Summer Lightning

Arthur sat on his back porch, watching seven-year-old Toby shuffle across the yard with stiff arms and vacant eyes. 'Grandpa,' Toby groaned, 'I'm a zombie.'

Arthur chuckled, the sound rumbling deep in his chest. 'Well, this zombie better clean his plate if he wants dessert.'

Inside, Marie was setting the table. Her hair, once the color of autumn wheat, now sparkled like morning frost. Sixty-two years of marriage, and Arthur still caught himself staring at her across a room.

'He's been stomping around all afternoon,' she said, touching Arthur's shoulder with the palm of her hand. 'Playing some game with those neighbor boys.'

Arthur nodded. In 1953, he'd been that age. Every summer afternoon, he and his friends gathered at the vacant lot with their baseball gloves—second-hand, sweat-stained, but precious. They played until the streetlights flickered on, until their mothers called them home.

'That summer,' Arthur told Toby once, 'I hit the ball so hard it felt like lightning in my hands.'

Toby had stared. 'You played baseball?'

'Your grandfather was quite the player,' Marie had chimed in.

Now, as evening deepened, Arthur watched Toby transform from zombie back to boy, collapsing into the porch swing beside him. The smell of rain hung in the air, thick and electric.

'Grandpa, will you teach me to hit like lightning?' Toby asked suddenly.

Arthur smiled. 'First lesson tomorrow, kiddo. Right here in the yard.'

Behind them, the screen door creaked open. Marie stepped out with two glasses of lemonade. The first drops of rain began to fall, soft and steady, as the three of them sat together—the zombie game forgotten, baseball promised for tomorrow, lightning flashing somewhere in the distance, and Arthur feeling, as he always did with Marie's hand in his and the boy close beside him, that this was the inning that mattered most.