The Men Who Don't Call Back

The padel court smelled of rubber and desperation. Forty-two years old and Mark was taking lessons, trying to prove something to a wife who'd already packed her bags and their son's golden retriever into her sister's SUV two weeks ago.

His iPhone buzzed against the bench — another notification he'd check compulsively, though he knew Elena wouldn't text. She'd left him a letter instead, three pages single-spaced, detailing how he'd become someone she didn't recognize. How he'd stopped trying.

"Ready?" asked the instructor, twenty-something with the easy confidence Mark had lost somewhere between mortgages and promotions.

Mark nodded, gripping the racquet. His hands remembered baseball from college, the sweet spot of a bat, the father who'd never come to his games. That man had died last year, and Mark had felt relief instead of grief — a small, shameful thing he'd never told anyone. Not Elena. Certainly not the therapist she'd begged him to see.

The dog, Buster, had been better at loving him unconditionally. Buster was probably curled on Elena's bed right now, or maybe sleeping on their son's pillow. Mark missed the damn animal more than he missed his marriage, which felt like admitting he was broken.

He served. The ball hit the net.

"Your phone's lighting up," the instructor said.

Mark checked. A notification from the dog-walking app they'd shared — cancel my subscription, Elena had messaged through it, because we're not paying for your walks anymore. She'd taken the dog but made him pay for the walker. Petty, calculated, so exactly like her.

"Ex-wife," Mark said, surprising himself with the word. "She's pissed about the dog."

"They always are," the instructor said, and something in his voice suggested he'd been here before, or maybe he'd just seen enough men Mark's age standing on courts with racquets they didn't know how to use, phones in hand, waiting for something that wasn't going to come.

Mark served again. This time, the ball cleared the net and landed exactly where it should.

"Better," the instructor said.

Mark didn't check his phone again. Not for an hour, not even when it buzzed three more times. Some small victory, maybe. The kind you took when you could get them.