The Bottom of the Ninth

The stadium lights hummed against the twilight, that electric buzz that always made Sarah think of hospital corridors. She picked at the cardboard food tray, the cold cheese congealing on her nachos. Beside her, David stared at the field as if the outcome of this baseball game might somehow stitch together what had unraveled between them.

"You going to eat that?" he asked, not looking at her.

"No." She slid the tray toward him. Their fingers didn't touch. They hadn't really touched in three months, not since the miscarriage, not since the silence between them had grown thicker than any spoken word could bridge.

David chewed mechanically, eyes fixed on the pitcher's mound. He'd been the one to buy the tickets—opening day, section 214, row 12, seats they'd purchased together back when they still believed in rituals. Back when they thought being in the same room could generate something like warmth.

A roar erupted from the crowd. Home run. Sarah's hands stayed in her lap.

"Did you see that?" David asked, something almost like excitement in his voice.

"Yeah. Great."

She watched the players converge at home plate, that choreographed celebration that looked the same every single time. That was them, really. Going through the motions. The zombie marriage—still walking, still showing up, but something essential had died and nobody had buried it. The grief had eaten them both differently. David had submerged himself in work and sports and anything that didn't require looking directly at the empty space where their daughter should have been. Sarah had simply stopped pretending anything mattered.

The bear of it, the sheer crushing weight, lived in her chest constantly. She bore it because the alternative was acknowledging that her body had failed, that she was broken in a way David couldn't fix with his optimism or his carefully researched coping strategies.

"I thought this would help," he said softly, finally turning to her. His eyes were tired, so tired. "Being here. Like before."

Sarah felt something crack open inside her—not healing, exactly, but something.

"We can't go back, David."

"I know." He set the nachos down. "I keep waiting for you to come back to me."

"I'm right here."

"No." He reached for her hand, and this time she didn't pull away. "You're not. I miss you. I miss us."

The baseball game continued around them, innings ticking away, but for the first time in months, Sarah could hear something beneath the stadium hum. Something like possibility.

"I'm still here," she said, squeezing his hand. "I think I've just been... waiting."

"For what?"

"For you to stop acting like everything's going to be okay if we just keep showing up to baseball games."

David's shoulders dropped. He took a breath.

"It's not going to be okay, is it?"

"Maybe not," she said. "But we could be okay. Eventually. If we stop pretending."

The scoreboard lit up. Bottom of the ninth. Two outs. Full count. The kind of moment that made strangers stand as one, holding their breath collectively.

Sarah stood up beside David, their hands still clasped, and watched the pitch. It was just a game, just people hitting a ball with a stick, but as the crowd erupted, she felt something shift—not fixed, not healed, but somehow lighter. The bear would always be there. The zombie parts of them might never fully come back to life. But maybe they could learn to walk anyway.

Together.