Water Dogs and Seventh Inning Stretches

The dog—Emma's golden retriever, not mine—sat by the edge of the pond, watching ripples spread across water dark as old coffee. I'd never wanted the damn thing, but there he was: Buster, fifty pounds of unconditional loyalty that now belonged to me by default, along with the mortgage and a baseball card collection I'd spent three decades accumulating.

"Go on," I told him. "Fetch."

He just looked at me with those sad human eyes, like he knew something I didn't.

The pond had been Emma's sanctuary. She'd drag a chair out here, wine glass in hand, watching the sun set while Buster chased dragonflies over the water. Now the chair was mine. The mortgage was mine. The baseball cards—Mickey Mantle rookie, near mint, sitting in a safety deposit box she'd demanded half of—were being divided like prisoners of war.

I threw a tennis ball. It hit the water and sank without a splash.

"Well, that's metaphorical," I muttered.

My phone buzzed. Group chat from the office: someone had finally landed the Henderson account. The baseball metaphor was thick enough to cut—curveballs, home runs, the whole nine yards. I'd spent twenty years in marketing, speaking almost exclusively in sports clichés. Emma used to say I communicated like I was calling play-by-play for a marriage that had already gone into extra innings.

Buster waded in, retrieved the ball, and deposited it at my feet. His fur was wet, matted, pathetic.

"Good boy," I said, scratching behind his ears. "We're both just doing the best we can."

The lawyer had asked if I wanted the dog. I'd said yes, not because I loved him—though I was starting to—but because Emma wanted him too, and refusing her something felt like the only victory I had left. Small, petty, the kind of move that makes you question who you've become while standing knee-deep in freezing water at dusk with a dog that hates you slightly less than he should.

"Baseball," I said aloud. "You know what that is, buddy? It's a game where you fail seven times out of ten and they still call you a hero. Marriage's harder."

Buster sneezed.

I threw the ball again. This time, he caught it mid-air, fur glistening in the fading light, and for a moment—just a moment—I thought maybe we'd both be okay.