The Coiled Wire

The baseball sat on his father's nightstand, gathering dust beside a bottle of vitamin D supplements. Marcus picked it up, the leather rough against his palm, and turned it over. Signed by some minor league player from 1987, the ink had faded to a ghost of itself.

"You're leaving again," his father said from the hospital bed. Not a question.

"Just for a few hours. The cable guy's coming between noon and three."

His father laughed, a dry, rattling sound. "The cable. That's what you came back for. Not to see your old man."

Marcus set the baseball down carefully. He'd been home three weeks, ever since the stroke, and every conversation had become a minefield of guilt and deflection. His father's fox-like cunning hadn't abandoned him — even half-paralyzed, the old man knew exactly where to plant each accusation.

"I'm here, aren't I?"

"Your body is. The rest of you is somewhere else. Probably that startup in Seattle. The one that was going to change everything."

Marcus's phone buzzed in his pocket. Work. Always work. He ignored it and looked out the window at the palm tree swaying in the Florida heat, its fronds brown at the edges. Same tree he'd climbed as a boy, pretending he was escaping.

"I'm staying through the weekend,"