The Last Inning

Maria sat on the edge of the bathtub, watching her husband's baseball cap float in the water. It had been three days since Rafael walked out, and she still couldn't bring herself to drain the tub. The water had grown cold, stagnant—much like their marriage had been for years.

On the bedroom TV, a baseball game played on cable, the commentators' voices drifting through the open door like ghosts. She remembered how Rafael used to watch games religiously, beer in hand, shouting at umpires who couldn't hear him. She'd hated it then—the way he disappeared into those games, leaving her alone with her thoughts and the hum of the refrigerator.

Now she'd give anything to hear him shout again.

The cable connection had been acting up for weeks. Rafael had promised to fix it, just like he'd promised to call more often when he was traveling for work, just like he'd promised they'd try counseling. Instead, he'd packed a bag and left without a word, leaving her with a fuzzy picture on the screen and a life that felt like it was dissolving around her.

Maria reached into the water and pulled out the cap. It dripped onto her jeans, dark spots spreading like blood. She remembered buying it for him at a Dodgers game—their second date. He'd worn it ever since, through job losses and her mother's funeral, through the miscarriage that had nearly broken them both.

The cap had smelled like him—sweat and cheap cologne and something uniquely Rafael. Now it smelled like stagnant water.

"Strike three!" the TV announcer roared.

Maria laughed, a harsh sound in the empty apartment. How fitting that she was watching baseball alone, sitting in front of a tub full of water that Rafael never managed to fix the drain on, watching a game on cable that Rafael never managed to repair properly.

She stood up, wringing out the cap. Some things, she realized, you couldn't fix. Some things you had to let go of—like relationships, like innings, like the way water always found its level.

Maria dropped the cap in the trash and went to find the remote. It was time to change the channel.