Late Innings

The baseball cap pulled low over Marcus's eyes did more than block the stadium lights. It concealed the fact that he'd been crying in the bathroom during the seventh-inning stretch, his iphone lighting up every thirty seconds with messages he couldn't bring himself to read.

"You want anything from the concession stand?" Sarah asked, not looking at him. She hadn't really looked at him in three months—not since she'd found the messages, not since she'd started sleeping in the guest room, not since she'd suggested, with terrifying calm, that they "try one last date night" before making anything official.

The irony wasn't lost on him: this same ballpark, eighteen years ago, where he'd first told her he loved her. The spinach stuck awkwardly in his teeth that night hadn't mattered then. She'd laughed, wiped it away with her thumb, and he'd felt certain about everything.

Now uncertainty was the only constant.

He watched the pitcher wind up, thinking about the vitamin supplements in his pocket—prescription-strength D, because his doctor had flagged his bone density last week. Another thing failing quietly inside him. Another maintenance routine for a body that felt increasingly like rental property.

"Marcus?"

"I'm good," he said.

The phone buzzed again. He knew who it was: Emma, the colleague who'd somehow become more than a colleague, whose messages had started this whole unraveling. He should block her. He should have months ago.

Sarah returned with two beers, sat beside him despite all the empty seats around them. The contact sent electricity through him—hope, dread, he couldn't tell anymore.

"This was my grandfather's team," she said quietly. "He used to take me. Before—"

Before the diagnosis. Before the confusion. Before the man who'd taught her to keep score had forgotten how.

Marcus reached for her hand, his fingers trembling. She didn't pull away. That was something, wasn't it? That had to be something.

His iphone lit up with another notification. Emma. Always Emma.

Marcus turned the phone face down on his lap and squeezed Sarah's hand, watching the outfielder chase a ball that was already gone. Some mistakes couldn't be caught. Some distances, once opened, couldn't be closed.

But he stayed. He ordered another beer. He adjusted his hat against the glare and tried, for the first time in months, to actually be there.