Page 145 of Spotlight
“Did you know that when you’re in high school you don’t get recess?” Greer asks her.
Hazel gasps even though she doesn’t really know what recess is yet. She’s a good, captive audience for Greer. She thinks her big sister is the smartest, funniest person in the world.
“It is a real travesty.” Brogan leans down and swoops Hazel into his arms while he winks at Greer and asks her, “When did you get so smart?”
“I’m eleven and a half now, Uncle Brogan,” she says with all the seriousness of a girl who thinks she’s mature far beyond her years.
Brogan chuckles softly, then looks to me and Olivia. “I’m stealing H-bomb here. I need a partner in the nerf war.”
“Have fun,” Olivia calls after them.
I smile, watching him carry her away. When I glance at Greer, she and Archer are signing back and forth. She’s gotten so good at signing with him that I can barely keep up. She still wants to be a baseball player and a princess, but now she’s added interpreter to the list as well.
“Think we can take them?”Archer asks her, tipping his head in the direction that Brogan and Hazel went.
“Definitely.”
They’ve barely made it across the yard when Sabrina appears.
“Give me.” She motions with both hands to baby Sloane. My newest girl. She’s six weeks old today.
Once I decided I was staying in Lake City, everything else became crystal clear. Marriage and babies, all of it. I didn’t want to wait. Neither did Olivia. My girls are my whole world.
“So bossy,” Olivia carefully holds out our little girl to her best friend.
Sabrina cradles Sloane in one arm with the biggest smile on her face. “Her hair is even redder than the last time I saw her.”
It’s true. Where Hazel is a mixture of me and Olivia, Sloane takes more after me. Her hair is redder than mine, eyes just as dark. Hendrick says she looks a lot like our mom.
“You are just the cutest thing,” Sabrina coos and talks to Sloane, ignoring us. I’ve noticed people do that a lot, but it’s hard to blame them. My girls are dang cute.
London rushes to her side. She offers Olivia and me the briefest smile before focusing her attention on Sloane.
“It’s like we aren’t even here,” I say to my wife, but it’s impossible to sound anything other than happy. In fact, I’ve never been happier. Every day, every milestone gets better and better.
Looking up from the pitcher’s mound and seeing my girls cheering me on, walking through the door after a long road trip, lazy Sunday mornings, and everything in between.
I lace my fingers through Olivia’s as I scan the backyard. The whole family is at Knox’s house to celebrate his son’s birthday. Chase is this cute and fun combination of his parents. He has Avery’s blonde hair and blue eyes, but everything else is Knox. His smile, his mannerisms, his love of dirt bikes. Although lately he’s been showing a lot of interest in football, which has Archer and Brogan ecstatic and both me and Knox slightly offended. I’m sure I’ll convince my nephew to take up baseball at some point.
Hendrick and Jane are in the pool with their daughter, Rosie. She turned four last week and is the spitting image of Jane. She’s softspoken and timid, but she has the sweetest smile and loves to swim. She started swimming lessons as a baby, and ever since, it’s all she wants to do. The stuff she can do in a pool is incredible. I think we have a future Olympic swimmer on our hands.
A pregnant Avery is corralling Chase and his friends to one side of the yard as they shoot each other with nerf guns. Brogan and Hazel run to join in with Archer and Greer right behind them. Brogan uses Hazel as a shield while he grabs his gun. I hear her squeal from across the yard until he hands her a nerf gun too.
It’s been a wild few years with more exciting things to come. Archer and Sabrina are in the process of adopting twin three-month-old boys. One is deaf just like Archer. Greer cannot wait to teach them sign language.
Brogan and London’s son, Cooper, is two. He’s shy and has bright blond hair, but when he laughs, he sounds just like his dad. I look for him now, not surprised at all to see him running next to Chase. Those two have a special bond, despite their age difference.
And perhaps the biggest change…
Knox is at the grill with our dad. They’re talking and smiling. It’s still a strange sight to see them together, but a welcome one.
It wasn’t quick or easy, but once Dad started making an effort to show up for my brothers, they slowly opened themselves up to having a relationship with him. Archer first, then Hendrick. It was when Chase was born that Knox finally came around. Don’t tell Knox, but the whole parent thing has made him a big, ole softie. He’s always had the biggest heart, but now he wears it more openly.
And to his credit, our dad has been a good grandpa. All the grandkids love him, and he makes them a priority—showing up for every softball game, dirt bike race, swim meet, birthday, or whatever else they have going on. They keep him busy.
I know my brothers wonder what it would have been like if he’d been around like that for us. I do sometimes too, the same way I wonder what it’d be like if our mom was still here. I like to think she’d be happy with how we all turned out.
Hendrick has followed in her footsteps, revitalizing the bar she loved so much and naming his daughter after her.
