Riddle of the Sphinx

Tom stood before the glass case, the Great Sphinx staring back with that inscrutable smile. His iPhone buzzed in his pocket—baseball scores. The Yankees were down by three in the seventh. Another hundred gone, maybe two if the bullpen collapsed.

"You're not even looking at it, are you?" Elena said from beside him. She'd wanted to come to the museum, said she needed culture. Instead, she'd spent the past hour watching him check his phone like a compulsive gambler, which he supposed he was.

"I'm looking," Tom said. "It's a lion with a human head. A riddle, right? What walks on four legs in the morning—"

"You're such a bull," she cut him off. "Charging through everything. No subtlety. No wonder you can't figure out what's actually happening."

The word stung. She'd called him that before—stubborn as a bull, thick-skulled, incapable of seeing what was right in front of his nose. But they'd been married twelve years. He figured they were past the petty insults.

His phone buzzed again. Not baseball this time. Sarah. The text was simple: *It's positive.*

Tom's knees nearly gave out. He and Sarah had been trying for a baby for three years. IVF, fertility treatments, the whole heartbreaking gauntlet. And now—on opening day, when he'd foolishly bet five grand he couldn't afford to lose—the news finally came.

"Tom?" Elena's voice had changed. Softer. "What is it?"

He turned to tell her everything—the gambling, the secret account, the affair he'd ended six months ago when guilt finally caught up. But Elena was looking past him, toward the museum exit.

"I'm pregnant," she said quietly. "It's Doug's. We've been seeing each other since January."

The sphinx seemed to laugh.

Tom's phone slipped from his hand, cracking against the marble floor. The riddle wasn't about legs or time of day. The question was simpler: how does a man lose everything in the span of seven innings, and what does he do when the game isn't even the one he thought he was playing?

He never found out. The Yankees came back in the ninth, won by one. The ticket was still worth something, after all.