The Score We Keep

The padel court smelled like old rubber and regret. Elena handed me the racket bag she'd packed with surgical precision, each item separated as if the very touch of her fingers on my belongings might contaminate them.

"You can keep the gear," she said, not meeting my eyes. "I don't play anymore."

The divorce decree lay on the bench between us, a single page bearing the bureaucratic violence of ending ten years. I stared at our signatures, dark ink on white paper, wondering why the state required proof that we'd given up trying.

"You used to love this game," I said, gesturing at the enclosed court where we'd spent Sunday mornings for three years. "Remember that time we played against the couple from accounting?"

Elena finally looked at me. "I remember you missing every shot because you were hungover. I remember that being the moment I stopped expecting you to show up for me."

The words hit harder than I expected. I rubbed my chest, feeling for the first time in months the dull ache I'd numbed with whiskey and late nights at the office. My father had taken me to baseball games every summer, teaching me that statistics mattered more than effort. You could swing perfectly and still miss. The best hitters failed seven times out of ten.

I'd applied that logic to everything—my career, our marriage, myself. Some losses were inevitable. Some games you couldn't win, so you stopped trying to score at all.

"I'm sober now," I said, and it came out smaller than I intended.

Elena's expression softened, then hardened again. "I know. That's what makes this harder."

She picked up the divorce papers. "I have to learn to bear my own loneliness now. I can't keep doing it with you."

A man and woman entered the adjacent court, laughing, testing their rackets against the air. They were us, five years ago, before the statistics caught up. Before I started treating our marriage like a game I could afford to lose.

I watched Elena walk away, the padel bag heavy in my hand. The racket inside still bore the weight of all the times I'd swung and missed, all the games I'd played pretending effort was optional. Somewhere, a baseball stadium probably still echoed with fathers teaching sons that failure was part of the game.

But this wasn't baseball. And the score we'd kept had finally come due.