November
The ball park feels bigger in the off-season. Hollow, with tired bones, but full of potential.
I climb into the stands and sit high above the first base line. For the first time in my adult life, I don’t have to think about that potential, about what’s to come for my team.
In an hour, I’m giving the press conference everyone has known is coming.
Coach Rosehill is retiring.
I always assumed that when this day came, I would feel much the same as the empty stadium. Hollow, with tired bones. But without that hope for a new season ahead.
How wrong I was.
I don’t feel tired at all. Or hollow. And my next season is going to be the best one yet.
Down below, a figure appears on the edge ofthe field. She’s looking for me, but I don’t tell her that I’m up here. Not yet.
I’m going to take a minute to enjoy the view of my pregnant wife first. Tall, busting with my baby, moving with purpose.
Yeah, next season is going to be different for me. But it’s also going to be amazing, I have no doubt.
EPILOGUE 1 (COACHING HIS WIFE)
MOLLY
January
I go into labour in the middle of the night. It’s minus twenty five outside, but Jeff’s new truck has a block heater and a remote starter, and by the time he gets me dressed between contractions, it’s nice and toasty for the drive from Wildflower Hollow down the highway to Climax Springs Regional Hospital.
The Labour and Delivery nurse takes one look at me, and the extended contraction that has me moaning and gripping the doorframe, and she gets me a room.
“You’ve got this, mama,” she promises.
And I don’t feel like I do, not at all, but then Jeff is there, and he’s as good a coach in this moment as he is on the baseball diamond.
“This is dad?” the nurse asks as he takes off his coat and crouches in front of me.
The intensity of his gaze, locked in on me, is probably her first clue.
The second would be the way a flood of emotion pours out of me as soon as he’s back, because now I can let go and trust that he’s got me.
“It hurts,” I sob as he gives me his hands to squeeze.
“I know, baby. It’s going to be okay.”
Together, he and the nurse get me into a hospital gown that feels like sandpaper. I don’t want it on my skin, I don’t want anything touching me at all except my husband.
“That’s okay,” the nurse says. “Just listen to your body.”
“My body is ripping itself in two,” I manage to get out.
She makes a humming sound as she checks my progress. “That’s because you’re ready to push, mama. Zero to sixty for a first timer. I’ll page the doctor.”
“Everything is a fucking whirlwind with you,” Jeff says, and it’s not a complaint. He’s beaming at me. “Focus on me. Just like that. Hold my hand and breathe, baby, breathe. Deeper, that’s it. You’re so strong.”
“I’m going to die.”
“Don’t do that.” He smiles as the contraction fades, making his eyes crinkle. “There you go. Have some water and then you’ll do that again.”
