The Seventh Inning Stretch

Elena sat in the empty stands, the baseball diamond below her ghostly in the twilight. Three years ago, this is where she'd told Marcus she wanted children. He'd smiled, that crooked, beautiful smile, and said, "Let's play catch first." They'd bought the dog two weeks later—a golden retriever puppy they named Casey, after the poem.

Now Casey lay at her feet, his muzzle gray, his joints stiff. Like everything else.

The divorce papers had arrived yesterday. Not that they were married anymore, in any sense that mattered. Marcus had left eighteen months ago, saying he needed space to find himself. Elena had borne the silence, the empty half of the bed, the way her savings had dwindled while his freedom had apparently flourished. She'd borne it all with the grace her mother had taught her: shoulders back, chin up, tears only in the shower.

But something in her had shifted when she saw his Instagram post last week. Marcus, grinning at some ski resort, arm around a woman half his age. The caption read: "Living my best life."

Casey whined softly, and Elena scratched behind his ears. The old dog had been her anchor through the worst of it. The nights she'd considered ending it all, Casey's wet nose on her cheek had grounded her. The mornings she couldn't get out of bed, his leash requirements had forced her to face the world.

She'd come to the baseball field tonight because this is where it had all seemed possible. Where she'd still been young enough to believe that love conquered all, that children would naturally follow, that the seventh inning stretch meant something better was coming.

But there were no seventh inning stretches in real life. Just innings, sometimes extending into extra frames, sometimes called early on account of weather. And sometimes—like tonight—you sat in the empty stadium and realized you'd been playing for the wrong team all along.

Elena stood, knees cracking. Casey struggled up too, loyal to the end. "It's okay," she told him. "We don't have to bear this anymore."

Tomorrow she'd call the lawyer. She'd sell the house. She'd adopt another dog—a puppy this time, one who needed her as much as she needed it. She'd stop waiting for a game that had ended seasons ago.

For tonight, though, she'd sit a little longer and watch the stars come out over the baseball field that held all her ghosts.