The Riddle of Empty Seats

The baseball field hadn't changed in twenty years — same cracked earth, same chain-link fence bent where we'd climbed it drunk, same silence where there should have been cheering. I adjusted my hat against the wind, the brim my father had worn at his own funeral, now sheltering me from this one.

Marcus's death hadn't been a surprise. Opioids don't send invitations. But standing here, I remembered the summer we turned seventeen, when he'd kissed me behind the backstop and I'd pulled away, terrified of what my palm would say if I ever let a fortune teller read it. He'd laughed, called me a sphinx, all riddles and no answers.

'You think you're so complicated,' he'd said, cigarette smoke curling around his fingers. 'But you're just scared.'

He wasn't wrong. We'd remained friends, though careful ones. He married a woman named Sarah who made him happy enough. I moved to Chicago and built a life that looked like everyone else's. Every phone call ended with 'love you, man,' every visit with a clap on the back that lasted half a second too long.

Now I'd come back to bury him, and Sarah had asked me to speak. 'You knew him best,' she'd said, and I'd wanted to scream: HE knew me best. There's a difference.

The wind picked up, carrying the scent of cut grass and memory. I touched my palm to the chain-link, cold metal pressing into skin. Marcus was gone, and the riddles remained unanswered, the words still unspoken. Some sphinxes never solve themselves.

I took off my hat and set it on home plate. A small thing, but it was all I had left to give.