“How’s that for peculiar?” Michael says to himself as he jiggles the doorknob. He tries the key again, no luck. He checks the others on the ring—stadium entrance, supply room, and office (all to the old stadium—was he supposed to turn those in? he forgot to, in any case); Scottsdale safe deposit; spare set to Betty and Dave’s (those he definitely should return); the Camry; and the new, beloved Cadillac. He cannot help letting his thumb linger on that smooth black pebble, its silver shield a pleasing ridge under his thumb. He tries the house key twice more before stalking past the picture window to the side gate. There is a hide-a-key under the back mat; he’ll get in that way.

“What’s going on, honey?” Audrey missed his defeat at the front; she had her nose in her phone, texting one kid or another. “Did you forget your keys?”

“No, Aud—my God!” Michael bellows. The gate, now open, reveals a backyard in disarray—trash is skewered on the spines of their saguaro, and it looks like someone played whack-a-mole with their potted plants. A tower of crushed beer cans is piled on the patio table, and pizza boxes, stacked like so many beach towels, sit next to the Taylors’ small in-ground pool. The pool’s water is murky, with strange, bright blooms skimming the surface.

The cardboard panel in the back door’s French window leers at him like a smile’s missing tooth. Michael punches the cardboard out, reaches down, and opens the latch from the inside. The alarm system should trigger, but it doesn’t. Instead, he hears the sound of feet on gravel and Audrey’s gasp. He barks, “Now just hang on, Audrey.” His wife, fretting her hands by the patio furniture, nods like a bobblehead. “I’ll take care of this.”

When Michael bought their Arizona house, brand-new in 1971, guys on the team thought he was crazy. But Michael thought they were crazy not to buy. Why spend their meal money on six weeks of hotels every spring when they could be putting their stipend toward a mortgage? Scottsdale wasn’t quite tumbleweed-down-Main-Street back then, but it was a lot different. Small, for one. It stopped around Indian Bend, mostly just cacti and the old army airport past that, the ghost of Frank Lloyd Wright hanging out on some distant hill. Other players rented convertibles and bought clothes that impressed only whoever else was eating late-night at the Pink Pony; Michael paid down his banknote. A career in baseball, or at least one going the way he had imagined, was a looming unknown, but some things you could count on. By thirty, he and Audrey already had their retirement home. When it was clear his shot at the majors was done, that thrift felt more important than ever.