The Seventh Inning Stretch

Marcus sat in Section 204, row 12, watching his fifth baseball game of the season alone. The plastic seat was still warm from the previous occupant as he swallowed another vitamin D supplement—his doctor's orders for a man who'd spent twenty years in windowless cubicles. The container rattled in his pocket like a small warning he chose to ignore.

"You're going to rattle yourself to death," Elena had said that morning, not looking up from her coffee. She'd started storing her supplements in the kitchen drawer now, a subtle demarcation of territories in their marriage's Cold War.

The game dragged on. Marcus checked his phone: three emails from work, zero from her. The bull market they'd ridden through their thirties had crashed spectacularly last year, taking with it their savings and whatever remained of their easy laughter. Now they were just two people who happened to share a mortgage and a history.

"Hey buddy, mind if I—"

A stranger's voice. Marcus turned to find a man in his seventies, eyes the color of faded denim, pointing at the empty seat beside him. Marcus nodded. The old man sat heavily, carrying the weight of someone who'd seen too many innings.

"My wife and I used to come here every Sunday," the man said, opening a program. "Thirty-seven years. She died last spring."

"I'm sorry," Marcus said automatically.

"Don't be. She was a bull-headed woman, God love her. Refused treatment for six months because she read some nonsense about vitamins online." The old man's chuckle was dry as dust. "Irony is, she was right. The vitamins didn't matter in the end. But the Sundays? Those mattered."

The crowd erupted as a batter connected with the ball, sending it soaring toward the left-field bleachers. In the chaos, Marcus pulled out his phone and typed: *I'll be home by the eighth. Want to order pizza like we used to?*

Three innings later, his phone buzzed. *Extra cheese. And stop rattling those damn vitamins.*

The old man beside him had fallen asleep, a small smile on his face. Marcus watched the final out, then gathered his things, the vitamin bottle finally silent in his pocket.