Chapter 27
Tuck
Everything happens in a blur—Maria’s voice, the boys’ footsteps, the hollow thud of the door opening and closing like a final note I can’t take back. One second I’m standing there, the next I’m on the stairs, like my body gave out before my mind could catch up.
The house is eerily quiet as I glance at the framed pictures lining the wall beside me—snapshots of a life I’ve been happily living. I don’t mean to look for him, but I always do.
Ben.
My chest tightens, like something reaching in and squeezing my heart in a fist.
I failed him.
The thought doesn’t come gently—it slams into me. Tonight, I failed Maria. Her boys. I wasn’t there when they needed me, when it mattered.
And Marbles…
My stomach twists. He’s going to be okay. That’s what they said. He made it through surgery. But the what if presses in anyway. What if he hadn’t? What if I’d had to look at Josh and Lucas and tell them—
No.
I drag a shaky breath into my lungs, but it doesn’t fill the hollow inside me.
“Tuck.”
Kate’s voice is soft, careful, like she’s afraid I might shatter if she says it too loud. She sits beside me.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers.
I swallow, my throat tight, raw. “Josh’s game…” My voice sounds distant, like it’s coming from somewhere outside me. “Marbles…he got loose.”
“Shit,” Nicklas mutters somewhere near the door, and I’m not even sure I realized he was here. “What can I do to help, Tuck?”
I shake my head, staring at nothing. “He’s going to be okay. He had surgery.”
“Okay,” Nicklas says quietly.
There’s movement—Kate standing, murmuring something low to him. A moment later, the door opens and closes again and then it’s just us.
My sister and me. She knows…she knows what this means, what it feels like.
“Tuck,” she says gently. “She didn’t know.”
It’s a statement, not a question. “No,” I say, my voice barely holding together. “She didn’t know.” That’s because I never told her.
Kate sits back down beside me, closer this time, and I fold in on myself, elbows on my knees, face buried in my hands. I press my palms into my eyes like I can block it all out—the past, the guilt, the memories that won’t stop replaying.
“When you first told me about Maria and the boys,” she says quietly. “It scared me.”
“Yeah, I know. It scared me too. I didn’t want…I tried not to…”
“I haven’t known them long,” she continues. “But I didn’t need to. Not really. It was obvious. What you two have…what you were building.”
Something breaks loose in my chest, a strangled sound I can’t stop. “I should have stayed away.” The words taste like regret. Like self-preservation twisted into something ugly.
There’s a long pause, and then, “You were afraid,” Kate says finally, her voice softer now. “I understand that. What you went through…” She falters, and I hear her swallow. “What we all went through, Tuck…no one should have to endure that.”
My hands drop from my face, but I don’t look at her. I can’t. Because she’s right. She loved Ben too. We all did. And when he was taken from us, it didn’t just leave a hole—it ripped something out of every one of us and never gave it back.
“For the record,” she adds, a little firmer now, like she needs me to hear this.
“You didn’t fail Ben. And you didn’t fail Suzanna either.
She wanted something different. A different kind of life, a different kind of love.
You couldn’t give her that—not because you weren’t enough, but because you were built for something else. ”
I shake my head, the painful memory rising up anyway.
“He was crying, Kate.” My voice cracks, splinters.
“Ben was crying. He reached for me—he fucking reached for me—and she—” I suck in a breath that burns.
“She pulled him away. Like I didn’t matter.
Like he wasn’t…mine. Then she told me I’d failed them.
” The ache that follows is unbearable. “How could she do that?” I whisper.
Kate doesn’t answer right away. Maybe because there isn’t one. “I don’t know,” she says finally. “But I do know kids are resilient. More than we give them credit for.”
She leans her head against my shoulder, and for a moment, we just sit there. No fixing it. No pretending it’s okay. Just…existing in the wreckage of it all. The silence stretches, but it’s different now. Not empty—just full of everything we’re not saying.
Then she shifts, pulling back just enough that I feel the change before I see it. “I need to tell you something, Tuck.”
There’s something in her voice that cuts through the fog in my head.
I straighten, turning to look at her, my back pressed against the railing.
And when I meet her eyes, my chest tightens all over again.
Because there’s pain there. And suddenly, I have a feeling that what she’s about to say might change everything.
“What is it?”
Kate hesitates, like she’s weighing whether this will heal me or break me all over again.
“I sometimes see Suzanna and Ben…around town.”
My heart slams hard against my ribs, knocking the air from my lungs. “Is he okay?”
