Extra Innings

The divorce papers sat on the kitchen counter, next to a bowl of oranges that had already begun to soften in the summer heat. Mark stood there, coffee mug in hand, feeling like a zombie moving through the motions of a morning routine that no longer belonged to him.

He'd driven past the old baseball diamond on his way to work yesterday. The chain-link fence sagged, weeds choking the baseline where he'd stolen second base twenty-five years ago, heart hammering, dirt flying, his father's voice carrying from the bleachers: *That's my boy.* That version of Mark felt like a stranger now.

"You're not even here anymore," Sarah had said last night, her voice gentle in a way that hurt more than screaming. "You're just... going through the motions. Like you're already gone."

She wasn't wrong.

He reached for an orange, its skin dimpled and imperfect. The scent hit him as he peeled it—citrus sharp, devastatingly familiar. This was Sarah's ritual. Sunday breakfast. Fresh oranges. He'd pretended to care about the ritual while his mind was already at the office, already solving problems that didn't matter.

The baseball game played on the television, muted. Extra innings. Always extra innings.

He thought about his father in the hospital last month, how the old man's hands had shaken as he tried to hold a plastic cup of water. Mark had sat by the bed, checking his phone, feeling that familiar zombie numbness—the same numbness that had let him miss his daughter's school play, the same numbness that made sex with his wife feel like another item on a checklist.

His father had looked at him with those pale, fading eyes. "You're missing it, kid. The whole damn thing."

Mark took a bite of the orange. Tart. Sweet. Alive. Tears pricked his eyes, sudden and unwelcome.

He picked up a pen. The divorce papers were blank on the back. He could sign them. Or he could call Sarah's cell, ask to meet at that baseball diamond where they'd had their first date, hot dogs and cheap beer, watching the local high school team play under lights that attracted moths.

The zombie in him wanted to sign, to sleep, to let the innings run out. But something else—something buried beneath all that numbness, beneath the endless, fruitless games—reached for the phone instead.

He was done playing dead.