flying home." Serena's face filled the screen, teacher-mode fully activated. "We are fine. Your team needs you. Finn needs you to play tonight. Don't you dare make his episode the reason you miss your comeback."
"But—"
She turned the phone to Finn. "Tell your dad what you told me in the car."
Finn pulled the mask down slightly. "Score a hat trick, Dad. Like you promised." He took a careful breath. "Mom would've wanted you to play."
The casual mention of Sarah alongside Serena's presence should have felt wrong. Instead, it felt like acknowledgment—that love wasn't replacement but expansion. That Finn could hold both truths simultaneously.
"Miss Serena takes care of me good," Finn added, mask back in place. "Like Mom did. But different. Both ways are good."
"Fifteen minutes left on this treatment," Serena said softly, camera back on her face. "Then we're going to build a blanket fort and watch your game. Calgary won't know what hit them."
"Serena—"
"Go eat your terrible pre-game meal. Do your weird superstitious tape job. Score some goals. We'll be here when you get home." She paused, something shifting in her expression. "We're not going anywhere, Brad. Either of us."
The double meaning wasn't lost on me.
"Promise?"
"Cross my heart," she said, and Finn's hand appeared in frame, pinky extended for a pinky promise with the phone.
I linked my pinky with the screen like an idiot, not caring who saw me in the hallway.
"Now go," Serena commanded. "Show them your knee is just fine."
"Alright," I said, nodding.
Then she hung up on me. Actually hung up. Taking care of my kid and managing my anxiety from eight hundred miles away like she'd been doing it forever.
I stood in that sterile hotel hallway, phone dark in my hand, and realized I wasn't just falling anymore.
I'd already hit the ground.
That night I played like a man possessed.
First period, seven minutes in. Calgary's enforcer, Brennan—six-four, two-thirty, fists like cinder blocks—caught me against the boards.
The hit should've crushed me. Should've tested every ligament in that repaired knee.
Instead, I spun off him like water, leaving him kissing plexiglass while I carved toward the net.
Their goalie, Morty, dropped into butterfly position, but I went five-hole—puck threading between his pads like it had eyes.
The goal light blazed.
"WILDER'S BACK!" Derek screamed, nearly taking me down with his celebration check.
My knee held.