The Season's Last Inning

Margaret found the old baseball mitt in Arthur's closet, three years after he'd passed. Dust motes danced in the afternoon sunlight as she pulled the worn leather onto her hand, remembering how she'd teased him about keeping it.

"You haven't played since Eisenhower was president," she'd said, laughing.

Arthur had only smiled, his eyes crinkling at the corners. "Never know when you might need a friend to catch a ball with."

He'd always called that mitt his friend, the way some men called their cars or boats their best companions. Margaret had never quite understood—until the cat showed up.

Barnaby had been a scrawny thing, matted orange fur and one ear that refused to stand up. Arthur had found him near the neighborhood baseball field where he walked every morning, watching the high school boys practice through the chain-link fence.

"Looks like he could use a friend, Arthur," the old coach had called out, and Arthur had brought the cat home in his baseball bag.

That was fifteen years ago. Through Arthur's decline, through the quiet months after his heart surgery, Barnaby had been Margaret's constant companion. The cat would curl at the foot of Arthur's recliner while they listened to baseball games on the radio, Arthur explaining the nuances of a pitch rotation as if Barnaby understood every word.

"A cat who appreciates the finer points of a slider," Arthur would say, scratching behind Barnaby's good ear. "That's rare indeed."

Now Barnaby was old too, his orange fur faded to pale apricot, his movements slow and deliberate. He jumped onto the windowsill now and blinked at Margaret, who was still wearing Arthur's mitt.

"Well," she said, surprised by the thickness in her throat. "I suppose you're right, Arthur. A friend is a friend."

She left the mitt on the closet shelf where he'd kept it, right beside the small urn that held Arthur's ashes. Someday she would scatter them at the baseball field, as he'd asked. But not today. Today, the afternoon light was golden across the floorboards, and Barnaby was purring, and some seasons deserved to last a little longer.