Breakfast in Luxor

The papaya sat untouched on her plate, its orange flesh weeping onto the white hotel china. Mara watched condensation bead on her vitamin water—her morning ritual that David used to mock before he stopped noticing anything about her routines at all.

"Your phone's been buzzing," David said, not looking up from his own iPhone. His thumb scrolled with practiced indifference.

"Work," she lied. It wasn't work.

They were supposed to be reconnecting in Egypt—this trip his idea, his olive branch after whatever had happened with whatever-her-name-was from accounting. But David was still distant, still scrolling through emails at breakfast, still performing the role of husband without inhabiting it.

They'd visited the Sphinx yesterday. Standing before that ancient lion-woman, weathered and inscrutable, Mara had thought about how much easier riddles were when you could just guess wrong and die. Instead, she was living with one she couldn't solve: a marriage that looked perfect from the outside but hollow within, a monument to something that used to be alive.

The waiter refilled her coffee. His kindness made her want to weep.

"I'm going to the spa," she announced, standing up. "A treatment."

David glanced up, annoyed at the interruption. "Whatever. Meet for lunch?"

"Maybe."

She walked to the spa, her iPhone heavy in her pocket. The message from last night still burned behind her screen: *I've never felt this way about anyone. When are you coming back?*

She'd met him at the conference—Daniel. He'd listened. He'd asked about her. He'd made her feel seen instead of tolerated.

In the spa's quiet waiting room, surrounded by the scent of eucalyptus and soft music, Mara finally picked up her papaya from the breakfast buffet and took a bite. It was sweet, perfect, alive. For the first time in years, she wasn't thinking about vitamin deficiencies or David's expectations or what a good wife would do.

She took out her phone and typed: *Soon.*

The Sphinx had kept her secrets for five thousand years. Mara could keep hers for one more day.