The Seventh Inning Stretch

Marcus stood alone beside the water cooler, its steady hum the only sound in the empty office hallway. The baseball game played on his phone screen, muted—a ritual he'd kept since his father died fifteen years ago. Every seventh inning stretch, he'd step away from his desk, from the endless spreadsheets, from the crushing weight of expectations he'd long stopped trying to meet.

'You're a complete disgrace,' his father's voice echoed in memory, the same words he'd heard after Marcus had struck out in the state championship. The old man had been a bull of a man—massive shoulders, stubborn pride, an inability to see anything beyond his own reflection in his son's failures.

The bathroom mirror showed a different man now. Soft where his father had been hard. Where his old man had charged through life like an enraged bull, Marcus had learned to maneuver around obstacles, to accommodate, to shrink. The water from the tap ran cold over his hands, shocking him back to the present.

His phone buzzed. Sarah. Again.

'Are you coming to the game? Tommy's pitching.'

He stared at his reflection. At thirty-seven, he'd become everything he'd sworn he wouldn't. The kind of man who watched baseball games alone in his car rather than face his wife's disappointment, his son's quiet confusion. The water had stopped running, but his hands remained under the faucet, trembling.

'The office is keeping me late,' he typed, the lie burning like acid.

But the bull in his head—his father's ghost, his own cowardice—wouldn't let him hit send. He watched the baseball game on his screen, the players tiny and distant, and realized with sudden, terrible clarity that he was the one striking out. That the game had passed him by while he'd stood frozen at the plate, bat raised, terrified to swing.

Marcus deleted the text. Called Sarah instead.

'I'm on my way,' he said. 'Save me a seat.'

Outside, the first drops of rain began to fall, but he didn't run for cover. He walked toward his car, and for the first time in years, he didn't look back.