Seventh Inning Stretch

Mark checked his iPhone for the third time in five minutes. Still nothing from Sarah. The divorce papers would be served any day now, he knew, but the waiting was shredding his nerves.

He'd taken to running at night, pounding the pavement until his lungs burned and his legs turned to jelly. It was the only time his brain went quiet, the only escape from the empty house and the goddamn wedding album still sitting on the coffee table, mocking him with photographs of Sarah's long dark hair caught in summer breezes, in candlelight, in his hands.

Tonight his route had taken him past the old baseball field where his father had coached his Little League team three decades ago. The chain-link fence rusted in the sodium glow of streetlights. Mark stood there breathing hard, sweat dripping down his temples, remembering the way his dad's voice carried across the diamond—"Keep your eye on the ball, son! Don't swing at everything life throws at you!"

His father had been dead six years now. His marriage had been dead for months before he'd admitted it. And somewhere along the way, Mark had forgotten how to keep his eye on anything worth hitting.

The iPhone buzzed in his hand. Sarah.

'Can we meet? At the field. Tonight.'

He stared at the screen, heart hammering harder than it had during his run. The baseball field was two blocks away. He could smell the particular scent of cut grass and clay that had defined his childhood summers, could almost hear the crack of the bat, the collective intake of breath from parents in the stands, the way his father's hat had always sat crooked on his head like he didn't take anything too seriously except for the things that actually mattered.

Mark started running again, toward the field, toward Sarah, toward whatever came next in this godforsaken game he'd been playing with his life. His hair was thinning now, his father's voice mostly a memory, but as he ran through the night, something shifted inside him—some small, stubborn determination to finally, finally stop swinging at everything and start waiting for the right pitch.