The Seventh Inning Stretch

The bottle of orange pills sat on the nightstand, a daily accusation. Vitamin D, the doctor had prescribed, for bones that felt older than forty-five years should. Mark swallowed one dry, like penance.

In the backyard, Buster—the golden retriever Sara had brought home six years ago, the same weekend she'd moved out—chased a tennis ball with desperate enthusiasm. The ball ricocheted off the wooden fence, splintering the pickets Mark had promised to repair three summers ago. Some promises dissolved like sugar in rain; others hardened into things you carried.

The radio on the porch droned a baseball game. Bottom of the seventh, two outs, full count. Mark remembered teaching Sara to keep score during their first date at a minor league stadium, how she'd drawn little hearts instead of proper strikes in the boxes. She'd kept every scorecard from every game they'd attended, rubber-banded in a shoebox he'd found while unpacking her things.

"She's not coming back, you know," his sister had told him last month, while he sorted through Sara's books. "Some innings end badly. You have to walk the next one."

Buster abandoned the ball, trotting over to nudge Mark's hand with a wet nose. The dog had stopped waiting by the door after the first six months. Animals learned to survive disappointment more efficiently than humans did.

The radio crackled: home run. The crowd noise washed over the porch, a thousand people cheering for something that would be forgotten by morning. Mark stood up, his knees popping, and walked toward the splintered fence. He'd fix it this weekend. Or maybe next. The vitamins would keep his bones strong either way.

Some games you played to win. Others you played simply because you hadn't struck out yet.