8. Epilogue 2 – Brendan
“Right here, bud.” I tap the center of my glove. “Don’t worry about anything else.”
Miles nods from the other side of the backyard and takes a second to get comfortable with the baseball in his hand.
He’s been asking me to work with him on his pitching almost every afternoon this week, which means I’ve spent a lot of time reminding myself that he’s ten years old and doesn’t need twelve different corrections every time he throws.
His next pitch comes in high. I reach up and catch it, then toss the ball back without commenting on what went wrong.
“Again.”
He tries once more. This one lands exactly where I asked for it.
“There it is.” I smile as I return the ball. “You felt the difference, didn’t you?”
Miles nods, already setting up again. “Yeah.”
“That’s all you need right now. Don’t overthink it.”
I’ve had coaches who could spot three things wrong with a delivery before the ball reached the plate. I became one of those guys myself toward the end of my career, especially with younger pitchers. But with Miles, I just want him to enjoy this.
He loves baseball right now. He loves watching it, playing it, talking about it, and occasionally cornering me at breakfast to ask why I threw a particular pitch in a game that happened years before he was born.
Who knows how long all of that will last. But for as long as he wants to play, I’ll be out here with a glove.
The back door opens and Lauren leans outside. “Dad! The game’s starting!”
“We’ll be there in a minute, sweetheart.” I look back at Miles and raise my glove. “Last one.”
He takes his time. His delivery is simpler this time, and the throw comes in clean. I catch it without moving the glove.
Miles watches me expectantly.
I walk over instead of throwing the ball back and hand it to him. “You did good.”
“Can we do it again tomorrow?”
“Absolutely.”
We start toward the house and Miles immediately starts talking about food, apparently exhausted from the tremendous hardship of throwing a baseball twenty times.
“There’s stuff in the kitchen,” I tell him as I kick off my shoes. “Don’t destroy anything.”
“I won’t.”
“You said that before the blender incident.”
“That was Joey.”
“You were supervising.”
Miles gives me a grin and heads into the kitchen.
I find Lauren in the living room, sitting in the middle of the couch with her legs tucked beneath her. She doesn’t look away from the television when I come in, so I sit beside her and put my arm along the back of the couch.
“Did we miss anything?”
“Not yet.” She shifts closer, resting her shoulder against my side. “Their pitcher already walked somebody, though.”
“Sounds promising.”
“He threw four balls in a row.”
“That’s generally how walks work.”
Lauren looks up at me with the same unimpressed expression her mother has been giving me for thirteen years.
I grin and kiss her temple. “Sorry. Continue.”
She tells me who is batting and what happened in the first at-bat, giving me far more information than I asked for. I listen anyway. Lauren loves the Titans. She has a favorite player every season, knows most of the roster, and gets genuinely upset when they lose.
When the next batter hits a double into the gap, Lauren grabs my forearm with both hands.
“Yes!”
I laugh as she bounces against me. “Settle down. It’s April.”
“I don’t care.”
“I know you don’t.”
She beams at the television, and I pull her a little closer. She’ll probably stop climbing onto the couch to sit against me eventually. I’m in no hurry to help that happen.
A minute later, Joey runs into the room carrying a plastic dinosaur and climbs straight onto my lap. He launches into a story about how the dinosaur escaped from his bedroom, attacked one of Miles’s trucks, and then drove it into the kitchen.
“Hold on.” I settle him against my chest. “I thought he ate the truck.”
“No, Daddy. He ate the driver.”
“Ah. Important distinction.”
Joey nods solemnly and continues, explaining that the dinosaur drove all the way to the moon, where apparently he encountered an alien and ate him too. Lauren has been listening from beside me, and she finally interrupts. “How did he drive to the moon?”
“He has a flying truck,” Joey says.
“You didn’t say it could fly.”
“I just did.”
I laugh, and Lauren starts giggling. “He keeps changing the story.”
“No, I don’t!” Joey insists, but he’s laughing now too, and that sets Lauren off harder.
Joey looks at her and immediately loses whatever argument he was about to make, collapsing against my chest in a fit of giggles.
Lauren doubles over beside me, which only makes Joey laugh harder, and pretty soon neither one of them seems to remember what was funny in the first place.
I catch Joey when he starts sliding off my lap and haul him back up, kissing the side of his head. “You two are ridiculous.”
