The Ninth Inning of March

The baseball field sprawled before him like an autopsy of American nostalgia. David sat in the bleachers, a solo cup of lukewarm water sweating against his palm, watching his son's Little League game through the prism of three years of accumulated grief.

"You look like a zombie," Sarah had told him two weeks ago, her voice soft with concern that bordered on pity. "You're walking through your own life like it's someone else's house."

She wasn't wrong. Since the accident, David had been operating on autopilot—showing up to work, smiling in all the right places, sleeping beside a wife who'd begun looking at him like he was a stranger in their bed.

The batter connected with the ball. A clean line drive that arced toward the fence.

"Get it, get it!" the other parents shouted. Their voices washed over him like water—meaningless, formless, without substance.

David's son, Ethan, stood in center field, his glove raised, face turned toward the sky. And suddenly David was back at the lake that day, watching Ethan's little sister struggle in the current, feeling like a zombie himself as he'd waded in, his movements sluggish and unreal. He'd saved her, but not before the water had taken something irreversible from both of them.

The ball landed in Ethan's glove. A perfect catch.

The parents erupted. David clapped mechanically, his hands meeting with dull thuds. Down on the field, Ethan turned toward the bleachers, searching for his father's face, seeking that spark of genuine pride that had died somewhere underwater three years ago.

David raised his water in a toast he couldn't complete. The game had entered its final inning, but he remained stranded somewhere between second and third, perpetually waiting for a signal that would never come.