Thunder in the Ninth

The stadium emptied before the bottom of the ninth. Rain sheeted down, turning the dirt infield into something resembling chocolate mousse, and somewhere beyond the floodlights, lightning stitched the sky with white thread.

"We should go," Sarah said, though she made no move to leave. Her vitamin bottle rattled in her purse — she took them religiously now, ever since the miscarriage, as if deficiency explained everything away.

"In a minute." Marcus watched the tarp cover the pitcher's mound, a body bag for the game. He'd bought tickets months ago, back when they were still trying, back when he thought baseball and cheap beer might fix what was breaking between them. Now it seemed ridiculous that he'd ever believed shared experiences could be manufactured.

"You know what your father said at dinner," Sarah said. "About how I'm not getting any younger."

"He's an asshole."

"He's not wrong." She turned to him, and Marcus saw it again — that look she'd given him in the ultrasound room, the one that said she was solving for variables he couldn't even see. "I need something different, Marcus. I can't keep waiting for you to figure out whatever it is you're figuring out."

A crack of thunder shook the stands. Water dripped from the brim of his cap, cold against his neck. The remaining crowd surged toward the exits, a single organism fleeing something none of them could control.

"What if I don't figure it out?" he asked, and hated how small his voice sounded.

"Then I wait anyway," she said, "until I can't." She stood up. "Coming?"

Marcus watched the grounds crew work in the rain, their yellow slickers bright against the dark. He thought about how much of his life he'd spent waiting for weather that never cleared.

"Yeah," he said. "I'm coming."