Trading Days

The bull market had been charging for three years when Elena left, taking everything except the cat and my unwashed optimism. I named the cat Bull—first ironic gesture of my new life—because he charged through rooms like he owned the place, unlike me, who'd spent fifteen years navigating office politics with the grace of a man who'd forgotten how to speak first.

Now I'm forty-five, sitting alone in Section 214 at the baseball stadium where we had our third date. The vendor sells me a lukewarm beer for fourteen dollars. Inflation, like grief, is measured in small indignities that accumulate until you stop noticing them.

My phone buzzes. Another text from work: *Market's turning. Need you.* They always need me, especially when things are falling apart. I used to believe my presence mattered—that my analysis could predict which way the bull would run next. Now I recognize the pattern: we convince ourselves we're players when we're really just spectators with better seats.

On the field, the batter hits a foul ball toward our section. A father catches it one-handed while balancing his daughter on his knee. The little girl laughs, pure and unmeasured, and something in my chest opens up like a wound.

I picture my daughter, Maya, twelve now, living three states away with her mother. I send child support checks like prayers—regular, dutiful, increasingly disconnected from whatever god they're meant to reach. Last time we spoke, she told me she'd stopped watching baseball. "It's too slow, Dad. Nothing happens."

She doesn't know: that's exactly what I love about it. The space between pitches, where anything could occur but usually doesn't. The innings stretching out like the Sunday afternoons I used to spend teaching Elena to pitch a curveball she never properly learned.

Bull the cat wakes up in my apartment alone, stretches across the sofa I'm still paying off. He doesn't wonder where I am. He doesn't check his phone, dreading another message about market corrections or custody schedules. He simply exists, which is more than I can say for myself most days.

The game enters the seventh inning. The bull pen—that's the term, right?—warms up. Men throwing balls as hard as they can, hoping someone catches them. I used to think that was a metaphor for love. Now I understand: it's not about whether you're caught. It's about whether you can throw again after you drop the ball.

I delete the work text without responding. For the first time in years, I watch the game instead of my phone. Behind home plate, a boy catches a pop fly and his father cheers like it's the World Series. Some victories are small. Some losses linger. The bull market will turn. The cat will sleep. And for now, I remain—a spectator learning how to watch without keeping score.