Cable Length to Forever

The television flickered between static and whatever was on channel 8, the loose cable connection behind the entertainment unit a problem Marcus had promised to fix three months ago. Elena sat on their sofa, wine glass in hand, watching him search through his baseball card collection in the cardboard box by the door.

"You're really going through with it," she said. It wasn't a question.

Marcus didn't look up. "The collection's worth something now. Got that '89 Ken Griffey Jr. rookie card, the one my dad gave me before..."

Before he died. The words hung between them, unspoken.

"That's your exit strategy? Selling baseball cards?" Elena's voice held that particular exhaustion that comes after too many arguments about the same things. "God, you can be such a bull sometimes. Just charging forward without thinking about what you're trampling."

Marcus finally looked at her. "And what would you have me do? Stay? We've been having the same conversation every Tuesday night for two years, Elena. I'm tired. You're tired. Even this spinach casserole you made—" he gestured at the untouched dish on the coffee table "—it's like you're not even trying anymore."

"That's low." She set down her glass harder than she intended. "I made your favorite. Because it was your birthday, Marcus. Or did you forget that too?"

His shoulders slumped. The fight drained out of him, leaving something sadder in its place. "I didn't forget."

They sat in silence, the television casting blue shadows across the living room. Outside, rain began to drum against the windows, the sound somehow vast and intimate at once.

Marcus stood up, reaching for his coat. His old fedora hung on the rack near the door—some affectation he'd picked up in his jazz phase, before jazz gave way to baseball cards and baseball cards gave way to whatever came next. He hesitated with his hand on the hat.

"You know," he said, "my father used to tell me that life was like baseball. You get up to the plate, you swing, sometimes you connect, sometimes you don't. But the thing is, you've got to step up to the plate."

"Your father also died alone in an apartment full of baseball cards," Elena said quietly.

Marcus winced. "Yeah. Well. There's that."

He put on the hat instead of his coat. The fedora looked ridiculous and strangely dignified, like he was dressing up as the person he thought he should be.

"I'll come back for the rest tomorrow," he said.

"The cable's still broken," she said.

"I know."

And then he was gone, out into the rain, leaving Elena with her wine and the flickering television and the spinach casserole that was already beginning to cool. She thought about following him. She thought about letting him go. She thought about the way his hand had lingered on the doorknob, that microscopic pause that meant he was waiting for her to say something, anything, to make him stay.

She took a sip of wine instead. The television showed a commercial for insurance, people laughing on beaches that didn't exist.

The cable connection had been loose for three months. Some things, she realized, you just learned to live with.