Sunday Service at the Club

The padel court echoed with the rhythmic thwack of rubber against ball, a sound that had become the soundtrack to Marcus's hollow Sunday mornings. At forty-seven, he'd mastered the art of looking busy while feeling nothing.

"Your serve, mate," called Tom, the investment banker who'd invited Marcus into this exclusive circle of divorced men seeking distraction in sweat and competition.

Marcus adjusted his grip on the racket. His mind was elsewhere—specifically, in the aquarium shop where his ex-wife Elena had just taken their daughter to pick out a replacement goldfish. The third one this year. He wondered if she'd remember to buy the right food, or if this too would become another thing he did remotely, through texts and reminders.

"Marcus?"

He served. The ball clipped the net and died.

"You're off your game today," Tom said, already pivoting to baseball chatter. Something about the Yankees' bullpen, a conversation Marcus had participated in weekly for two decades without ever caring about. He nodded along, a bull in a china shop of social niceties, breaking nothing because he touched nothing real.

After the match, shower steam curling around him, Marcus checked his phone. A message from Chloe, the twenty-six-year-old graphic designer he'd been seeing: "Free tonight? :)" The emoji felt like an accusation. He was old enough to be her father, young enough to know better, tired enough to pretend he didn't.

On his way to the parking lot, he saw it—a golden retriever tied to a bike rack, watching the clubhouse entrance with unwavering devotion. Someone had left a bowl of water that had gone warm in the sun. The dog didn't complain. It just waited.

Marcus stood there for a long moment, sweating in his expensive athletic wear, thinking about goldfish that forgot everything every three seconds, about baseball games he couldn't recall, about the way Chloe looked at him like he was something solid in her uncertain life. About how the dog would still be waiting even if whoever tied it there never came back.

He got in his car and drove to Elena's house instead. The goldfish could wait. Sunday service could wait. Some things actually mattered.