The Last Inning

The hospital room smelled of antiseptic and impending loss. My father lay in the bed, his hair thin and white against the starched pillow, eyes fixed on the baseball game flickering on the wall-mounted TV. He'd always loved baseball — the only thing we ever shared, though even that had been tainted by his relentless criticism of every swing I'd ever taken.

"They're going to lose," he rasped, not looking at me. "Always choke in the ninth."

I'd brought him a goldfish in a bowl yesterday, something to focus on besides the game and his dying. It swam in endless circles, orange scales flashing like tiny underwater coins. Pointless, really — much like the visits themselves. We'd spent thirty years in careful avoidance, a relationship built on silence and birthdays remembered through duty.

"The market crashed again," I said, watching the fish. "Lost half my portfolio. Your financial advisor called it a 'correction.' Bullshit. Just another bull market goring the little guys."

He turned slowly. His eyes, once sharp and judgmental, were soft now. Medicine did that, or maybe death.

"I played baseball once," he said, apropos of nothing. "College. Could've gone pro. Hurt my knee." A pause. "Your mother wanted children more than she wanted a baseball player."

Something cracked in my chest. All those years of him watching my games, shouting from the stands, telling me I'd never be good enough — and he'd been grieving his own lost dream.

I peeled an orange from the fruit basket, the citrus scent sharp and clean in the sterile room. "You never told me that."

"Does it matter now?" He coughed, a wet, rattling sound. "The fish dies, the game ends, the market crashes. Everything ends."

I fed a piece of orange to the goldfish, watching it surface, mouth opening and closing like a silent question. Some truths arrive too late to matter, but I found myself grateful anyway.

"You were good," I said. "You would've been good."

He smiled, just a little. "Watch the game with me, son. Before it ends."