Night Games at the Vitamin Factory

Arthur stood in the doorway, watching her. His wife of twenty-three years stood at the kitchen counter, rhythmically chopping spinach. The knife's *thunk-thunk-thunk* against the cutting board was the only sound in the house.

"You're staring," she said without turning.

"I'm always staring."

"Not like this. Not anymore." She finally looked at him. "What did you find?"

Arthur crossed the room and placed the vitamin bottle on the counter between them. Unmarked. Generic. The kind you bought at shady pharmacies in cities you didn't tell your wife about.

"B12 complex," she said, like she was discussing the weather. "You're low on energy lately."

"Stop it, Elena."

"I can explain."

"You've been leaving the house at 3 AM for six months. Our savings are drained. And I found this." He tapped the vitamin bottle. "It's not vitamins. It's a microSD card."

She set down the knife. Outside, summer pressed against the windows, thick and humid. Baseball season—his father's season, his grandfather's season. The Yankees were playing tonight. His father had taken him to games as a boy, before the drinking, before the hospital.

"I'm not having an affair, Arthur."

"Then what? What is it? Because I can't do this anymore—the not knowing. It's eating me alive."

Elena's shoulders dropped. She looked suddenly older. "You remember how we met?"

"College. Philosophy club."

"No. Before that. The summer program."

"Sure."

"I wasn't a student." Her voice was barely audible. "I was recruiting."

"Recruiting?"

"For the agency. Your father's work—the defense contracts—they needed someone inside. I was supposed to date you, get information, and disappear."

Arthur stared at her. The spinach sat forgotten on the cutting board. The Yankees were probably in the fourth inning by now.

"But you fell in love with me?" he said, bitterly.

"I did. That's the thing." She touched his hand. "I did. I told them I couldn't do it. They told me that wasn't how it worked. So I've been giving them useless information for twenty-three years. Dead drops. Meeting at the old baseball field. Keeping you safe by keeping them satisfied with just enough truth."

"And now?"

"Now they want something real. Your company's new project. I said no." She reached for the vitamin bottle. "This is proof, Arthur. Copies of everything they've asked for. Everything I've refused. I need you to help me end it."

Arthur watched his wife—the woman who knew how he took his coffee, who'd held him through three miscarriages, who'd sat with him at his father's bedside when the old man kept asking about baseball scores from 1978.

"The Yankees," he said. "You hate baseball."

"I learned for you."

He thought about all the times she'd sat through games with him. The fake enthusiasm. The spy who'd stayed.

"Tomorrow," he said. "We'll go to the field. You'll show me the drop point. Then we're going to the authorities."

Elena's hand trembled as she picked up the knife again. "And after?"

"After?" Arthur looked at the spinach, at the woman who'd lied to him for two decades while making him dinner. "I don't know. But you're not leaving. Not again."

Outside, the summer night deepened. Somewhere, a baseball game continued without them.