That only gets them going again. I leave Joey sprawled across Lauren, both of them still laughing, and head toward the kitchen to find Dakota.
Miles comes around the corner carrying a bowl before I get there. I put a hand on his shoulder to keep him from walking straight into me, then look down at what he’s collected. He’s got crackers, chocolate pieces, and pretzels.
“Quite a spread.”
“I’m hungry.”
“So I’ve heard.”
He starts past me, then pauses. “Can we watch that pitching video again after the game?”
“The old one?”
“Yeah. The one where you strike out the last guy.”
I know exactly which game he means. He’s watched the final inning enough times to know the broadcast call almost word for word.
“Sure.”
His smile appears again, and he starts toward the living room.
Dakota is at the kitchen counter putting away the snack boxes Miles left open. I lean against the doorway and watch her for a second.
She catches me watching her. “What?”
“Nothing.”
“You have a look.”
“I’ve always got a look when you’re around.”
She smiles and turns back to the cabinet. I walk up behind her, slide my arms around her waist, and kiss the side of her neck.
“Your oldest son is eating chocolate before dinner.”
“Dinner isn’t for hours,” she counters.
I turn her in my arms and kiss her. There isn’t any rush to it. After more than a decade together, I know exactly how Dakota likes to be kissed, and I take enough time that she forgets about the open cabinet behind her.
When I finally lift my head, she smiles up at me. “What was that for?”
“Because I wanted to. And because you’re beautiful. And because you’re a very good mom to our kids.”
Dakota kisses me back. After a few seconds, her hands slide higher over my chest.
“Careful,” I murmur against her mouth.
“Why?”
“You know why.”
Her smile turns innocent. “I have no idea.”
“Bullshit.”
I’ve just started to kiss her again when Miles calls from the living room. “Mom? Can we have some carrots and apples too?”
Dakota turns her head toward the living room. “Sure, honey. I’ll bring some in.”
She looks back at me with a distinctly satisfied expression, and I narrow my eyes. “Don’t gloat.”
“What?” she asks innocently.
“They already have crackers, pretzels, and chocolate, and the kid is asking for produce.”
Her smile widens. “Almost as though kids can enjoy both.” She opens the refrigerator, our old photo booth strip still tucked beneath a magnet on the door after all these years, and takes out two containers. “I think my work here is done.”
I take the apples from her and follow her toward the living room. “You’re enjoying this way too much.”
By the time we return to the living room, Lauren has taken my spot and Joey is stretched across half the couch. I scoop him up with one arm and sit down beneath him, earning a delighted laugh as he ends up sideways across my lap.
Lauren moves over and settles against my other side while Miles puts the snacks on the coffee table.
Within a minute, Joey has stolen one of my hands to make his dinosaur walk across it, Lauren is explaining something about the batter, and Miles is asking whether I would’ve thrown a fastball in the same count.
I answer all three of them.
Eventually the inning ends, and the room gets quieter for a minute. Dakota reaches across Joey and rests her hand on my thigh.
I look around.
At forty-five, my baseball career is long over.
I got the World Series championship I spent most of my adult life chasing, just a few seasons after Dakota and I got married.
I still vividly remember every second of the final out.
I remember the pile on the field, the champagne, the parade, and waking up the next morning to find the championship title I’d wanted more than anything was finally going to be mine.
These days I work with the Titans on youth programs, charity events, and whatever else gives me an excuse to stay involved without living at the stadium.
The fans still know my name. People still stop me in restaurants and ask about games I pitched all those years ago. I’m proud of that part of my life.
But Miles doesn’t care about my career when he wants a bedtime story. Lauren isn’t impressed by how many hitters I struck out when she’s demanding a piggyback ride. Joey mostly knows I used to play baseball because there’s a picture of me in uniform in my office.
To them, I’m Dad.
That’s the best thing I’ve ever been called.
Joey leans back against my chest and puts his little hand over mine. Lauren grabs another apple slice from the container. Miles sits on the floor, his shoulder resting against my knee.
Dakota catches my eye, and I reach across Joey and take her hand.
There was a time when I thought baseball was everything. Then I met Dakota, and somehow one woman I couldn’t stop thinking about turned into this.
A wife I still want every damn day. Three kids I’d do anything for. A house that’s never quiet for long.
The Titans will always be part of me.
But this is the part of my life I can’t get enough of.