Memory's Burden

Maya stood before the sphinx tattoo on Simon's back, tracing its weathered ink as he slept. The riddle it posed had no answer: how did three years become a lifetime of silence? The morning light caught his shoulder blades, and she remembered when they'd been inseparable—before the grief hollowed him out, before he started moving through days like a zombie, his eyes empty of recognition.

She slipped from bed, padding to the kitchen where her mother's goldfish circled its bowl in endless loops. Margaret had left it behind when she moved to the memory care facility, along with her vitamin organizer and her collection of ceramic bears. "Take care of them," she'd whispered, confused, forgetting she wasn't returning. That was six months ago. The fish had outlived Maya's marriage.

The vitamin bottles still lined the counter, their promises of health and longevity mocking her. Her mother had swallowed them religiously, yet her mind had unraveled anyway. Now Simon ghosted through their shared spaces, avoiding her eyes, avoiding conversations that might require him to feel something.

Maya opened the bear-shaped jar where Margaret stored her savings—coins she'd hoarded for Maya's future, though that future had arrived and nothing could buy back what was lost. The sphinx had asked: what walks on four legs in the morning, two at noon, three in evening? But the real riddle was how to love someone who was disappearing, how to love someone who refused to be found.

She fed the fish, watching it dart through artificial plastic plants. Another loop, another day. Simon would wake soon, and they'd pretend nothing was broken. But something had to break eventually—eggs, hearts, the delicate web of assumptions that held two people together.

The sphinx on his back had no riddle after all. The answer was leaving.