The Last Inning

The cat watches me from the windowsill as I stand in the kitchen, staring at a bag of spinach like it holds the answers to questions I'm afraid to ask. Three years since Mark died, and I'm still cooking for two.

He would have hated this. Not the spinach—he actually loved that wilted kale and spinach salad I made with too much garlic—but the silence. The way I move through this house alone, talking to a cat who only responds when the food bowl is empty.

I unwrap the spinach, the crinkle of plastic loud in the quiet kitchen. Outside, the neighborhood kids are playing baseball. The crack of a bat against ball, the distant shouts of 'Safe!' and 'You're out!'—it's the soundtrack of every summer we spent in this house. Mark taught our son to hit in that backyard. Tommy's twenty-three now, working in Seattle, too busy to call.

I rinse the spinach, my hands trembling slightly. At the diner today, Sarah called me her friend. We've known each other six months, since I started going there for coffee instead of making it at home. She has kind eyes and a laugh that makes me remember what laughter feels like in my chest.

'You should come to the game tonight,' she'd said, pointing to where her grandson plays in the local league. 'It's fun. Good baseball.'

I'd almost said yes. Then panic rose like bile—the idea of sitting in bleachers, explaining that my son used to play but now lives across the country, that my husband died three years ago, that I'm lonely but not ready.

The cat jumps onto the counter, weaving between my legs. I push him down gently. 'Not on the counter,' I say, Mark's voice in mine.

The spinach wilts in the pan, turning bright green then dark. I add garlic, oil, salt. The smell fills the kitchen—familiar and comforting.

Maybe tomorrow I'll go back to the diner. Maybe I'll say yes to something.

For tonight, I eat alone while the cat watches, and somewhere in the distance, baseball continues without me.