The Seventh Inning Stretch

The stadium lights flickered on, illuminating the empty seats around me. I'd never come to a baseball game alone before, but that's what forty-three years of making the wrong choices gets you—a single ticket behind home plate and a bottle of warm **water** I'd been nursing since the first inning.

"You look like hell, David."

I turned. Sarah, wearing a blazer that cost more than my car. She sat down without asking, the **palm** of her hand resting on the empty seat between us like a boundary line.

"Ran out of the house again," I said.

"It's been three years. The metaphor's expired."

She was right. Our marriage had ended when she found me weeping over our son's dead **goldfish**—not because the fish meant anything, but because it was the first thing I'd managed to keep alive for five years, and even that had died on my watch.

"I'm seeing someone," she said.

The words hit like a fastball to the chest. "That's—good. Really."

"He doesn't take **vitamin** supplements for problems he doesn't have. He doesn't sleep in the guest room because he's afraid of failing someone else."

I looked at the field, where the players were stretching. The seventh inning stretch. Everyone would stand up soon, sing that song about taking me out to the ballgame. I'd always loved baseball for its rhythm, its fairness. Three strikes, you're out. Clear rules.

"Do you remember," I said, "when we used to come here? Before we hated each other?"

Sarah's expression softened. She reached over, her hand covering mine. "I remember you buying me cotton candy even though you hated how it stuck to everything. I remember you explaining the infield fly rule for twenty minutes because I asked once."

"The doctor called today," I said. "The vitamins. They found something."

She pulled back. The softness vanished. "What?"

"Nothing. There's nothing there." I laughed, a dry, hollow sound. "I made myself sick worrying about being sick. That's who I am, Sarah. That's who we were."

The crowd rose around us, thousands of people stretching toward the sky. I stood too, pulling my phone from my pocket. A notification: one new message from my therapist. Reminder: You cannot fix what's already broken by breaking it more.

"I have to go," Sarah said, standing.

"I know."

"David—"

"Go. Really."

She walked away up the aisle, not looking back. I sat back down as the crowd roared for a home run. The water bottle was empty. The vitamins were in my pocket, rattling like promise after promise I'd made myself. I watched the players, so young and sure of themselves, and finally understood: some games, you lose. The trick is knowing when to walk off the field.

I stood up. Left the bottle on the seat. And for the first time in three years, I didn't look back.