Chapter 38
Miller
One Year Later
The sun in Mesa might be brighter than the sun in Dunedin, but I’m more interested in the one shining up at me through the screen of my phone.
“How’s Arizona?” Ren props her chin on her fist, hair tumbling down from her shoulders.
“Better than Florida. But spring training is still spring training. Guys are nice though.” I shrug, dropping my elbows to my knees, cradling my phone with both hands like I’m holding the World Series trophy again. Might as well be, actually. “How are you feeling?”
“Good.” She nods before dropping her voice to a staged whisper. “But we do have a bit of a problem with Mattie.”
My knuckles whiten, and I swallow, already half out of my stupid seat. “What? We were just at the doctor—I can—”
“I was in the fossil lab at school yesterday morning. And would you believe—as soon as I looked at a triceratops skull, I threw up?” She gives me a flat look, pointing down at the swell of her stomach, before she leans closer to the phone, all fake worry. “Do you think she doesn’t like dinosaurs?”
“Jesus, Ren, you can’t—that’s—” I groan, knocking my head against the wood wall of the dugout, but she laughs, and the sunlight of her reaches me all the way from Chicago, and my mouth tugs sideways. “That’s—not ideal. You’re right.”
“We simply can’t have a dinosaur hater for a daughter, Miller.” She shakes her head, full lips in an exaggerated frown. “I want her to be an enthusiast like her father.”
“No. Can’t have that.” I grin, poking my tongue into my cheek. “I’ll give her a talking to when I come home. Make sure she shapes up before she’s born.”
A hand hits the wall of the dugout, and the new defensive coordinator looks at me with wide eyes, jerking a thumb over his shoulder. “CB—let’s go.”
I tip my chin before running a hand along the back of my head before exhaling and looking back at my phone. “I gotta go. But uh, I’ll see you in—”
“Five weeks.” She holds up five fingers before looking over her shoulder. “Victor misses you, he’s counting.”
“Yeah? Just him?”
“No, not just him,” Ren says softly. “I love you.”
“I love you, too,” I tell her before giving a pointed glance towards her stomach. “And you.”
“Little alien-shaped-dinosaur-hating baby loves you too.” Ren rolls her eyes, but she throws me another smile, nose wrinkling, before she hangs up.
Neither of us were sure we wanted kids, and it was kind of one of those not entirely on purpose things—but when we sat there, side by side on the floor of our bathroom waiting to see if a stupid stick had a plus sign or a minus—it happened, and I think my aunt might have been right.
Everything—good, bad, wonderful, horrible, spectacular, and awful—they all happen for a reason.
And if the worst thing that ever happened to me hadn’t—I wouldn’t have either of them.
I glance down at the stretching M on the back of my hand, a bit faded now, the edges sunk into my skin—less stark, and not as much of a painful reminder as it used to be.
Clearing my throat, I drag a thumb along the letter.
“Never really thanked you. So, uh, thanks. Wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t have either of them and I can’t—uh, never mind. You know what I mean.”
And for the first time in a long time, I can hear him—happy and laughing the way he was that last day—and I imagine him, walking backwards towards the pitch, arms spread wide. “You’re welcome. Don’t do something stupid like go back to sleep and fuck it up. You deserve it—all that sunlight.”
Wouldn’t dream of it, I think, and I tap the back of my hand twice for good luck before running out onto the field.