The Last Padel Game

Elena's golden retriever, Baxter, lay sprawled across the sidelines of the padel court, his muzzle resting on his paws as if mourning something he couldn't name. It had been six months since Sarah's funeral, and Elena still found herself at their usual Saturday game, swinging her racquet at air.

"You're still playing alone?" The voice belonged to Marcus, Sarah's ex-husband, standing there with a papaya in one hand and a leash in the other. A yorkie puddled around his ankles like nervous water.

"It's not alone if you have a dog," Elena said, though her voice cracked. "Sarah said friendship isn't about presence. It's about what you carry."

They sat on the bench between games, watching their dogs investigate each other with cautious sniffs. Marcus peeled the papaya, its orange flesh bright against the gray afternoon. "She made me eat this once. Said it reminded her of that trip to Mexico."

"The goldfish trip," Elena nodded. "When she won that goldfish at the carnival and it died before we even crossed the border. She cried for three hours in the hotel bathtub while you both got drunk on cheap tequila."

Marcus laughed, surprised. "She told you about that?"

"She told me everything." Elena sliced through the papaya with her fingernail. "That's the problem with dead friends. They leave you with all their secrets and no one to help you carry them."

The sun was setting when they finally played a real game, their movements rusty but familiar, the ball ricocheting off the walls like memories returning to haunt. Baxter barked at nothing. Sarah would have hated how dignified Marcus looked now, his grief restrained and proper. She would have thrown the papaya at him.

"She left you something," Marcus said afterward, breathless. "A letter. I couldn't read it."

Elena reached into her racquet bag and pulled out a sealed envelope. "I know. She gave it to me the week before she died."

"What does it say?"

Elena looked at the court, at the empty space where Sarah should have been laughing, where the goldfish memory had become something sacred. "That some friendships are too big for one lifetime. That she'd see us in the next one."

Marcus's yorkie yipped at something in the grass. A gold flash in the fading light—just a wrapper, but for a second, Elena saw Sarah winking, saying, *See? I'm still here.*