The Seventh Inning Stretch

The iPhone lit up David's nightstand at 2:17 AM — Marcus's third missed call in a week. David stared at the screen, the familiar photo of them at Fenway Park ten years ago, both younger, both believing friendship was something you could pack away and unpack later, unchanged.

They'd met through baseball. Marcus, the shortstop with the golden arm who'd burned out before Triple-A. David, the numbers guy who saw patterns where others saw plays. For seven summers, baseball had been the language they spoke — Sunday games at the deteriorating municipal field, cheap beers, conversations that stretched from the first pitch to the final out, their voices rising and falling with the crowd's roar.

Then David got the consulting offer in Chicago. Marcus stayed, bought his father's roofing business. The Sunday games stopped. The texts grew shorter.

David answered the call. "You watching?"

"It's my daughter's birthday tomorrow," Marcus said, his voice cracking. "She wants to know why Uncle David never comes to her games anymore."

"I've been — "

"Busy. I know. We're all busy." Marcus paused. "I sold the business, David."

The silence stretched between them, heavier than any they'd known. "What?"

"Cancer. Stage four. They found it three weeks ago."

David's iPhone slipped from his hand, clattering onto the hardwood floor. In that moment, all the meetings and metrics and missed calls collapsed into something infinitely smaller. "I'm coming home."

"Don't. But next Sunday? There's a double-header. Just like old times."

They sat on those same bleachers, the peeling paint familiar against David's back. Marcus looked thinner, but his eyes held the same light. They didn't talk about tumors or prognosis or the unfairness of forty-year-old bodies. They talked about pitching rotations and rookie call-ups and whether the new closer could handle the pressure.

The sun set on the seventh inning. Marcus's hand trembled as he raised his beer to his lips.

"David?"

"Yeah?"

"Don't wait until the ninth inning to say what matters."

The iPhone buzzed in David's pocket — a work notification. He turned it off without looking.

"I'm not going anywhere," he said.

They watched the final out together, two friends on worn bleachers, baseball stitching together what the years had tried to unravel.