The Fourteenth Inning

The goldfish floated near the glass, its orange scales catching the morning light through the kitchen window. It had been an anniversary gift—year seven, the one they'd joked would be the traditional 'goldfish anniversary' if they made it that far. They hadn't. Now the fish was the only thing still watching them.

Marcus's iPhone buzzed against the counter, another notification from Sarah. He didn't pick it up. He knew what it would say: the same question she'd been asking for three weeks, since he'd moved into this temporary apartment with its unpacked boxes and thin walls.

He grabbed his running shoes instead. Running had become his new religion, his meditation, his way of burning through the anger that still lived somewhere beneath his ribs. Five miles every morning, regardless of weather or mood. His therapist called it healthy coping. Marcus called it fleeing.

The route took him past the park where they'd played softball on Tuesday nights for three years. The diamond was empty this morning, dew on the grass. He could still hear Sarah's laugh from the time she'd tried to pitch and ended up hitting the umpire—a story she'd told at every dinner party, every Christmas, every anniversary dinner until there weren't any more.

Baseball had been their language. He'd proposed during the seventh-inning stretch. They'd named their first dog after a shortstop. They'd kept score at games together, neat pencil marks in little boxes, until the season when she'd stopped coming to the stadium, stopped keeping score, stopped noticing when he came home.

Back at the apartment, the cable guy was waiting when Marcus returned, breathless and sweating. The technician asked about setup—premium channels? sports package? Marcus realized he didn't know what he wanted to watch anymore. The games alone? The shows they'd binged together?

"Just basic," he said. "Nothing fancy."

The cable guy worked silently, threading wires through walls, connecting Marcus to a world he wasn't sure he still wanted to be part of. When he left, the apartment felt both more and less connected.

Marcus's iPhone lit up again. Sarah this time: "The fish died. I thought you should know."

He stood in the kitchen, watching the empty space where the bowl would have sat. The running wasn't working anymore. The cable wouldn't help. And somewhere, in an apartment he used to call home, a goldfish that had survived seven years of their marriage had finally decided enough was enough.

Marcus picked up his phone and typed back: "I know. Me too."