The Riddle of the Seventh Inning

Elena dropped the orange **vitamin** bottle into her purse, the pills rattling like loose change. Three months since the miscarriage, and her body still felt foreign to her—her once-thick **hair** now falling out in clumps that clogged the shower drain, her skin pale as the February moon.

She found Marcus on the balcony, smoking and watching the neighborhood **cat**—a scrawny tabby with a notched ear—prowl the fire escape below. The baseball game droned from the television inside, some meaningless preseason match that Marcus watched with the intensity of a man studying scripture.

"You're going out again," he said, not turning around.

"It's just drinks with Sarah."

"Sarah who lost her job? Or Sarah who's getting divorced?"

"Both. Neither." Elena stepped closer, the winter air biting at her cheeks. "Marcus, we can't keep doing this. Sitting in silence. Watching **baseball** games we don't care about. Pretending everything's fine when it's not."

He flicked his cigarette over the railing, sparks falling like dying stars. "What do you want me to say, El? That I'm sad? That I'm angry? That I look at you sometimes and wonder who you are anymore?"

The cat below yowled, a sound so raw it made Elena's chest ache.

"I want you to say something. Anything. You're like the **sphinx**, Marcus—sitting there with your riddles and your silence. And I'm tired of guessing. I'm tired of waking up every morning wondering if today's the day you'll finally look at me."

He turned then, and she saw it—that same grief that lived in her own mirror, sharp and fresh as the day they'd learned the heartbeat had stopped. His hand found hers, both their fingers cold.

"I thought silence was keeping us together," he whispered. "But maybe it's just been killing us slower."

The cat jumped to the railing between them, tail flicking, amber eyes judging them both. And for the first time in three months, the silence didn't feel like a wall anymore—just a pause, breath before something new could begin.