Goldfish in the Glass

The sphinx in her courtyard had no nose, though Elena claimed she'd never noticed until Marcus pointed it out. They'd been drinking wine in the humidity of a Bangkok evening, both pretending this wasn't a goodbye.

"It's the hair," Marcus said, touching his own temples, now silver at forty-eight. "You notice different things when you start losing the war against gravity."

Elena's laugh was rusty, unused. She'd left him twelve years ago for a job in Singapore, something about venture capital and emerging markets. He'd stayed in Chicago, married a woman who hated fish, divorced, acquired a goldfish pond he couldn't keep alive. Now here they were: her successful, him adrift, both pretending the sphinx's missing nose wasn't about all the things they'd never said.

The scent of orange blossoms hung thick in the air, cloying as memory. Marcus held out his palm—calloused from the consulting work he took to pay alimony—and Elena took it. Her grip was still the same: firm, confident, the hand of someone who'd made choices and lived with them.

"I kept the sphinx," she said quietly. "After you sent me those photos from Egypt. Remember?"

He remembered. He'd sent them during the year she stopped writing back, when he'd still believed they could survive anything, even geography and ambition and her carefully articulated reasons about growing apart before they grew old together.

"Why?" he asked. "Why keep it?"

Elena looked at the goldfish swimming in stagnant circles below them. "Because some riddles don't have answers, Marcus. Some things just are."

The goldfish rose to the surface, mouth opening and closing in silent repetition. Marcus realized with a sudden, terrible clarity that he was fifty, single, and still seeking answers from people who'd moved past the questions entirely.

He squeezed her hand, then let go. The sphinx watched them both, noseless and patient as the grave.