Sarah Nash

Knowing that it was for the best doesn't mean it doesn't hurt. Your marriage to Sarah always came with more than a hint of it being a bad idea. The two of you were young, just out of Florida State. Sarah was pregnant, your ambitions were trending in different directions. People looked at you and said things like how opposites attract as though the woman that spoke four languages and had passionate opinions about the archaeological methodologies of Howard Carter had married a barely literate savage and not a baseball player that could speak intelligently about advanced analytics, spin rates, launch angles, and WHIP numbers. She held academic ambitions, you had dreams of fame and fortune from your athletic abilities and your career in baseball kept you on the road and away from your family far too long. What you weren't were opposites, not really. Sarah played competitive soccer, you were secretly a stats nerd. It wasn't nearly as much a bond of opposites as people said. But it was also never comfortable, there was this fire simmering under the surface that only seemed to cool into love and a quiet companionship around your son Felix. In hindsight Felix might have kept you together longer than you should have. So when Felix started elementary school Sarah pulled you aside for a long talk, she was applying for faculty positions at universities and wanted to talk about whether Felix would be better served with a better school district in a college town. You wanted to say that every school has loving passionate kindergarten teachers and Felix would be fine. Instead you saw it as the prelude to a decision she'd already made. So you didn't fight it, not overly and definitely not in front of Felix, but you did try... Lord, you fought to remind her why you were together beyond Felix... but she got the job and you agreed to separate. She'd have Felix for the school year, once your baseball career ended you'd have custody over the summer. It wasn't ideal.