Three Strikes

The goldfish bowl sits on the mantelpiece, its water slowly evaporating like the patience we'd both exhausted. I reach for my hat—a faded Dodgers cap she'd bought me at our first game together—pulling the brim low to hide the circles under my eyes. Outside the window, an orange bruise of sunset spreads across the sky, the same color as her hair that final morning when she walked out with nothing but a suitcase and a handful of justified accusations.

Three strikes. That's what she'd called it. First: the promotion I'd turned down because I was comfortable. Second: the anniversary I'd forgotten because I was "too busy" watching baseball playoffs with buddies from college. Third: the truth about Vegas—what happened there didn't stay there. It came home in the form of a text message at three in the morning.

I should have flushed the goldfish weeks ago. It was hers, a compromise pet when we couldn't agree on a dog. Now it floats belly-up, a tiny martyr to my neglect. Another thing I've let die through passive indifference.

My phone buzzes—her lawyer, probably. Or maybe my mother, calling to say I told you so. I don't answer. Instead, I drive past the baseball diamond where we'd sat that night, the floodlights making halos in the October fog. The orange of the concession stand glow, the same shade as the goldfish bowl's plastic rim, the same shade as her favorite dress, the one she wore when she told me she loved me for the first time.

I park anyway, sit on the hood of my car in my stupid hat, listening to the crack of bats and the distant roar of a crowd that will never know my name. For a moment, I can almost feel her hand in mine, smell her perfume—vanilla and something sharp, like oranges. Three innings pass before I realize I've been crying.

The goldfish waits. The hat hides nothing. The orange sky fades to gray. And somewhere, somewhere, a baseball game I'm not playing continues without me.