The Long Inning

The hospice room smelled of antiseptic and that peculiar sweetness of decay. My father sat in his wheelchair, eyes fixed on something I couldn't see—a zombie going through the motions of a life that had already hollowed him out. Dementia had eaten him from the inside, leaving only this shell that occasionally remembered me.

"What's the score?" he asked.

"Bottom of the ninth," I lied. "Two outs, bases loaded."

He nodded slowly, his hands curling around the orange in his lap. Same routine every Tuesday: I'd bring him a baseball game on television and a navel orange, and for thirty minutes he'd remember who I was. His gnarled fingers worked at the peel, stripping it away in long spirals like he was unwinding years.

Outside, lightning cracked the sky, illuminating the yellowing photograph on his nightstand—him in uniform, me at ten years old, his old dog Rusty between us. That dog had been more parent to me than he had, always there when the baseball games ran long into the night.

"Rusty would've loved this storm," he said, and for a moment, clarity broke through the fog.

"Yeah," I said. "He used to hide under the bed during thunder. You'd have to coax him out with hot dogs."

"Hot dogs," he repeated, smiling. "From the ballpark. Best damn hot dogs in the world."

The television droned on—commentators discussing contracts and statistics while my father's orange peel scattered across his tray like fallen leaves. I thought about all the games we'd watched together, all the silences between us, and how baseball had been our only language.

Lightning struck again, closer this time. The room flickered.

"Bottom of the ninth," he whispered, his eyes clearing, finding mine. "Son, I'm sorry I missed so many innings."

My throat tightened. "We're still playing, Dad. Extra innings."

He smiled, then the fog rolled back in, and he was gone again—just another passenger in his own body, waiting for the final out.