The Last Inning

The cat wound around Marcus's ankles as he packed, her black fur already dusted with cardboard particles. She'd been Sarah's cat originally, a rescue from a shelter parking lot, but Marcus had been the one to name her—Bonds, after the home run record holder. Sarah had never cared for baseball.

The cable box sat disconnected on the floor, its coaxial cable coiled like a dead snake. For ten years, Marcus had paid for the sports package, watching thousands of games alone in this apartment. Sarah had tolerated it, the way people accommodate small eccentricities in partners they've already decided to leave.

Outside, lightning splintered the sky—violent, beautiful cracks of illumination that made the packing pause. Storms had always made him think of his father, who'd taught him to keep score at baseball games when he was seven, sitting on metal bleachers while summer heat rose off the asphalt in visible waves. His father had died three years ago, and Marcus had stopped keeping score.

He found the baseball in the bottom of his closet—a minor league ball from a game they'd attended early in their marriage. Sarah had bought it for him, grumbling about the heat and the beer prices, but she'd squeezed his hand when their team hit a grand slam. That small gesture of participation had meant everything then.

The cat meowed, insistently now. Marcus realized he was crying—not the jagged sobs of the first month after she left, but something quieter, more final. This was the last box. Tomorrow morning, the movers would come. He was leaving the city, taking a job in a smaller town where he could afford a house with a yard for Bonds to chase lightning bugs.

He placed the baseball on top of the last box, then picked up the cat. She purred against his chest, a small, vibrating anchor in the chaos. Outside, thunder rolled low and distant, like the end of an extra-inning game. Some losses you walk away from; some you carry with you, packed away in boxes and muscle memory, waiting for the next season to begin.