The Ninth Inning of Us

Mara watched the silver strands of hair at David's temples catch the fluorescent lights of the hospital cafeteria. She hadn't noticed them before tonight, before the oncologist said words like "aggressive" and "immediate treatment." Now his hair seemed to be aging before her eyes, each gray filament a countdown timer she couldn't stop.

"You still have that," David said, nodding at the small stuffed bear wedged between the salt and pepper shakers. A hospital volunteer had given it to her hours ago, when she'd been hyperventilating in the waiting room.

Mara wrapped her fingers around its soft brown fur. "Pathetic, isn't it? Thirty-four years old and needing a teddy bear to get through a diagnosis."

"It's not pathetic. It's—" David stopped, his fork hovering over his untouched mashed potatoes. "It's something to hold onto."

They'd met at a baseball game fifteen years ago, both reaching for the same foul ball that sailed into the stands. Their fingers had brushed, and he'd let her keep it. They'd named their first dog Foul Ball. They'd spent every anniversary at minor league parks, eating cheap hot dogs and keeping score like religion.

The cancer wasn't even in either of them. It was their seven-year-old daughter, currently sleeping two floors up.

"Remember how we used to talk about having kids?" David said, his voice cracking. "We'd say, 'it'll be like baseball—a long game, but we're in it together.'" He laughed, a dry, broken sound. "Some game."

The bear's plastic eyes seemed to judge them. Mara thought about all the parents she'd seen in the pediatric ward, some weeping openly, others moving through corridors with that terrifyingly calm look—the look of people who'd learned to bear the unbearable. She wondered which one she'd become.

"David." She reached across the table, took his hand. His palms were sweaty. "Bottom of the ninth. We're not quitting."

He squeezed back, his grip desperate. "No. We're not."

Outside, autumn rain streaked the windows like the seams of a ball spinning through darkness. Their daughter's hair would fall out in two weeks. The chemotherapy would make her nauseous and weak and frightened. There would be nights they couldn't bear. There would be days when the game seemed lost.

But not tonight.

Mara slid the bear toward him. David looked at it, then at her, something flickering behind his eyes that wasn't hope—not exactly. Something harder. Something that could endure.

"Bottom of the ninth," he repeated, and the cafeteria lights seemed to brighten, if only for a moment.