“He’s great, actually.” She rushes the words, like she needs to get them out before I spiral. “I didn’t say that to hurt you. I’m not saying he’s great because you’re not in his life. I’m saying it because…he looks really happy. Healthy.”
I drag in a breath too fast, too sharp, like it might cut me on the way down. “Kate…” It comes out wrecked, barely holding it together, and she immediately reaches for me, her hand closing over mine.
“She’s married now, Tuck. I’ve seen them at the park. All of them. Together.”
I swallow hard, my throat tight, burning. “Yeah.”
The image forms. Ben’s small hand in someone else’s. Someone else lifting him, laughing with him, being what I couldn’t be.
“Ben is happy,” Kate says gently. “He has a father now, and he seems really good to them. And if you couldn’t be the father Suzanna wanted for him…” She pauses, her voice softening even more. “Then maybe it gives you a little bit of peace knowing she found someone who could.”
I close my eyes for a second, trying to steady the storm inside me.
“For what it’s worth,” she adds. “Suzanna made a mistake. You were an amazing father to Ben. You loved him. That didn’t just disappear because she walked away. She just wanted something different for her life, and…we don’t always get to choose what other people want.”
I let out a shaky breath. “Really, he seemed happy?”
“He really did.”
Something shifts inside me then—small, fragile, but real. A knot that’s been pulled tight for years loosens just enough to let me breathe around it.
I smile, faint and aching. “I miss him.”
“I know,” she whispers. “I do too.”
“I think about him all the time.” My voice softens, drifts. “What he’d be like now. What he sounds like when he laughs. Does he remember me? Does he…like hockey?”
Kate squeezes my hand. “He might not recognize you if he saw you. He might not know your face.” She lifts her other hand, pressing it gently against my chest. “But you’re in here.
You don’t spend that amount of time loving a kid without leaving something behind.
You’re imprinted on his heart, Tuck. Forever. ”
I let that settle, let it sink into the places that have felt empty for too long. “You think?” I ask quietly, hopeful.
“I know.”
She taps my chest again, then gestures toward the wall where his baby picture still hangs. “Keep him here. And there. He doesn’t have to be gone just because he’s not with you.”
My gaze drifts to that photo—and then, like a punch I don’t see coming—
Maria.
The boys.
Gone.
The house feels even quieter now, like it’s echoing with everything I just lost.
“But you can’t let what happened back then trap you there,” Kate says, her voice steady but full of meaning. “You can’t let it stop you from living again. From…loving again.”
Her eyes search mine.
“You love those boys. You love Maria.” A soft, knowing smile tugs at her lips. “You even love Marbles.” I huff out a broken breath, glancing at her, and she points a finger at me. “Don’t you dare deny it.”
I shake my head, scrubbing a hand over my face. “I’m not. God…if anything had happened to him—”
“But it didn’t,” she cuts in gently. “And you were there when it mattered.” I exhale slowly, but the guilt is still there, and she must sense it because she says, “Accidents happen, Tuck. Life happens. Sometimes you make the hockey games, sometimes you don’t.
” She tilts her head, her voice soft but certain.
“Do you really think Josh would have preferred you at that game? Over staying with Marbles when the tiny kitten needed you?”
“I don’t know,” I admit. “It just…felt like it was an impossible choice.”
“It was an impossible choice,” she agrees. “But I think you made the right one.”
I look at her. “You do?”
“I do.” No hesitation. No doubt. “Josh is a smart kid. He loves that cat. And he loves you.” Her expression softens. “If anything, he’s probably going to love you more for staying with Marbles. For not walking away when that little fur ball needed you.”
I swallow, the weight in my chest shifting again—still heavy, but not crushing.
“There will be other games,” she continues quietly. “And he knows that. What matters is that you show up. And you do, Tuck. You always do…even when it costs you something.”
“I told him I’d be there…and I wasn’t,” I state, still working through that as I drag in a breath that doesn’t quite make it all the way to my lungs.
“You do realize, if I fail a team, they trade me. If I fail a woman, she leaves me. If I fail kids…” My voice breaks, splinters under the weight of it. “I ruin them.”
Kate’s head snaps toward me. “No. No, big brother. That is not true.” There’s no softness in it this time—just fierce, unshakable certainty.
“Okay, maybe the team part,” she adds, waving a hand.
“I don’t know anything about that world.
But the rest, that’s not the truth—that’s something Suzanna left behind in your head.
” Her voice softens, but her eyes don’t waver.
“You didn’t fail Josh or Lucas. And even if you mess up sometimes, that doesn’t mean you ruin them.
