Strike Zone

Frank found his father in the garage, staring at the wall where Frank's old baseball trophies gathered dust. The emphysema had made him thin, hollowed out in a way that scared Frank more than he'd admit.

"You could've gone pro," his father said, his voice wind-whistling. "If you hadn't been so goddamn bull-headed about that injury."

Frank didn't remind him that the doctor had said—twenty years ago—that continuing to play could permanently damage his shoulder. His father had never accepted excuses. So Frank just nodded and handed him the daily vitamin cocktail that had become their ritual: D3 for bones, B12 for energy, CoQ10 because the internet said so.

"These are bullshit," his father said, but he swallowed them anyway.

That evening, Frank went running, something he'd taken up in his forties when he realized he could no longer outrun his regrets by staying busy. The storm had been threatening all day, and the sky finally broke as he hit the park trail. Rain slicked his hair against his forehead. Lightning fractured the darkness, and for a second he saw everything stark and strange—the empty baseball diamond where he'd almost broken his arm for a chance his father had wanted more than he had, the hospital where his mother had died asking if he was happy, the years he'd spent proving something to a man who couldn't be satisfied.

He stopped running, breathing hard, while the storm hammered around him. His shoulder ached—a phantom pain, but real enough. His father would die soon. The trophies would stay on that wall. The question was whether Frank would spend the rest of his life becoming him.

Another flash of lightning illuminated the path ahead. Frank started running again, but this time toward home, where his father would be waiting to argue about dinner, and the vitamins, and the shoulder, and all the things they'd never say about how much they'd failed each other. It wasn't forgiveness. It was just time. The storm would pass. They both would. The game goes on, whether you're ready or not.