Lines in the Palm

The desert heat pressed against the glass walls of the padel court, where Mark found himself at 7 PM on a Tuesday, sweat stinging his eyes, racquet heavy in a hand that had forgotten how to hold anything but a coffee mug or steering wheel. His opponent—a woman with sharp features and sharper returns—sent the ball ricocheting off the backboard, and he scrambled, knees creaking, to return it.

"You're thinking about baseball," she said between points, leaning against her racquet like it was a cane. "That zombie stance you get in your eyes. My ex-husband had that same look when he watched the Dodgers lose."

Mark blinked. "How did you—"

"You're standing in the killing zone." She gestured to the space between the service lines. "That's what the pros call it. But you're not even here, are you?"

She was right. Mark hadn't been anywhere for months. Since the divorce—since Julia had said, "You're not living, you're just managing not to die"—he'd been moving through days gray as office walls, a corporate zombie going through motions. The padel lessons had been his therapist's idea: *Do something different. Anything different.*

"One more," the woman said, tossing up the ball. Her palm was calloused, the lifeline deep and crossed with smaller lines. She served, and Mark actually watched it—watched the yellow sphere spin against the glare of floodlights, watched it arc down toward the corner where wall met floor.

He swung. His body remembered before his mind did, muscle and bone singing in ways they hadn't since high school, when he'd played baseball under palm trees at dusk, believing he had forever to figure out what forever meant.

The ball sailed back, perfect and impossible.

"There you are," she said, as the ball landed just inside the line. "I thought you'd died up there."