The Last Inning

The plastic vitamin bottle rattled in Marcus's hand as he sat alone in the corporate box, watching the baseball field below. His father's meticulously organized supplements—B12 for energy, Vitamin D for bone health, magnesium for sleep—sat untouched on the mahogany desk. Three weeks since the funeral, and Marcus still couldn't bring himself to throw them away.

"You're brooding again."

Elena slid into the seat beside him, her perfume cutting through the stale air of the box. She'd been his father's protégé, now the company's youngest VP. Sharp, ambitious, everything Marcus wasn't.

"Just thinking about Dad," Marcus said, gesturing toward the field where the teams were warming up. "He season tickets for thirty years. Never missed opening day."

"Your father was a bull, Marcus," Elena said, her voice tinged with something between admiration and exhaustion. "He charged through life. He'd want you to do the same."

The word hit harder than she intended. His father had been a bull on Wall Street, a man who'd crushed competitors and sacrificed relationships for quarterly gains. The vitamins in Marcus's pocket represented the only weakness Harold had ever shown—his desperate attempt to outsmart mortality, to extend the reign.

"The board meets tomorrow," Elena continued, her hand resting briefly on his arm. "They're expecting you to appoint the new CEO. Everyone thinks it'll be me."

Marcus watched the pitcher wind up, the ball arc toward home plate. A strike. "You want the job?"

"I've earned it." She hesitated. "But your father left controlling interest to you. You could run it yourself."

The vitamins burned in his pocket. All those years, his father had tried to manufacture something genuine in a pill—vitality, longevity, legacy. But Marcus knew the truth: Harold had died alone in his office, clutching a quarterly report instead of his son's hand.

"I'm not selling," Marcus said, surprising himself. "But I'm not running it either. You're CEO, Elena. On one condition."

The baseball crowd roared as a ball cleared the outfield fence.

"What?" she asked, her eyes searching his.

"We're instituting mandatory vacation time. No one works weekends. And if I catch anyone taking vitamins to work longer hours, they're fired."

Elena stared at him, then burst out laughing. "Your father would roll over in his grave."

"Good," Marcus said, finally pulling the vitamin bottle from his pocket and tossing it into the nearest trash bin. "He needs the exercise."