Extra Innings

The prescription bottle sat on her nightstand — a rainbow of **vitamin** D tablets, calcium supplements, something for iron deficiency. Marie had never taken pills in her life before the diagnosis. Now she organized them into little plastic compartments, Monday through Sunday, like a ritual that might somehow bargain with the universe for more time.

"You're staring again," she said without opening her eyes. Daniel had been watching her sleep for twenty minutes, memorizing the way her chest rose and fell, the particular pattern of gray now threading through her dark **hair** at the temples. She'd stopped dyeing it three months ago. "I'm not dead yet, you know."

"I know." He sat on the edge of the bed. "Game's on."

"Baseball?" She cracked one eye open. "In November?"

"Reruns. The 2016 series. That night we stayed up until 3 AM and got written up at work the next day."

Marie laughed, the sound dry and familiar. She pushed herself up against the pillows, wincing. Daniel reached to help her, his hands instinctively finding her shoulders, her waist, the geography of her body mapped after seven years together. Her hair spilled over his forearm like dark water. He remembered when it was all black, when the only gray was in his own reflection, when they had time for three AM baseball games and reckless decisions.

"Make the tea," she said. "And turn off the TV. I don't want to watch us being young when we can't have it back."

Later, at the kitchen table, she lined up her pills with military precision. "The doctor says this new regimen might buy me six months. Maybe a year if I'm lucky."

"That's good," Daniel said, though his voice caught on the word.

"Is it?" She studied him across the table, her eyes too bright, too knowing. "Or is it just extra innings in a game we're going to lose anyway?" She tipped the **vitamin** bottle into her palm, the small white disc catching the morning light. "I keep thinking about that baseball player. What was his name? The one who kept playing through the pain until his arm literally snapped?"

"They retired his jersey."

"They retired his jersey," she echoed, and for a moment her expression cracked open, revealing something raw and terrified beneath the carefully maintained surface. "I'd rather just — " She stopped herself. "Never mind."

"What?"

"I'd rather go out swinging," she said finally, "than take vitamins and pretend I'm not dying."

She pushed the pills away across the table, toward Daniel, toward the future that didn't include her. And he understood then that she wasn't asking for permission — she was asking him to witness it, her small rebellion against the slow decline, against the extra innings that weren't living at all. He took her hand, her wedding band catching the light, and squeezed. Whatever she chose, he would be there until the final out.