The Seventh Inning Stretch

Elena sat in section 214, row 12, seat 8—the same seat she'd occupied every Wednesday for three seasons of marriage. Richard's seat beside her remained empty, sold to a stranger who was currently eating a pretzel with mustard that smelled exactly like their second anniversary dinner in Chicago.

She'd brought a bottle of water, though her throat felt like sandpaper. The doctor had prescribed her some new vitamin regimen—something about stress and cortisol and the ways grief manifests physically. She swallowed one dry, thinking about how Richard had always called them expensive urine. He'd been pragmatic like that, dismissive of anything he couldn't measure with a calculator or see on a spreadsheet.

Down on the field, the batter cracked a line foul toward their section. Elena flinched, though the ball landed twenty rows away. Richard had loved baseball with an intensity she'd never understood—the statistics, the strategy, the sweet spot where the bat connected with leather and possibility. He'd explained it once, eyes bright with that rare enthusiasm, describing the perfect swing as poetry in motion. She'd nodded, not really listening, thinking about the dry cleaning that needed picking up.

The stranger in Richard's seat offered her an orange slice from his daughter's lunchbox. Elena declined politely, her stomach twisting at the color—the exact shade of the safety vest Richard had worn to his construction job, the one hanging in their closet she still couldn't bring herself to touch.

Her phone buzzed. Richard's sister, asking if she wanted to come by for dinner. Elena typed a response she'd send later: some lie about being busy, though her calendar remained stubbornly empty except for these weekly pilgrimages to a ballpark Richard had chosen because it was halfway between both their offices.

The crowd erupted as someone hit a home run. In the chaos, Elena placed her hand on the empty seat's armrest, feeling the warmth where the stranger had been sitting moments before. For a second, she allowed herself to imagine Richard beside her—his knee bouncing nervously, his voice explaining something about the pitcher's ERA, his hand finding hers in the bottom of the eighth when the game grew tense.

Then the moment passed, as all moments do. The stranger returned with fresh pretzels. The vitamin bottle clicked against her water bottle as she shifted. The baseball sailed through artificial lights, and Elena watched it arc toward the outfield where it would be caught or dropped, but either way, the game would continue.

She would too, eventually.