The Last Inning

The alarm screamed at 6:00 AM, and Sarah dragged herself from bed like a zombie from an open grave. Another Monday at the pharmaceutical firm, another day of corporate warfare over market share and profit margins. At thirty-seven, she'd forgotten what it felt like to wake up rested.

Her routine was automatic: coffee, shower, vitamin C supplements—Orange bottle, citrus tang, false promise of health. Her mother had died two years ago, and the bottles kept coming in the mail, monthly shipments from a subscription neither of them had cancelled. Sarah took them anyway. Some tiny act of devotion.

The cat, Milo, wove between her ankles, purring. He'd been her mother's, another inheritance Sarah hadn't expected. She'd never wanted a pet, too transient for commitment, but now she found herself talking to him over coffee, explaining quarterly reports to a creature whose vocabulary consisted of "meow" and "more tuna, please."

"She would have hated today," she told him, scratching behind his ears. "Big presentation. If I don't sell this vitamin formula, they'll trim the department."

Milo blinked and flopped onto her laptop keyboard.

Sarah laughed, something she did too rarely these days. She scooped him up, his orange fur warm against her chest, and carried him to the window. Below, the park was empty except for an old man bouncing a baseball against a brick wall. Thwack. Echo. Thwack. Rhythm, repetition, the same motion over and over.

Her father had taken her to baseball games. She'd hated them then—the boredom, the peanuts, the endless innings that stretched into evening. But she'd go again if she could. She'd sit through nine innings, extra innings, rain delays, if it meant one more conversation with someone who knew her before the spreadsheets and the mortgages.

She set Milo down gently. "What are we doing, buddy? Just bouncing off walls until we can't anymore?"

The cat headbutted her hand. A simple answer: keep going. Feed the cat. Take the vitamins. Show up.

Sarah's phone buzzed. Her team: "Where are you?"

She typed back: "On my way."

And maybe that was enough. Not profound. Not transformed. Just present. She'd survive the presentation, she'd survive the grief that settled like winter fog, she'd survive this life that felt increasingly like something happening to other people. Milo would be waiting when she returned. The vitamins would keep coming. And somewhere, a baseball would bounce against a wall, marking time.

She grabbed her keys and stepped into the morning sunlight.