The Seventh Inning Stretch

Elena stood at the bathroom mirror, pulling back silver-streaked hair that had begun to thin at the temples. Fifty years old and still she was here, in her childhood bathroom, while the baseball game droned from the living room television. Her father's hospice nurse had left hours ago.

"Water," her father whispered from the other room. His voice was like wind through dead leaves.

Elena filled the cup, her hands steady despite the hollow ache in her chest. Three weeks ago, she'd barely spoken to him. Now she was his only friend left in the world—a bitter irony given how thoroughly he'd sabotaged every friendship she'd ever tried to keep.

"The dog," he murmured, eyes closed. "Where's Buster?"

"Gone, Dad. Twenty years gone."

He nodded slowly, chest rattling with each breath. "World Series. Ninety-eight. We had tickets. You were six."

She remembered. Buster had died that morning. Her father had taken her to the baseball game anyway, certain that the spectacle would cheer her up. Instead she'd spent nine innings weeping into her cotton candy while he drank beer and checked his watch.

"You never forgave me," he said.

"No."

"About the dog. Or everything else."

"Both."

He tried to laugh but it became a cough. When he could speak again, he said, "Your mother wanted to put you in therapy. I told her you'd get over it. Kids are resilient, I said."

Elena set the water cup on his bedside table. The room smelled of illness and old paper.

"I wasn't resilient," she said quietly. "I just learned to stop expecting anything."

His hand reached for hers—papery skin, trembling. She let him take it.

"I was wrong about a lot of things." His eyes found hers, startlingly clear for a moment. "But I loved you. Even when I didn't know how to show it."

Outside, summer rain began to drum against the window. Water running down glass like time itself, washing nothing clean.

"I know," Elena lied, and squeezed his hand.

He died two days later. At the funeral, she couldn't remember why she'd spent so many years angry. The things that had mattered so desperately then—justice, acknowledgment, an apology that meant something—seemed suddenly small against the final silence.

She kept thinking of that baseball game, how small she'd felt in the crowded stadium, overwhelmed by noise and lights and her father's distracted presence. How she'd grown into a woman who still felt small in crowded rooms, still waiting for someone to notice she was grieving.

Some things, she realized, you didn't get over. You just learned to carry them.