Kids aren’t that fragile, Tuck. They bend.
They bounce back. They keep loving anyway. ”
I want to believe her. God, I want to. But the doubt is still there, dug in deep. My phone pings in my hand, the sound cutting through the moment. I pull it from my pocket, more for something to do than anything else, my thumb swiping across the screen.
Noah.
Then I see the text from Josh. My chest tightens all over again.
“He texted me,” I say, my voice quieter now, almost unsure.
Kate’s brow lifts. “Josh?”
“Yeah. Earlier.”
“What does it say?”
I hesitate. Because this—this feels like the moment everything gets confirmed.
The moment I find out I screwed it all up.
That I became exactly what I swore I’d never be.
Someone who doesn’t show up. My stomach knots as I stare at his name on the screen.
His dad never showed up. And tonight…neither did I.
But then I think about Josh. About the way he is—soft-hearted and steady. The way he looks at people like he sees the best in them. He’s so much like his mother. I squeeze my eyes shut for a second, then force myself to read.
Josh: Tuck, I had the game-winning goal. I wish you could have been there. Next time. Did you get the fence fixed for Mabel?
My throat closes instantly. I read it again. And again. My fingers brush over the screen like I can feel the meaning in the words.
“He’s not mad,” I choke out, the realization cracking something open in my chest. Kate leans closer as I hold the phone out, her eyes scanning the message.
“Kids are resilient,” she says softly. “Next time.”
“Yeah,” I whisper, staring at those two words like they’re everything. Next time.
Not you let me down. Not don’t bother anymore.
Just…next time.
“You didn’t fail him,” Kate continues gently. “You didn’t ruin him. He was disappointed, sure. Of course he was. But look, he already moved through it. He’s okay. He’s more than okay.”
“Yeah,” I manage again, my voice thick.
She shakes her head, holding her hands out like she’s laying the truth right in front of me. “Parenting is messy. Sometimes you get it right, sometimes you don’t.”
I let out a breath that almost turns into a laugh and sling an arm around her, pulling her into my side. “What the hell do you know about parenting?”
She snorts, leaning into me. “Not a damn thing, Chucky. But I do know this. You’re the best brother a girl could ever ask for. There were times you were a parent to me.” Her voice softens. “So yeah…I think you’ve got this. More than you think you do.”
My gaze drifts back to the wall, to the photos lining it, and my chest lurches when I really see them. What she’s done. What Maria started.
“The pictures…” I say quietly, the realization settling deep. “She use to say a place without pictures was a house, not a home.”
“Tuck,” Kate whispers, like she already knows where this is going. “Do you think she was trying to show you something?”
“I told her to leave.” The words sit heavy. “I told her to go. I fucked up.”
“You were hurting,” Kate says gently. “You were confused. You reacted.”
“But she was confused too,” I say, my mind suddenly racing, pieces clicking into place so fast it almost makes me dizzy.
And then it hits me.
Hard.
Like a puck straight to the chest.
“Holy fuck.”
“What?” Kate sits up straighter.
I stare at her, my pulse pounding in my ears. “Her ex-husband. He had a secret kid. A whole other life… and Maria…”
Kate’s face crumples. “Oh God…”
“Holy fuck,” I repeat, dragging my hands through my hair. “She must have thought…she must have thought I had something like that too. That Ben—”
“That you had a secret child. A whole other family,” Kate finishes quietly.
I press my palms into the sides of my head, like I can stop the spiral, stop the realization from tearing through me.
“What have I done?” My voice drops, wrecked, barely there.
“She loves you,” Kate says immediately. “She’s kind. She’s compassionate. And yeah, she’s hurt. But she’s also the kind of person who listens. Who forgives.”
I shake my head, fear creeping in, cold and relentless. “What if she doesn’t want to talk to me again?”
Kate tilts her head, her gaze steady, unwavering.
“What if she does?”
“Jesus, I need to talk to her…show her.”
“Yes.” She waves her hand around the walls. “She showed you.”
“What…what can I do?”
“I’m sure you’ll figure it out, Chucky.”
I swallow my mind racing. I do need to figure it out, because Maria and the boys are everything to me and I can’t—won’t—lose them. I need to do something big, dramatic, to show them all just what they mean to me. That’s when it hits me.
“I think I know what I have to do.”
She pats my back. “Good to hear it, big bro.”
“I’ll need help.” I glance around. “Where did Nicklas go?” I frown and glance at Kate. “Wait, what were you doing with Nicklas?”