Alive at the Net

The cat watches from her perch atop the refrigerator, those yellow eyes tracking my movements like she knows something I don't. She's been my witness through the divorce, the promotion that meant nothing, the mornings I've stared at the ceiling feeling like I'm already dead. Like a zombie moving through life on autopilot, just waiting for someone to notice that I'm not really here anymore.

Thursday nights are the exception. Padel at the community center, the fluorescent lights humming above us, the ball echoing off the glass walls. My partner Sarah doesn't know about the cat. She doesn't know that on Tuesday nights I drink whiskey until I can't feel the silence in my apartment. She just knows I show up every week with my racquet and play like my life depends on it.

"You're playing aggressive tonight," she says, wiping sweat from her forehead during a break. The ball bounces rhythmically against the court next to us.

I shrug. "Needed this."

What I don't say: needed this to remember what it feels like to want something. To care about the score, about the angle of my wrist, about the satisfying thwack when the ball connects perfectly. For an hour, I'm not forty-two with a savings account that's growing faster than my sense of purpose. I'm just movement and reaction and breath.

The cat is waiting when I return, stretching like she hasn't moved since I left. I kneel to scratch behind her ears, my knees still aching from the game. For the first time all week, I notice the weight of my own body, the flush of exertion in my cheeks. Small victories.

"You should come next time," I say to her, knowing she'll ignore me completely. "You'd probably be better at the net than I am."

She head-butts my hand, purring like a small engine. Somewhere in this apartment with its half-packed boxes and unanswered emails, something stirs. Something alive.