The Last Inning

Sarah found herself running along the river at 5 AM, a ritual she'd begun after David left. The rhythm of her sneakers on pavement matched the cadence of her escape—escape from the empty apartment, from the questions, from the devastating quiet that had settled into her bones like arthritis years ahead of schedule.

She stopped at the bend where the old baseball diamond stood half-swallowed by weeds. She and David had played softball here every Tuesday for seven years, until cancer had played its final cruel trick. Now the backstop rusted away like the rest of her abandoned plans.

At home, Barnaby—their elderly tabby cat—waited by his food bowl. Sarah had rescued him as a kitten the same year they'd buried that first goldfish, the one David won at a carnival. They'd kept replacing them as they died, this ornamental parade of forgetfulness, until finally they'd stopped. Some things weren't worth the ritual of renewal.

"You're going to have to bear with me," she whispered to Barnaby, scratching behind his ears. "I'm learning to be alone again."

Her phone buzzed. A text from Mark, the new oncologist. She'd been ignoring it for three weeks, but something in the predawn gray of this morning—perhaps the memory of David's last words, about not wasting the second chance someone else would have killed for—made her type back.

Coffee? she sent. Then added, I have a cat who disapproves of strangers.

His reply came before she could reconsider. I'm willing to risk it. Tomorrow, 8 AM?

Sarah watched the sun break over the river, goldfish-bright and impossible. Some things, she realized, were worth bearing witness to. Some games were worth playing again, even when you knew how eventually they ended.