Seventh Inning Stretch

The text message sat on Maggie's iphone screen for three innings. *We need to talk.* The words glowed accusingly in the dim light of the stadium, while Richard sat beside her, oblivious, screaming himself hoarse whenever a player connected with the baseball.

Maggie smoothed her hair, conscious of the gray strands that had multiplied since their last anniversary. She'd tried to dye them last week, but Richard had said he preferred her natural look. She'd believed him, wanted to believe him, even as he spent more and more nights "working late."

The crowd roared as a batter sent a ball soaring into the stands. Richard high-fived a stranger, his face transformed with that boyish enthusiasm that had first drawn her to him twelve years ago. Bull-headed optimism, her mother had called it. A refusal to see what was right in front of him.

"Did you see that?" Richard grabbed her shoulder, his eyes bright. "That's how we're going to be, Mags. Back in the game."

Maggie looked at him—really looked at him—at the way his hair had started thinning at the temples, at the lines around eyes that couldn't quite meet hers. She remembered the miscarriage they'd never spoken about, how he'd bought season tickets the following week. Baseball filled the silences between them now.

Her iphone buzzed again, but she didn't look. Instead, she watched a player charge home, sliding headfirst into a collision that sent dirt flying. The crowd's collective inhale sounded like a single breath held suspended.

Safe.

Richard exhaled, his fingers digging into her arm. "See? Sometimes you have to risk it all. That's the game."

Maggie thought about late nights, about perfume on collars he claimed came from crowded elevators, about the way she'd stopped asking questions because his answers never matched the hollow feeling in her chest.

"Richard," she said, her voice steady, "we're not talking about baseball."

The stadium noise seemed to drop away. His smile faltered, then died. For the first time in years, he really looked at her. Saw the hair she hadn't bothered to fix. Noticed the iphone glowing on her lap. Understood that some collisions leave more than dirt on your uniform.

"No," he whispered. "No, Mags—"

But she was already rising, already moving toward the aisle, already leaving behind the game they'd both lost.