Riddles by the Pool

The resort's replica sphinx loomed over the infinity pool, its painted concrete face cracking in the Mexican sun. Elena swallowed her daily handful of vitamins with hotel water, the pills clicking against her teeth. Her phone buzzed again on the lounge chair—Mark, texting from inside their room about another conference call.

"You said no work this week," she'd told him that morning, watching him pack the iPhone in his beach bag like a security blanket.

"It's just this one merger, El. Two more days." Two days had become two years, their marriage eroding like limestone in acid rain.

She floated in the saltwater pool, watching other couples. Young ones, old ones, some holding hands across margarita pitchers. What riddle had they solved that she and Mark couldn't?

Her mother had started taking vitamins at forty, terrified of aging. Now Elena was forty-two, swallowing promises of eternal vigor while her husband disappeared into screens and boardrooms. The water buoyed her up, weightless and suspended between bottom and surface, like her life—too afraid to dive deeper, too exhausted to climb out.

Mark appeared poolside, finally, his phone in hand. "Sorry, honey. The Hong Kong market—"

"Don't." She treaded water. "Just come in."

"I will. Just let me—" The notification chime echoed across the water.

Elena went under, holding her breath, watching his blurred silhouette through the shifting surface. The sphinx knew: the riddle wasn't what destroyed them, but what they refused to say.

She surfaced to find him sitting on the edge, feet in the water, phone finally face-down on the tile.

"I'm sorry," he said, looking at his knees.

The vitamins dissolved in her stomach, useless against the one thing supplements couldn't fix.