The Final Inning

The cable guy was late, which meant Sarah was going to miss the first pitch of what might be the most important baseball game of the season. Not that it mattered anymore. Richard used to watch every game with her, explaining the nuances she pretended to understand, his voice warm against her ear. Now the living room felt cavernous without his stuff, without his laugh, without him.

"Sorry about the delay, ma'am," the technician said, kneeling beside the TV. "Fox Sports was having signal issues in your area."

Fox. That's what Richard called her when they first met—clever, quick, a little wild. The memory stung worse than the divorce papers.

The technician, a young guy with grease-stained fingers and tired eyes, worked silently. Sarah watched him, remembering how Richard had complained about their cable bill the week before he left. How he'd said they needed to cut back on expenses. How that was code for everything he wasn't saying.

Outside, movement caught her eye. A fox—real this time—trotted through the backyard, its rusty coat brilliant against the dying grass. It stopped, looked toward the window, eyes dark and knowing. Then it vanished into the neighbor's yard like a secret.

"All set," the tech said, standing up. "You're all connected now."

Connected. She hadn't felt connected to anything in months.

He left, and Sarah turned on the TV. The baseball game flickered to life—bottom of the ninth, two outs, bases loaded. The crowd roared. The batter swung. Connection. The ball sailed into the stands.

She reached for her phone to text Richard—their old ritual, every home run—then stopped. Her thumb hovered over his name, now just another contact in a long list. The fox appeared again in the yard, pausing beneath the oak tree where she and Richard had carved their initials eight years ago. The wood had grown over most of it, but you could still see part of an S, part of an R, overlapping like fighters in a clinch.

Sarah turned off the TV. The cable could wait. Richard could wait. She went to the back door and opened it, stepping into the evening air. The fox watched her, head tilted, as if waiting to see what she'd do next.

She stood there, listening to the distant cheer of the crowd from somewhere nearby, watching the wild thing in her backyard, and realized for the first time in months: this was her life now. Strange, lonely, and entirely hers.