Serving Into the Net

Marcus's knees clicked as he bent to retrieve the padel ball from the corner of the court. At forty-three, he was the oldest in this Thursday night league by a decade. His colleagues—bright, relentless twenty-somethings from the marketing department—moved with the easy arrogance of youth.

Between sets, he sat on the bench and checked his iPhone for the third time that hour. Still nothing from Sophie. Their daughter had moved to Berlin six months ago, and his texts now garnered responses like clockwork: once weekly, terse, and increasingly vague. "Busy with work, Dad." "Maybe next month."

He opened his meal prep container—grilled chicken over spinach, drizzled with balsamic that his doctor insisted would help his cholesterol. The spinach wilted under the court's floodlights, dark and limp, like something that had given up.

"You good, Marcus?" called Jake, the new hire with teeth too white and a serve too vicious. "We've got court time till ten."

Marcus nodded, forcing a smile. He'd started playing padel because Elena had suggested it—"something we can do together," she'd said, back when they were trying. That was two years ago. Now she was taking sculpture classes on Thursday nights, and he was here, eating cold spinach while his phone stayed stubbornly silent.

His iPhone vibrated. Not Sophie. A calendar reminder: "Call Mom—her birthday tomorrow."

The spinach tasted metallic in his mouth. He swallowed anyway.

"Marcus! You up?" Jake was already at the net, paddle raised like a weapon.

Marcus stood, knees protesting, and checked his phone one last time before tucking it away in his bag. The screen had gone dark, his reflection distorted across the glass—middle-aged, tired, waiting for something that might never come.

He grabbed his paddle and walked back onto the court. The game continued, as did the waiting.