“Run!” Diane screamed, pulling her white ball cap with the blue bill off her head, waving it in a big circle, side-skipping toward first base. “Run, run, run, run!”
Taylor dropped the bat and took off, running away from the tee post as fast as his short legs could take him. He finally made it to the white square, jumping up and down when he realized he’d gotten there before the ball.
Diane jumped with him, whooping and hollering and carrying on, giving him a high-five. Taylor beamed like it was the best day of his life. Diane reset, clapping as she jogged back toward the next batter. Thomas tossed her a new ball from the dugout, and she set it on the tee, telling Craig Porter to keep his eye on the ball and swing through. It was our last out, the last inning, and we were two runs down. Craig reared back, and as he swung, Diane leaned back, narrowly avoiding a bat to the face. The ball bounced off the tee, not reaching halfway between home base and the pitcher’s mound, but she yelled at him to go.
“Run! Yes! Run, Craigers! Run your little heart out! Taylor, go!” she said when she realized her son hadn’t started running yet.
Taylor took off, but the shortstop had picked up the ball and tossed it to second base. Without thinking, Taylor hopped right over him and kept running, standing on the base, pulling down his cap like he was the god of T-ball.
“Yes! Those are my boys!” she cheered, pointing at the two on base. “Get ya some!”
Tyler stepped up to the plate, looking mean and intimidating even though it was just him and the ball tee.
“All right, son,” Diane said, leaning over to grab her knees. She had a big wad of pink gum in her mouth, chewing it like it had made her mad. “You got this. Relax. Stare at that ball and swing your little heart out.” She clapped three times, taking a few steps back. Tyler was our best batter.
Tyler took a breath, wiggled his hips, and swung. He hit the tee, and the ball bounced behind him. He frowned, disappointed in himself.
Diane patted his backside once. “C’mon now, none of that. Shake it off. This is it. This time, you’ve got it.”
Tyler nodded and hit the bat against each of his little cleats. He bent forward, got in position, and then swung, launching it past the pitcher’s mound. It bounced, zipping between the second and third base, and the shortstop chased after it.
“Go, go, go!” Diane said, waving her hat. “Go to second!” When Taylor paused at third, she gestured him to come to her. “Home, baby! Home, home, home! Keep going, Craig, don’t stop! Go home, Taylor!”
Taylor slid into home and then stood. Diane grabbed him and held him close, yelling for Craig, who ran past home seconds later. The third baseman caught the ball from the shortstop, and then he hurled the ball to the catcher.
“Book it, Maddox!” Diane barked.
Tyler put into high gear and slid into home. When the dust cleared, the umpire crossed his arms and then held them out to his sides. “Safe!”
I yelled, running toward home, and the team followed me out. We crowded around Diane, everyone hugging her, cheering and laughing. The parents stood up, clapping for Diane’s Little Dodgers. Diane yelped, and she fell over, hugging the boys and cackling as they piled on top of her.
Once the celebration of winning their last tournament was over, and the boys and their parents waved goodbye, I hugged my wife tight. “You’re fierce,” I said. “Matt’s Mustangs didn’t know what hit ‘em.”
She smirked, arching an eyebrow. “I told you they would underestimate me.”
“And they did. You handled a whole team pretty good, coach. Great season.”
“Thanks,” she said, pecking my cheek. She rubbed my whiskers with her knuckles. “I hope you like the idea of me and a team of boys.”
I chuckled, confused. “What do you mean?”
She picked up the bag of t-balls and swung it over her shoulders. “I’m pregnant.”
I stood, my mouth hanging open as she walked to the car. I looked down at the twins. “Really?”
“Really!” she yelled back. She put her thumb and pinky in her mouth and blew out an ear-piercing whistle. “Load up!”
Thomas, Taylor, and Tyler took off after their mom.
I blew out a breath, my cheeks filling and then puffing out the air. I nodded once. “Okay, then.” The boys carried their bats and gloves, and I carried everything else, pulling down my Little Dodger’s ball cap. “Let’s do this.”
Trenton broke off from Thomas, Travis, Taylor, Tyler, and Shepley, limping to the podium for his turn. It was our family’s third funeral in six weeks, and the purple under his eyes and his sagging shoulders told a story of sleepless nights and grief. The paper crinkled as he unfolded the words he’d written down just days after I’d left him. It was full of eraser marks, pencil smudges, and dried tears.
“Dad.” He sighed. “When I sat down to write this letter, I tried to think about the many moments you were a good dad, and the hundreds of times we laughed or that just stuck out to me, but all I can think about … is that I’m so sad that you’re gone and how much I’m going to miss you. I’m going to miss your advice. You knew everything about everything, and you always knew the right words to say—whether I was hurting or trying to make a decision. Even when I was making the wrong one. You never”—he shook his head and pressed his lips together, trying to hold in his tears—“judged us. You accepted and loved us for who we were, even when who we were was hard to love. And you were that way to everyone. Our wives called you dad, and it was real to them. Olive … called you Papa, and she meant it, and I’m glad to know that wherever you are, you’re together. I’m going to miss you telling stories about Mom. I felt closer to her no matter how many years passed by because when you talked about her, you talked like she was still here. I’m glad you can finally be with her again. I’m going to miss so many things about you, Dad. I couldn’t name them all. But we’re all lucky that we had you for the time that we did. Everyone who crossed your path was better for it, and they were forever changed. And now, we’ll be forever changed because you’re gone.”
“Stay out of the street,” Thomas said to his identical younger brothers.
The twins’ toy fire engines were flying four feet above the sidewalk two blocks from our house, intermittently crashing into each other without spinning out of control into space. Trenton’s tiny hand was in mine as he waddled next to me, his diaper crinkling as he walked, even under corduroy pants and pajama leggings. He was bundled up like an Eskimo baby, his nose and cheeks red from the icy wind. Thomas herded the twins back to the center of the sidewalk, shoving Taylor’s knit cap down over his ears.
I zipped up my coat, shivering under three layers, wondering how Diane was so happily dragging me along by the hand in just a stretched-out sweater and acid-wash maternity jeans. Her puffy nose was red, but she insisted she was on the brink of sweating.
“It’s just the next street!” she said, encouraging the boys not to stop in front of us.
“Trenton, I can’t see you when you’re just below me, so if you stop in front of Mommy, we’ll both go down with the ship,” she said, shooing him with her hands. “There!” she said, pointing at a long driveway. “Thirty-seven hundred! Can you believe it?”