Page 96 of Take Me to the Wedding

I lifted a brow. “I thought you stopped doing that,” I said in a low voice.

She answered with a shrug. I’d bet it was highly positive. It was hard to hate Miles. And he did tend to take care of Wynn, even if she didn’t need it. He was surprisingly mature for his age.

“What’d you get?” I whispered after a while.

“Mr. Right-for-Now. I mean, come on. They’re in college.”

I laughed. What did I know about young love? Anything could happen.

Turns out Wynn was taking care of herself too. She’d passed summer semester calculus. And quit the perfume job. She was all signed up for organic chemistry in the fall. And the MCAT, too, next spring. Guess another Bashar sister was going to join the medical profession.

“Here goes,” Joseph’s dad, Henry, said, and we all turned with anticipation to the field.

Sam grabbed my hand. I could tell she was holding her breath. She glanced at me and smiled. “No limp so far,” she said. “Good job there, Doc.”

I nodded. “We’ll see how he runs.” That was the true test.

Strike one. Then strike two. I found myself leaning forward, gripping the bleacher hard, wanting to mentally help him strike the ball. Suddenly he smacked it good and hard, sending it skittering out into left field, past the first and third basemen, leaving the outfielders to scramble.

I rose to a stand—we all did—Sam, Wynn, Miles, Joseph’s parents—and I cupped my hands around my mouth. “Run, Joe, run!”

We all screamed. And cheered. And kept cheering because Joseph kept running. With perfect strides indistinguishable from any of the other boys.

That to me was a success right there.

But the kid overachieved—he ran through all the bases and even dove into home base, rifling up the dust.

The crowd went wild. His mom shed tears. So did I. Sam hugged me into oblivion.

“He did it,” she said, beaming.

“He sure did.” I was so proud.

“You did it too. Your surgery gave him a normal life.”

I shrugged, but I was overwhelmed. Medicine really could work miracles. And when it did, there was no better feeling. “It was just a bunch of power tools.”

“Look, Dr. Caleb,” Joseph yelled from the field, now dusty and out of breath. “I got a home run! I got a home run!”

“You sure did, buddy,” I yelled right back.

As I headed out with Sam after the game, I said, “Maybe I’ll coach Little League one day. In Oak Bluff. What do you think?”

“I like that idea,” she said. “I like it a lot.”

I hadn’t asked her to marry me yet. But we both had one foot in Oak Bluff, with the potential for both feet someday. We were both working one day a week out there—Fridays—Sam in the new surgery center run by Children’s, and me with Dr. Blumenthal’s group. For now, that was a good plan. And we often stayed over on Friday nights with my folks, so win-win.

“Maybe we can take the truck out later and watch the sunset. What do you think?”

She squinted at me as the late-afternoon sun got in our eyes. “Is that a pickup line?”

“I’ve got a better one too.” I held her hand as we walked.

“What is it?”

“That home run was amazing. But I hit a home run too. By finding you.”

We stopped on the field. She looked at me, her pretty brown eyes full of light and love. “Aw. You are such a romantic. I love your pickup lines. But I love one thing more.”

---