Free Agency

The baseball hit his window at 2 AM.

Tom opened his eyes to shattered glass and white leather on his floorboards, the red stitches catching moonlight. Some kid from the neighborhood, practicing their pitch in the dead of night.

His phone showed 3 missed calls from his ex-wife. She wanted to discuss the dog.

Tom found the goldfish first. It was floating, finally dead after three years of his daughter's indifferent care. She'd left it behind in the custody split, along with her childhood bedroom's worth of things she'd outgrown.

The fish had been a metaphor for their marriage—something small and contained that neither of them quite knew how to keep alive, but neither could bear to end. Now it was belly-up, gone with no ceremony at all.

On the kitchen counter, an orange from his mother's visit sat softening. She'd brought them from her tree, said they were sweet this year. She'd asked about the divorce, about his daughter, about the job he'd lost when the startup folded. She'd peeled an orange for him, and he'd eaten sections while pretending everything was fine.

The dog, Buster, slept on. Tom's ex wanted him—said the apartment was no place for a golden retriever, that Tom was barely keeping it together, that the dog deserved better. She wasn't wrong.

Tom dressed for work he didn't have. Made coffee he couldn't afford. Looked at the orange his mother had grown, the dead fish his daughter had abandoned, the baseball some stranger had thrown through his window.

He swept up the glass. Flushed the fish. Ate the orange, section by section, even the parts that had started to turn bitter.

Then he called his ex-wife. "Come get him," he said. "Before I change my mind."

Buster lifted his head, thumped his tail. Tom knelt and buried his face in golden fur, breathing in the smell of the last good thing in his life.

At 7 AM, his ex-wife arrived. She didn't ask about the window, the orange rinds, the empty space where the bowl had been. She just took the leash and the dog and whatever was left of the life they'd built.

Tom watched them go, then showered and put on his suit for the interview. In the mirror, a man stared back who'd lost everything but was still, somehow, expected to show up.

The goldfish was gone. The dog was gone. The orange was gone.

Tom stepped out into the sunlight. It was game day.