Page 158 of Imagine
He turned his gaze up into the stands.
His son Ted—Theodore—was waving at him. Hank frowned, and Ted turned his cap around a couple of times and pointed at Hank. Hank looked up and saw the brim of his hat. A second later he flicked the hat around, and Ted gave him a thumbs-up.
He was a good kid who worked out with the team in the summer and had just started Stanford that fall. But to this day, he wouldn’t tell them what that last wish was.
Hank’s gaze shifted to his wife, the attorney. She hadn’t changed much in twelve years. A few gray hairs, a couple of laugh lines. She was one of the city’s most respected attorneys, but to him, she was still the best-looking woman he’d ever laid eyes on.
She’d softened in all the right places and was a little fuller in the hips after the birth of three kids. Which was all right by him. It just gave him a little more to grip late at night.
Smitty had worked hard the last year and a half, helping to right the wrongs in the aftermath of the earthquake. They had been lucky and hadn’t lost their home. Too many others had. And Hank knew his wife would work until every last person got a fair shake.
His gaze went to his children all sitting in the family box. Lydia sat on the end, smiling and waving, all grown up. She’d graduated from Stanford last June. The cockeyed braids were gone, and when he teased her about them, she told him, “Doctors don’t wear braids, Dad.”
Annabelle was tossing peanuts in the air and catching them with her mouth just the way he’d taught her. She was a happy girl who always had a smile and hug for anyone, even if she still slipped in a few of Hank’s swear words.
Johnny and Jake were brothers, kids from the street that they’d found sleeping in a trash bin behind Smitty’s office one winter morning some eight years ago. And Cora was seven, an orphan from the moment she was born. A day later she had a family.
Billy, Dennis, and Lucy. Well, Smitty had given him those kids, and they were as smart as their mother and just as argumentative.
Hank grinned. He and Smitty had a helluva good time making them. Not a day went by that he didn’t thank God and fate and even an annoying genie for what he had.
Nine kids—enough for his own ball team. And every last one of them had managed to remind him that he still didn’t understand them.
The loud crack of the bat split the air. The crowd roared, and Hank turned.
He watched the ball fly over the fence with a sense of stunned relief. His gaze shot back to the stands, where Smitty was cheering, waving, and jiggling in all the right places.
He watched her for a moment because he still had to after all these years. Finally, he turned with a smile and stuck his hands in his pockets as he walked out to the field where the players were, where pennants were waving, and balls and caps were flying. But he stopped for just a moment and looked back at the crowd, his gaze resting on his family.
And Hank Wyatt knew he had everything.
