Epilogue Two
. . .
Hannah
eight years later
The sun is too bright, the bleachers are too hard, and somewhere behind me a dad is yelling advice that no seven-year-old on earth could possibly use.
I shift on the metal seat and adjust the bill of the baseball cap I stole from Bennett this morning.
Elise is on the field in her too-big jersey, glove on her left hand, hair escaping the braid I did in the parking lot.
She’s playing second base for the Silver Lake Sparks, and right now she looks like she’s trying very hard not to look nervous.
Miles is in my lap, sticky from the popsicle he finished ten minutes ago, kicking the bleacher in front of us in a steady rhythm that is slowly driving the woman two rows down insane.
Bennett sits beside me with his forearms on his knees, eyes locked on the field like this is the World Series instead of a Saturday morning coach-pitch game.
“She’s shifting her weight too early,” he murmurs.
“She’s seven.”
“Doesn’t mean she can’t keep her feet quiet.”
I look at him sideways. He’s in a faded T-shirt and sunglasses, wedding band glinting every time he moves his hand. The same man who once wore thousand-dollar suits to get coffee still shows up to these games looking like he’d rather be nowhere else.
“You’re analyzing our daughter’s stance again.”
“I’m observing.”
“You’re one bad call away from arguing with the umpire.”
His mouth twitches. “I haven’t done that since the spring season.”
“You did it last month.”
“That was different. The kid was clearly safe.”
I laugh under my breath and lean into his shoulder.
He immediately lifts his arm and pulls me closer, his hand settling on the side of my neck the way it always has.
Miles takes the opportunity to climb halfway into Bennett’s lap instead, leaving a faint orange popsicle smear on his father’s shirt.
Bennett doesn’t even look down. He just keeps watching Elise.
The pitcher—another tiny kid in a too-big hat—lobbs the ball. Elise swings. The crack of the bat is pure luck and pure glory. The ball dribbles between first and second. Elise takes off like she’s being chased, braids flying, and makes it to first base just before the throw.
Our whole section erupts. Bennett is on his feet before I am, clapping hard enough that Miles covers his ears and grins.
“That’s my girl!” Bennett shouts, completely unconcerned with volume or dignity.
Elise looks over from first base, finds us, and gives the smallest, proudest smile I’ve ever seen. My throat goes tight.
Bennett sits back down, still clapping, and shakes his head like he can’t believe it. “Did you see her feet? She didn’t hesitate.”
“I saw.”
“She’s got your stubbornness.”
“She’s got your complete inability to do anything halfway.”
He turns his head and looks at me over the top of his sunglasses. The smile he gives me is slow and private and still, after all these years, a little stunned. Like he never quite got over the fact that this life is his.
“I can live with that,” he says.
Miles announces that he needs the bathroom with the urgency of someone who has been ignoring the feeling for twenty minutes.
Bennett takes him without complaint, swinging him up onto his hip like he weighs nothing.
I watch them navigate the bleachers, Bennett’s hand steady on Miles’s back, and feel the familiar ache of how much I love them settle under my ribs.
When they come back, the inning has changed.
Elise is on the bench, swinging her legs, listening to her coach with the serious expression she only wears when she’s trying very hard to be good at something.
Bennett drops back onto the bleacher beside me and hands me a cold bottle of water he somehow acquired.
“They’re up by two,” he says.
“I saw.”
“If they hold it, she’s going to want ice cream after. With the sprinkles that stain everything.”
“Obviously.”
He reaches over and tucks a loose strand of hair behind my ear, fingers lingering. “You okay? You’ve been quiet.”
I could say I’m fine. I usually do. Instead I lean into his touch and tell the truth.
“I was thinking about the first time you came back to the shop for me. How terrified I was that you were going to change your mind once you really saw me. And now I’m sitting here watching our daughter play baseball while our son gets popsicle on your shirt and I keep waiting for the feeling that none of this is real. It never comes.”
Bennett is quiet for a moment. His thumb strokes once along my jaw.
“It’s real,” he says simply. “You’re stuck with us.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
I look at him. The silver at his temples is more pronounced now.
There are lines at the corners of his eyes that weren’t there when I spilled coffee on him.
He’s softer in some ways and even more certain in others.
The man who once cleared a drawer for me and refused to let me move into “his” house has spent eight years making sure I never doubted I belonged in the middle of everything he built.
“I know,” I say again, and this time it lands deeper.
A crack of the bat pulls our attention back to the field.
The other team has a kid on second. The next pitch is hit soft and high.
Elise tracks it, glove up, face scrunched in concentration.
For a second I think she’s going to miss it.
Then the ball drops into her glove like it was always meant to be there.
She looks at it in shock, then holds it up like she needs proof.
The bleachers explode again. Bennett is on his feet, both hands in the air, laughing like she just won the championship. Miles is cheering mostly because everyone else is. Elise’s teammates swarm her. I can see her smiling so hard her freckles stand out.
Bennett drops back down and immediately pulls me into a one-armed hug, pressing a kiss to my temple.
“That’s our kid,” he says, voice rough with pride.
“That’s our kid,” I agree.
The game ends 6-4. Elise runs off the field with dirt on her knees and pure triumph on her face.
She launches herself at Bennett first, then me, talking a mile a minute about the catch and the hit and how her coach said she was “clutch.” Miles demands to be included in the celebration and somehow ends up on Bennett’s shoulders by the time we reach the parking lot.
We’re almost to the car when Elise stops short and looks up at me.
“Mom? Can Dad come to my next game even if he has work?”
Bennett answers before I can. “I’ll be at every game. Even the ones where I have to leave court early and change in the car.”
She beams. Miles, from his perch on Bennett’s shoulders, announces that he wants to play baseball too, but only if he can have a red helmet. The negotiation continues all the way to the car.
I climb into the passenger seat while Bennett gets the kids settled. When he slides behind the wheel he reaches over and takes my hand, threading our fingers together over the console. His wedding band presses against mine. The diamond he slid onto my finger beside the lake catches the light.
“Ice cream?” he asks.
“With the terrible sprinkles,” I confirm.
He starts the car, checks the rearview mirror at our loud, sticky, perfect children, and then looks at me like he still can’t believe he gets to keep this.
“I love you,” he says.
“I love you too.”
He lifts our joined hands and kisses the back of mine, right over the rings, the same way he has a thousand times before.
I used to think men only ever wanted me temporarily.
Now I have a husband who shows up to coach-pitch games like they’re sacred, two kids who never doubt they are wanted, and a life that feels so permanent it still sometimes steals my breath.
The girl who spilled coffee on a stranger and expected to be forgotten would not recognize me.
I barely recognize her either.
And I wouldn’t go back for anything.