The summer sun is shining down on the open meadow near Caleb Creek. Elliot is swinging a bat over a makeshift home plate made from a discarded wood fence.

Troy is pitching. Ryan is catching.

“Heyyyy, batter-batter-batter, swing, battah!”

“You don’t have to do that every time, Dad.”

“I know,” Ryan says, “but it’s fun. That’s what I do!”

“Yeah, you know Ryan is such a baseball aficionado, he learned everything he knows from Ferris Bueller,” Remy shouts from second.

“And what, madam, is so wrong with that?

“Nothing, let’s play.” Troy is getting impatient.

“What, you don’t want to trash talk everybody on your own team some more?” Elliot asks with a laugh.

Troy pitches the ball and Elliot knocks it into left field, where Jackson calls it.

Ryan stands up and watches it fly, sure that it’s going to go into the woods. But Jackson gets under it and catches it with ease. “You’re outta there!” Remy shouts.

Troy and Ryan turn to look at Remy. “You’re gonna call your son out? You enjoyed that a little too much.”

“Keep talking, sporto, you’re next.”

“Great catch, babe!” shouts Maggie, who is sitting on a giant quilt with two young toddler girls and another woman, who is new to the group.

“Thanks, babe!” calls Jackson from left field, “I think I missed my calling. Want to divide the land and put in a ballfield right here?”

“Sure, but who would play?”

“Well, we’re well on our way to making our own baseball team!”

Maggie smiles and says nothing. Everyone in the group swivels around and looks at Maggie, playing with two-year-old Emma.

Remy squeals from second base. Maggie laughs.

Troy and Ryan exchange looks. “I have no idea,” Troy says.

Ryan shrugs. “Womenfolk squealing about something or other, one can never tell.”

Jackson laughs. “I never thought I’d be the least chauvinistic in this here group, but I gotta tell you fellas, you can be pretty thick in the head sometimes.”

Ryan turns around and, seeing the look on Jackson’s face, finally understands. “Well, congratulations, man!”

Troy throws his head back and laughs. “Well, this calls for a celebration! Man, why didn’t you say anything?”

Jackson shrugs. “I believe I just did.”

Misty, the new girl, turns to Maggie, “Is it true? Are you expecting your second?”

Maggie’s eyes shine as she nods. “We’re due in February!”

“I’m so happy for you!“ says Misty.

Maggie grabs her in a hug even though she barely knows her. “I’m just so relieved to talk about it, I hope you don’t mind if I hug you.”

“Not at all,” Misty chuckles as Remy flies over from second base to nearly tackle her pregnant friend on the blanket.

“Oh my god, I’m so excited! I’m going to be an auntie again!”

Elliot called over, “Um, Mom, you do know you were not technically anybody’s ‘aunt’ in the first place.”

Ryan admonishes him, “Your mom doesn’t have any siblings. She can claim anybody she wants to as her niece or nephew.”

Remy smiled at her daughter. “Did you hear that, Caroline? You’re going to have a new cousin! And don’t listen to your brother, Elliot. You can call Emma and her new baby brother or sister your cousin. Because Mommy makes the rules, just remember that.”

Misty smiles and hands Caroline up to Remy. “Your daughter looks exactly like you. She’s so beautiful,” Misty says.

Remy smiles down at Ryan’s girlfriend. “Thank you, hon. Thanks for watching her. I can’t play now. We need to talk about the nursery with Maggie. Maggie, are you going to put the baby in the extra room, or will they share?”

Maggie and Remy go on and chatter about nurseries, and the conversation eventually morphs into breastfeeding versus bottle feeding, cloth diapering versus disposables. “You know, I have been doing research on compostables and that might be a good option for us, since we have to handle our own trash disposal out here in the sticks…”

Misty smiles and turns her attention back to the field. She runs out to second and picks up Remy’s mitt. “Can I play with you guys?”

“Sure!” Troy tosses a few back and forth with her to warm her up. “Hey, you’ve got a good throw. “

“Hey, man, no flirting with my girlfriend!” Ryan calls from home plate.

Misty laughs. “As if he had a shot!”

Troy belly-laughs. “Hey, she can talk trash, she’ll fit right in in this family.”

Elliot taps the plate with the bat. “OK, old people. Are we gonna talk, or are we gonna play?”

“Hey, if you’re so serious, maybe you can stop clowning around at our actual practices.”

”Yeah, yeah. Just pitch already.”

Troy throws the ball. Elliot cracks it, and it goes soaring into left field again, this time way over Jackson’s head and into the woods.

“Whoo-hoo!” The 15-year-old Elliot runs the bases triumphantly, waving and blowing kisses like a gold medal Olympian taking his victory lap.

Jackson calls as Elliot passes, “You hit into the woods, you find the ball—them’s the rules!”

Elliot runs across home and keeps on running toward the group on the quilt.

He starts galloping as he approaches. “Hey, Emma, have you seen my horse?”

Emma laughs, “Das not a horse!”

Elliot looks down. “You’re right! I’m banging two ends of a coconut together!”

“Oh Lord,” says Remy. “Please do not corrupt these baby girls.”

Emma laughs some more. “You don’t have coconuts!”

“I do too! They’re invisible! Do you want to come with me to the woods and help me find the invisible coconut tree?”

Emma’s eyes widen. “Yes I do.”

Elliot grabs up his sister Caroline in his arms and says to Emma, “Let’s go, kid. Follow me!”

The rest of the adults, sensing things have devolved into chaos, leave the field and join Remy and Misty on the blanket. Jackson opens a cooler and fishes around for a preferred beverage. He tosses beers to all the non-pregnant adults, and flavored seltzer to his wife.

And with that, the adults watch Elliot gallop off to the other end of the meadow toward the woods, his baby sister giggling in his arms, and young Emma following close behind, until they disappear into the trees.

“Should I be worried?” Remy asks. “Are they gonna get lost out there?”

“Probably,” Troy says, cracking open summer ale. “Ranger will round them up before they get into any real trouble.”

Maggie smiles. “That dog will be the instigator, don’t kid yourself.”

Remy says, “I’m not worried, it’s all good. As long as they’re all back in time for the wedding next week. I’ve got a tux and two little flower girl dresses that I cannot get deposits back on.” She looks down at her hand and smiles at her engagement ring.

Troy catches her looking at her hand, picks it up and kisses it. “Well, if they do get lost, then you know we shouldn’t have had a two-year engagement.”

“I like to plan things!” Remy argues.

“I don’t think anything will make Remy stop worrying and planning,” Ryan says.

She sighs and says, “You know what? I think for the first time in forever, I’m OK…with everything just the way it is.”