The Riddle at Home Plate

The baseball field had been demolished years ago, replaced by a discount pharmacy where Arthur now stood, staring at a display of vitamin supplements in aisle seven. His knees ached—a familiar complaint these days, ever since he'd stopped running every morning. He'd told himself it was about time, that fifty was too old for dawn sprints along the river, but the truth was harder to swallow.

He'd left his running shoes by the door that morning and simply never returned to them.

"Can I help you find something?" The pharmacist's voice startled him. She was young, maybe twenty-five, with eyes that reminded him uncomfortably of Elena.

Arthur's fingers grazed the bottle of Vitamin D. "My wife—ex-wife—she swore these would save me from myself."

"They're good for bone health," the pharmacist said, her practiced smile not quite reaching her eyes. "Especially as we age."

*As we age.* The words hung in the fluorescent-lit air like smoke. Arthur had played baseball on this very ground thirty years ago, a shortstop with quick hands and quicker assumptions. He'd met Elena at a game between innings—she'd been selling water in the stands, her shirt damp with sweat, her laugh cutting through the humid July air like a church bell.

They'd spent ten years together before she'd left, citing his emotional opacity as grounds for departure. "You're like a sphinx," she'd said, throwing clothes into a suitcase. "All riddles and silence. I'm tired of guessing what you're thinking."

He hadn't argued. Hadn't asked her to stay. Hadn't run after her car when she drove away, just watched through the window as her taillights faded into the suburban dusk.

Now he stood where home plate had been, surrounded by discount supplements and muted pop music, realizing the real riddle wasn't what he'd been thinking back then. It was why he still remembered the exact way her hair had smelled that first summer—chlorine from the community pool where she swam mornings, and something sweet, like vanilla.

Arthur set the vitamin bottle back on the shelf. His reflection in the security mirror showed a man who looked nothing like the shortstop he'd been, nothing like the husband he should have been. Just someone running in place, always arriving where he'd started.

Outside, rain began to fall, and for the first time in years, he didn't reach for his umbrella.