Maintenance

Marcus stood in his bathroom at 6 AM, the fluorescent light flickering like his own mortality. He lined up the supplements: D3 for the bones that already ached, magnesium for the sleep that never came, CoQ10 because the doctor said forty-five was the year things started breaking down. The vitamin routine was his only prayer, a daily offering to a god he wasn't sure existed anymore.

He pulled on the Padres cap—ketchup stain still visible on the brim from the weekend Sarah said she couldn't do this anymore. It wasn't even a good hat, but it covered the thinning spot that had appeared with terrifying speed over the past six months, another betrayal by a body that felt increasingly foreign.

"Coffee?" he asked Buster, the golden retriever they'd adopted eight years ago when they still talked about the future in plural pronouns. Buster thumped his tail once, then rested his chin on his paws. The dog had chosen Marcus in the divorce, or maybe Sarah had just known she couldn't manage the shedding alone. Either way, Buster was his now, along with the mortgage and the creeping silence.

The padel club had been his therapist's suggestion. "Social connection," she'd said, like it was something you could order online. Now he stood on Court 4, sweat dripping down his back, watching Enrique across the net Enrique whose wife had left him for her pilates instructor, whose daughter only called on birthdays. They whacked the ball back and forth, this smaller, softer tennis for people who'd given up on real intensity.

"You okay?" Enrique asked during a water break.

Marcus adjusted his hat. "Fine. Just... you ever feel like you're performing maintenance on a machine that's already obsolete?"

Enrique laughed, a sharp exhausted sound. "Every damn day, hermano. Every damn day."

Buster was waiting at the door when Marcus got home, nails clicking on hardwood, tail doing that cautious helicopter spin that meant he'd been alone too long. Marcus dropped the padel bag, swallowed his vitamins without water, and sat on the floor letting the dog rest his head on Marcus's knee.

"Just us, buddy," he whispered, and for the first time in months, it felt like enough.