The Last Inning

Margaret stood before the bathroom mirror, pulling at the stray gray hair that had appeared overnight. Another one. She'd been taking that vitamin supplement religiously for six months—the one promised to restore hair color, vitality, the whole package of denial that forty-something women bought into like communion wafers.

Downstairs, the sink was running. James was brushing his teeth, a domestic ritual that suddenly felt like an invasion.

"Remember that baseball game?" she called out, voice echoing against tile.

The water stopped running. "Which one?"

"The one where you proposed. Seventh inning stretch."

Silence. Then: "That was fifteen years ago, Meg."

"I know. I was just thinking about it."

She had been thinking about everything lately. The weight she carried, this great sleeping bear of grief that had curled up in her chest after the miscarriage last autumn. Neither of them had spoken of it since January. They just moved around each other like ghosts in a haunted house, making coffee, folding laundry, pretending their marriage hadn't died along with something that never even had a name.

James appeared in the doorway, his hair thinning at the temples. He looked tired in a way that sleep couldn't fix. "I'm going to stay with my brother for a while."

The bear in her chest stirred.

"How long is 'a while'?"

"I don't know. Until I figure out who I am when I'm not trying to be someone you still love."

She nodded, understanding with devastating clarity that some things, like baseball games and marriages and the slow erosion of hope, ended whether you wanted them to or not. She'd swallow her vitamins tomorrow. She'd drink her water. She'd keep going. But something essential had already left the room, and it wasn't coming back.