The Bull's Ninth Inning

At forty-five, Marcia had stopped pretending her daily vitamin regimen was about health. It was ritual—a small, controlled thing in a life dissolving around her. The B-complex tablet sat on her tongue like communion, bitter and promising something it couldn't deliver.

Her ex-husband had taken the dog. She'd kept the cat, a malignant calico named Stella who watched Marcia's late-night crying jags with what looked distinctly like judgment. The apartment echoed now. Half the furniture gone. Stella weaving through the empty spaces like they'd always been this way.

The baseball playoffs flickered on the TV—sound down, shadows of athletes performing feats of grace Marcia could no longer imagine feeling. Outside, October rain streaked the window like tears on a face that had forgotten how to feel anything properly.

Her phone buzzed. David from Accounting. Their flirtation had been escalating since the summer retreat—drinks after work, hands brushing "accidentally" at the copier, the thickening air of something about to happen.

"Can you come over?" his text read. "Sarah left with the kids."

The bull in the room—the thing nobody said—was that David wasn't separated. He wasn't even close. But Marcia found herself grabbing her coat anyway, pausing only to shake another vitamin into her palm. The cat blinked slowly, as if to say: this mistake, at least, is your own.

David's house was dark except for the kitchen light. He opened the door before she could knock, pulling her inside with a desperation that felt like violence. His mouth tasted like whiskey and something sweeter—regret, maybe, or just the particular bitterness of middle-aged loneliness masquerading as passion.

They ended up on his couch, fully clothed, his baseball trophy collection watching from the shelves. His head in her lap. Stella would hate this—the other woman's cheap perfume on Marcia's clothes, the evidence of another poor choice.

"I can't leave her," David said to the ceiling. "The finances, the kids..."

"I know," Marcia said, and realized she did. The vitamin on her tongue hadn't been about health for years. Some things you did because the ritual mattered more than the outcome.

She left before morning, walking home under streetlights that made everything look like a photograph overexposed to nostalgia. Stella waited by the door, and for once, the cat didn't judge. Just rubbed against Marcia's ankle like forgiveness existed in small, imperfect doses.

The baseball game had ended. Someone had won. Someone had lost. In the kitchen, Marcia swallowed another vitamin, bitter and whole.