Riddles by the Pool

The midnight swim was her only escape from the sphinx-like silence that had settled over their marriage. Elena moved through the hotel pool's black water, each stroke a question she couldn't bring herself to ask. The resort in Marrakech had been his idea—some attempt to rekindle something that had long since turned to ash.

Her iphone glowed from the poolside chair, a third pulse in the darkness besides the water's rhythmic lapping and her own heart. A notification at 2 AM. Again.

She'd stopped checking weeks ago. Some things, once confirmed, couldn't be unknown.

"You're thinking too much," he'd told her earlier that evening, after she'd watched him laugh at something on his phone during dinner. His eyes had slid away from hers—ancient, inscrutable, offering nothing but riddles she was too exhausted to solve anymore. "Why can't you just be present?"

Present. As if presence wasn't its own kind of drowning.

Tomorrow they'd play padel with another couple—his colleague and wife, equally perfect in their curated unhappiness. She'd smile across the net, return balls with mechanical precision, pretend she didn't notice the way he stood just a little too close to the other woman during changeovers.

Elena pressed her palms against the pool's rough bottom, letting herself sink. The muffled quiet was almost peaceful. Down here, there were no riddles. No notifications. No quiet devastations disguised as marital drift.

She broke the surface, gasping.

Her iphone lit up again. This time she looked.

The message wasn't what she expected. Not another woman. Not a late-night work email.

*"I know you saw it. I'm sorry. Can we talk?"*

The sphinx had finally broken its silence. Elena pulled herself from the pool, water streaming like something being shed, and walked toward the phone, toward whatever came next.