The Cable Repairman's Inning

Mark's hands still shook when he thought about that night. The way Sarah's hair had spilled across the pillow like dark water, how she'd whispered I can't do this anymore while he lay there, paralyzed by the sudden understanding that five years had dissolved into silence.

He hadn't known how to be the friend she needed — not then, when it mattered most.

Now he installed cable for strangers. It was good work if you didn't mind the silence. Today's job was a ranch house on the edge of town, where an old man sat watching baseball games on a static-filled screen. The bull of a man — shoulders like boulders, hands that could crush walnuts — had somehow become gentle with age.

"You like baseball?" the man asked, and Mark found himself nodding, surprised by his own honesty.

"Used to play," Mark said. "Haven't watched since—" He stopped. Since Sarah left. Since he realized he'd been living someone else's life.

The old man's television flickered as Mark adjusted the cable connection. The picture cleared just in time for a home run, the crowd's roar filling the small living room. Something in Mark's chest tightened, sharp and sudden.

"My wife died three years ago," the man said, as if Mark had asked. "Still watch the games. She loved them."

Mark's hands stilled on the coaxial cable. He looked at the old man — really looked at him. The hair that had once been dark, now silver-white. The eyes that had seen everything and still found reasons to keep watching.

"I don't know how to do that," Mark said quietly. "Keep going."

"Nobody does," the old man said. "You just do it anyway."

Outside, the sun was setting. Mark sat in his truck for a long time, phone in hand, staring at Sarah's contact information. Five years of silence. Five years of installing cable for strangers, watching their lives through flickering screens, too afraid to speak his own truth.

The bull had charged through the china shop of his heart, and he'd just stood there and let it happen.

He pressed call.

She answered on the third ring. "Mark?"

"I saw a baseball game today," he said. "And I hated it without you."