The Warning Track

Mara sits in the bleachers, her iPhone face-down on her thigh like a guilty secret she's not ready to confess. Below, her son Lucas waits for his turn at bat during this youth baseball game, the unmistakable silhouette of his father's swing already evident in the way he holds the bat.

"—and then she tells me she wants to try an open marriage." David's voice cuts through her thoughts. He's the father of the boy on deck, someone she's known since kindergarten pickup. "Like I'm supposed to be grateful she asked permission instead of just cheating."

Mara makes a sympathetic noise. She should tell him - she should tell him that she's been sleeping with her husband's business partner for six months, that she recognizes the particular cruelty of preemptive honesty. Instead she watches a fox emerge from beyond the outfield fence, russet coat gleaming in the afternoon light. It stands on the warning track, head cocked, regarding the baseball field with what looks like amusement.

"That's weird," David says. "Is that a fox?"

The players have stopped too. The umpire watches as the fox trots toward second base, unconcerned. In the sudden hush of the ballpark, Mara's iPhone vibrates against her leg. From the vibration pattern, she knows it's Richard. Probably canceling tonight - his wife is suspicious again.

She remembers the lake house last summer, how Richard had pushed her beneath the water, how she'd let him, how she'd surfaced gasping and more alive than she'd felt in years. Water in her lungs, water in her veins, drowning and saved all at once.

The fox reaches second base, sniffs the dirt, and lifts its leg. The crowd laughs. It's the most honest thing that's happened all day.

Her phone vibrates again. She picks it up without looking at the screen, without checking the message.

"You going to get that?" David asks.

"No," she says. The fox trots back toward the fence, pausing once to look over its shoulder - at her, she thinks, though she knows it's ridiculous. "I think I'm done waiting for things to happen to me."

"What does that mean?"

"It means I'm going to tell him. Both of them. Tonight."

On the field, Lucas gets a hit. The baseball flies toward where the fox disappeared, and for a moment, just a moment, Mara imagines the fox catching it in its teeth, something wild and impossible making its way into this orderly world.

David is looking at her strangely. She doesn't care. She picks up her purse, stands up, walks down the bleachers toward the fence where the fox was, feeling like she might dissolve into water and air and russet fur, something finally, wonderfully, undoing itself.