The Seventh Inning Stretch

David stood at the bedroom door, watching Elena sleep. Her chest rose and fell in that familiar rhythm, but something was wrong. The woman who'd once recited Whitman from memory while cooking dinner was gone, replaced by this hollow thing—the doctors called it frontotemporal dementia; David called it becoming a zombie, piece by piece.

He grabbed his running shoes from the closet, the laces still stained with mud from the marathon they'd trained for together, back when her only complaint was sore quads. Now he ran every morning at five, not for fitness but because the alternative was watching her forget how to operate the toaster.

The autumn sky was just beginning to lighten as he hit the pavement, the streetlamps still humming with that orange-tinged glow that made everything look like a photograph from the seventies. His knees ached—forty-seven wasn't the age for this, he knew, but running was the only time his brain stopped screaming.

Three miles in, he found himself at the old baseball field where he'd taught their son to pitch. The boy was twenty-two now, living in Seattle, too busy to visit. David stood at home plate, imagining the crack of the bat, the way the ball had sailed into the outfield that perfect afternoon when everything had seemed possible.

His phone buzzed. A text from the assisted living facility: Your wife has been approved for the memory care unit. The waiting list had finally opened up.

David stood alone on the pitcher's mound as the sun rose, painting the sky in streaks of violent orange. He wasn't running anymore. He stood perfectly still, understanding for the first time that he'd been the zombie all along—moving through the motions of grief, of care, of love that had curdled into obligation.

He walked home, running shoes scuffing against the sidewalk. Elena would be awake soon. She might even remember his name for a few precious hours. And that would have to be enough.