The Bottom of the Ninth

Elena rubbed her palm against the rough fabric of her cubicle wall, grounding herself. Three years at this firm, and she'd become something like a zombie—moving through quarterly reports and strategy meetings on autopilot, her soul eroding in tiny increments that no one noticed until there was nothing left to notice.

The office hummed with the quiet desperation of people pretending to care about synergy. Her phone buzzed. Mark.

"Hey, El. You coming tonight?"

"To what?" She'd forgotten what day it was.

"The game. Jake's team. He's been talking about it all week."

Right. Jake's baseball game. Her son had inherited her father's love for the sport, while Elena had inherited only his ability to disappoint everyone slowly, over decades.

"I'll be there."

She hung up and caught her reflection in the darkened monitor. Thirty-eight years old and she couldn't remember the last time she'd felt something genuine.

The baseball diamond smelled like cut grass and childhood summers. Jake waved from left field, his uniform too big, his grin missing a front tooth. The coach's son stepped up to bat—a lumbering kid with perfect form and expensive equipment.

The crack of the bat echoed. The ball sailed toward left field, toward Jake.

Elena held her breath. Her son ran, arms outstretched, palm open to the sky. The ball dropped into his glove. He'd caught it.

"Mom! Mom, did you see?" Jake shouted afterward, running to her, dirt on his cheeks, happiness radiating from him like heat.

"I saw," she said, and something cracked open in her chest.

"I caught it! I really did!"

Elena knelt and pulled him into a hug, inhaling sweat and grass and joy. "You were amazing."

For the first time in years, she wasn't a zombie anymore. She was just a mother, watching her son catch baseballs under stadium lights, and that—that was enough.