The Third Inning

The private investigator's report sat on Elena's kitchen counter beside her prenatal vitamins. Forty pages of photographs, timestamped entries, detailed logs of her movements over the past three months. Marcus had hired him three weeks after she told him she was trying again—after the miscarriage that had hollowed them both out.

She swallowed a vitamin with shaking hands. The irony wasn't lost on her: he was so terrified of losing her that he'd destroyed whatever trust remained.

The baseball field where their son Leo practiced glowed under floodlights in the distance. She should have left twenty minutes ago. Marcus was the assistant coach; he'd be wondering where she was. Or maybe he already knew—maybe his spy was watching her right now, noting that she'd discovered his surveillance.

Her phone buzzed. Marcus.

"Leo's asking for you."

"I know," she said.

Silence stretched between them like the space between bases.

"I found the report, Marcus."

Another silence, longer this time. In the background, she could hear the crack of a bat, children's voices, the familiar rhythm of small-town Thursday evenings.

"I was scared," he said finally. "After what happened, I couldn't—I can't go through that again. Not knowing where you are, not knowing if you're okay—"

"So you hired someone to follow me? To document my grief?"

"I thought—you were spending so much time at your sister's. I thought—"

"You thought what? That I was leaving you? That I was having an affair?" Her voice cracked. "I was crying, Marcus. I was going there to cry where you wouldn't have to see it."

On the field, Leo caught a popup. She could see him through her kitchen window, his small body framed by light, turning toward the empty bleachers where she should have been sitting.

"I'm sorry," Marcus said.

She looked at the vitamins, the report, the son who was growing up without either of them really present. The spy had photographed her at her sister's house, head in her hands. He'd photographed her buying pregnancy tests. He'd photographed her sitting in this kitchen, staring at nothing, learning how to breathe again.

"I know," she said. "I'm sorry too."

She hung up and drove to the game, watching through the windshield as her husband and son played baseball under lights that made everything look harsh and true at once.