The Last Inning

Margaret sat at her kitchen table, staring at the amber plastic bottle. The vitamin D supplement—her doctor's orders for bone density, she'd been told—sat next to a half-empty mug of cold coffee. At forty-seven, she was too young for this kind of inventory-taking, yet here she was, counting the ways her body had begun its slow betrayal.

The apartment was unnervingly quiet since David moved out last month. His absence echoed in the strangest places. The cable bill came yesterday—just her name on the envelope now. She'd cancelled the premium package they'd gotten for his baseball games, another quarterly expense that no longer made sense. The TV sat dark in the living room, a black mirror reflecting her own hollowed-out expression back at her.

Barnaby, their tabby cat of twelve years, wound around her ankles, purring insistently. He was the last remaining witness to her marriage, a furry little archivist of shared mornings and whispered arguments. Margaret reached down to stroke his soft head, and for a moment, the simple contact felt like the only real thing in a world dissolving around her.

She'd been cleaning out the closet when she found it: David's old baseball glove from college, shoved behind a box of tax documents. The leather was cracked, the pocket worn smooth from thousands of catches. She'd forgotten how he used to watch the Yankees with such intensity, living and dying with every pitch. It was something she'd never understood—his capacity to invest so completely in something so indifferent to his existence.

But lately, she found herself wondering if that wasn't the point. Maybe loving something that couldn't love you back was safer. Maybe that was the lesson she'd missed.

Barnaby meowed, his bowl empty. Margaret stood, her knees protesting, and crossed to the cupboard. As she poured the cat food, she caught her reflection in the window—autumn light gilding her tired face. She looked like someone learning to live alone, which was exactly what she was doing.

The vitamin bottle caught her eye again. She'd been taking them for weeks, hoping they'd fix something, anything. But some things couldn't be fixed with supplements or patience or careful accounting.

She left the bottle on the table and picked up the baseball glove instead, slid her hand inside, formed it into a fist. The leather was still warm, somehow, as if it remembered its purpose. Outside, a neighbor's dog barked at nothing. The cat finished eating and looked up at her, indifferent to her epiphany.

"Well," she said to the empty kitchen, "here's to new seasons."

And for the first time since David left, she didn't hate the sound of her own voice answering back.