Orange Twilight at the Diamond

Sarah sat alone in Section 204, plastic vitamin bottle rattling in her purse like loose change. Forty-seven years old and suddenly everything required supplementation. Vitamin D for bones she swore were weakening, B-complex for energy she no longer possessed, a daily reminder that her body was slowly betraying her.

The baseball game stretched into the seventh inning. She'd come because Mark had loved the Cardinals—because their fourth anniversary would have been next Tuesday, if he hadn't chosen that redhead from accounting instead. Two years later, she was still running from the memory of him, though she'd long since stopped expecting to actually escape.

The sky turned that bruised shade of orange that only happens in October, the kind that makes you think of endings and fresh starts all at once. She remembered Mark telling her once that baseball was life: failure was normal, success was rare, and you played anyway. She'd hated his sports metaphors. Now she found herself quoting them in her head like scripture.

Her phone buzzed. A text from her mother: "Have you taken your vitamins?"

Sarah laughed. A dark, humorless thing that startled the elderly couple beside her. She popped two vitamin C pills without water, dry-swallowed them like punishment. The announcer's voice boomed over the PA system—something about a pitching change—and she felt suddenly, violently tired of running. From Mark, from her mother's concern, from this godforsaken stadium where she'd been sitting for three hours trying to feel something other than hollow.

The batter hit a foul ball—an orange arc against the darkening sky. Sarah watched it rise and fall, and for the first time in two years, she didn't think about Mark. She just watched the ball. She just breathed. She just let herself be there, empty-handed and supplement-filled, under a sky that looked like the world was ending beautifully.

Tomorrow she'd stop running. Tomorrow she'd cancel the vitamin subscription. Tomorrow she'd do something besides survive.

But tonight, she bought a beer and watched the game end.