She had plenty to do. There was laundry to sort, cabinets to clean out. She could vacuum. She could bake a pie. But none of those mundane tasks helped the hurt.

In the end, she did what she always did when she was depressed and unable to cope with life. She took a cab to the San Fernando Cathedral and went inside to light a candle for her late father, who had been Catholic.

She smiled sadly at the memory. He’d been driving a cattle truck for a rancher down near Jacobsville when a dog had run into the road and he’d swerved to avoid hitting it. The truck had overturned and killed him instantly.

Sunny and her mother, Sandra, and her little brother, Mark, had been devastated. Like now, it was the holiday season, which just amplified the loss as families gathered around Christmas trees to sing carols.

Her father, Ryan Wesley, had been a lifelong Catholic. Her mother had been a staunch Methodist. But the differences in faith hadn’t dulled the feelings her parents had for each other. It was truly a love match. They’d met in grammar school. They’d always known that they’d marry one day and have kids.

Sunny smiled at the memory. Her mother had loved to take out the family album and sit around the apartment with Sunny and Mark and tell them the stories that went with the wealth of photographs going back to Sandra’s own childhood, and Ryan’s. They’d been very close after the accident, so it had hurt terribly when Sunny lost them both in a tragedy that still had the power to bring tears to her eyes six years afterward.

She walked slowly to the front of the church and lit candles for all three of them. She looked up at the pulpit. She’d come with her father to Mass from time to time, just as she attended services with her mother at the local Methodist church. It had been faith that kept her going when she was ready to throw up her hands and just sit and give up. She truly believed that everything had a purpose, even tragedies that seemed without one.

She stood in front of the candles. She’d left her hair loose, since she was off duty. It flowed down her back in a thick, pale curtain around the black dress and coat she was wearing off duty. Most women wore pantsuits when they attended services, but Sunny had stayed with her grandmother after school every day when Ryan and Sandra were working. After Mark came along, he stayed with her as well. Their grandmother had always worn dresses to church and funeral homes, and she instilled that custom in Sunny from childhood.